Chefs pick hot foods they see for the new year
ood, like fashion, is subject to trends that come and go. We asked local chefs and restaurateurs to look back (and ahead!) and identify the trends of 2017 that have legs for 2018. Here's what they said.
Detroit-style pizza. Though it's still hard to find, pie lovers were pleased that Boston finally received Detroit-style pizza, an iteration which, like its city of origin, lands somewhere between Sicily and Chicago: Thick, square-cut slices with an extra-crisped bottom, baked in a steel pan with cheese piled high on the crust's edges and red tomato sauce drizzled atop the other ingredients. “With all the college kids around here, we wanted to do something super-delicious and cheap,” said chef Kevin Walsh, who brought Detroit to Boston at his Fenway restaurant Tapestry, where his sourdough starter uses yogurt whey and white wine to imbue some flavorful funk. Besides Tapestry, New England pizzeria chain Otto staged a Detroit-style pop-up over the summer, and the Motor City invention is a menu mainstay at Volo Craft Pizza, which opened in Swampscott in September.
Blowfish. “There's only so much cod one can eat,” said chef Colin Lynch of Bar Mezzana, an Amalfi Coast inspired Boston restaurant. Enter Blowfish, a highly sought-after delicacy known as fugu in Japan, where only licensed chefs may serve the potentially poisonous seafood. In the Hub, where the ingredient is seeing a
surge, chefs use a specific breed, the Northern Puffer, which lacks the dangerous toxin. Lynch has offered blowfish tails prepared piccata style, floured and panseared with butter, lemon, parsley and capers. At her Southeast Asian-inspired restaurant Tiger Mama, “Top Chef” runner-up Tiffani Faison has prepared crispy blowfish with sherry-black bean garlic sauce. At Citrus & Salt, a new Mexican joint, “Hell's Kitchen” alum Jason Santos has served spicy blowfish tail with gooseberry salsa and smoked jalapeno creme. And chef Tony Messina of Uni, a chic eatery inside Back Bay's Eliot Hotel, has prepared buffalo blowfish tails brined with buttermilk and Sapporo beer, crusted in cereal and served with blue cheese and pickled celery. American Jewish cuisine. NYC expats lodge plenty of unfair gripes about Boston — but one we can't deny is our dearth of Jewish restaurants. But this year offered hope that could change. Though it opened in 2016, Mamaleh's Delicatessen, a hip Jewish style spot in Cambridge, really hit its stride this year — and scored a spot on Bon Appetit magazine's 50 Best New Restaurants in America list for 2017. In October, the folks behind Chubby Chickpea food truck and Kitchen Kibitz, a Jewish dining event series, collaborated on Simcha in Rozzy, a contemporary Israeli pop-up restaurant that took over the former Seven Star Bistro space in Roslindale. In December, the team behind Boston's Tasty Burger chain opened Our Fathers Restaurant, Bar & Deli in Allston, a dual-concept takeout joint and full-service eatery for modern Jewish dishes, while former Fenway Park exec chef Steve “Nookie” Postal says 2018 could “possibly” be the year he launches Steinbones, his long-awaited Jewish barbecue restaurant. All this coincides with a Boston boom in bagels, a staple of American Jewish delis, from cult favorite Better Bagels' new Seaport storefront to Exodus Bagels, a farmer's market hit slated to open a retail location in Jamaica Plain any week now. On-site gardening. The “eat local” movement finds its most direct expression in restaurants with onproperty gardens where chefs pluck ingredients for immediate use. “I can see the explosion of on-site gardens at restaurants being a big trend,” said chef Steve Zimei of Chopps American Bar and Grill. His Burlington restaurant has a terrace herb garden used to grow basil, sage, tarragon and lavender; he plans to expand it in 2018, growing heirloom tomatoes, parsnips, ramps, onions and more. Though other restaurants produce ingredients on site, from Dorchester's Dbar, which has a rooftop garden, to the Seaport Hotel, which harvests honey from its seven rooftop beehives, 2017's most awesome addition to this trend was at Cultivar inside downtown's Ames Hotel. There, “Iron Chef America” alum Mary Dumont serves what she calls “modern American garden cuisine” using many ingredients grown on-site in Freight Farms: a Boston-born brand of shipping containers refitted as hydroponic gardens that can grow everything from kohlrabi to tomatoes year-round.