Two chefs to watch in the cannabis realm
Payton Curry is one of many local chefs who are developing awardwinning edibles, staging schmancy cannabis dinners, and pairing pot with food in a way that’s more haute than hippie.
The Chronicle’s cannabis website, GreenState, recently selected the most influential chefs in the country who’ve moved beyond elite culinary schools and Michelin-starred kitchens and now cook and bake cannabis edibles and infused meals. Here are two Bay Area notables. (Note: A valid medical cannabis card is required for all dinners and events mentioned below.)
Michael Magallanes
Age: 32 Where: San Francisco Culinary chops: Magallanes trained on the job, cheffing at San Francisco Michelin-starred restaurants Mourad and Aziza. Style: Molecular gastronomy meets NorCal vegetarian. Cannabis fame: Magallanes left the restaurant industry last summer to launch Opulent Chef, staging cooking workshops and private dinners, including cannabis and noncannabis feasts. He’s working with Baron Lutz, one of his former chefs at Mourad and the founder of Humboldt County hashmaker Nasha Extracts, who supplies the ice-water bubble hash Magallanes cooks with. About the hash: “The hash is just a flavor you can taste on the back end, but it complements what I’m using it with. It’s not a strong flavor because with hash, I use just a little bit compared to using whole plants.” Examples of dishes: “I make cannabis powder with coconut oil and sprinkle that on top of a rice cracker topped with carrot verjus, pickled Fresno chiles, cilantro and yogurt. I do a little milk sphere infused with cannabis, licorice and juniper berries. I do a French toast stick infused with cannabis, topped with sea urchin and pickled rhubarb. I do coffee-roasted carrots with savory chocolate ganache infused with hash coconut oil and dried chiles, like a play on mole.”
On creating personal doses: “Each person tells us their tolerance level, and we cater the meal to their tolerance level so everyone gets their own personal experience. I could make a dish 5 mg for one person and make the same dish 250 mg for another person. I try to load people up toward the beginning of the meal because it takes some time for the ef-
fects to set in.”
Why no booze is allowed: “We don’t allow people to drink alcohol at our events. We’re trying to show people you can get a cerebral experience, going on a journey with a chef through his food but with THC rather than alcohol.”
Recently: Magallanes staged a $150per-person cannabis dinner at a private space in San Francisco’s Mission District on June 24.
More info: www.OpulentChef.com
Coreen Carroll
Age: 32
Location: San Francisco Culinary chops: A graduate of the San Francisco Cooking School, Carroll taught at San Francisco Cheese School and worked as a butcher at old-school meat mecca 4505 Meats in San Francisco. Style: Buzz-free seasonal.
Cannabis fame: In 2014, Carroll co-founded Madame Munchie, a San Francisco maker of medical cannabis macarons, the colorful French-style meringue cookies, and won a High Times NorCal Cannabis Cup award for best edible the same year. She sold her interest in Madame Munchie in 2015 to launch the Cannaisseur Series, monthly three-course and four-course brunch and dinner events in San Francisco that pair smokable cannabis with mostly non-infused foods, course by course.
Grower-chef: Carroll grows her own cannabis, which she infuses into appetizers like polenta cakes with goat cheese and tomato jam or housemade fromage blanc on crostini.
Nonpsychoactive approach: Among Carroll’s favorite ingredients to cook with are cannabis leaf and cannabis bud that she does not decarboxylate so the cannabinoid THCA stays in its non-psychoactive form and does not turn into high-inducing THC. She mixes chopped leaf into a pâte à choux batter that she boils to make gnocchi and then fries non-decarboxylated bud in pancetta fat and tosses both with parmesan.
On her pairings with joints: Carroll pairs strawberry-endive-blue cheese salad with a berry-forward Strawberry OG strain “because the OG has a funkiness.” She likes Gorilla Glue No. 4 with desserts around the holidays for the strain’s warm cinnamon and cardamom notes.
How she uses CBD: “I love CBD and love infusing it into my middle courses because that’s when people hit peak euphoria from the infused appetizers that I serve at the beginning of a meal.”
Coming up: Carroll will stage Summer Dinner on Aug. 6 ($149 per person) at a private location in the South of Market neighborhood.