Episode description

This week on Menu Talk, hosts Pat Cobe, senior menu editor of Restaurant Business, and Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor at Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality, start off with a beer tasting. Bret discovered a low-alcohol brew called kvass in his new Brooklyn neighborhood, which is populated by Russian, Ukrainian and Eastern European residents. As Pat visited Sysco headquarters in Houston to get an inside look at how innovative products get into the distributor’s supply chain. Steak seems to be an ongoing topic of discussion here on Menu Talk. This week, we chat about Michael Mina’s newest branch of Bourbon Steak, which opened in New York City recently. Along with Entrecote and Skirt Steak, two restaurants that offer a prix fixe steak dinner. Skirt Steak is one of Laurent Tourondel’s restaurants, and reservations are hard to come by. One reason: for $45 per person, diners get grilled steak, fries, salad and bread. That’s a pretty good deal at a chef-driven restaurant in Manhattan. Tourondel started as a chef in France, but has since operated restaurants in several U.S. locales, including New York, Philadelphia, Las Vegas and South Florida. Listen as the accomplished chef-restaurateur shares his journey and talks about what’s next. A bakery is in the works. But another French restaurant? Not so fast.