Local, seasonal produce is one of the hottest trends going, and chain restaurants across the country are making use of what nature has to offer this summer to get their customers’ attention.
“I’m excited about the expanded access to local vegetables in most of our markets [in summer],” said Tessa Stamper, the chef at 255-unit Noodles & Company, based in Broomfield, Colo.
“The ability to shuck and serve locally grown corn straight off the cob and local Roma tomatoes, as in our new Backyard Barbecue Chicken Salad, is pretty exciting, and something you can only do in the summer.”
That salad also has red cabbage, mixed greens, pulled chicken breast and a smoky coleslaw dressing.
Jeff Tenner, the new chef at 94-unit Bertucci’s Italian Restaurant, has decided to make the chain’s most popular side dish, $3.99 Tuscan vegetables, an item that evolves with the seasons.
Currently, it’s a combination of zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes, artichokes and red onions.
The vegetables are tossed with olive oil, herbs and garlic and roasted separately in the restaurants’ signature brick ovens before service. Then, when they’re ordered, the vegetables are combined together and reheated in the ovens.
“They pick up this great caramelized flavor, and you don’t need to do much special to them,” Tenner said, adding that he plans to change the vegetable mix as the year progresses.
“Our goal is to listen to the seasons and put what’s available in the brick,” he said, noting that for the fall he’s looking at parsnips, carrots and butternut squash.
Casual-dining chain La Madeleine is making use of tomatoes in particular for its summertime specials this year, although corn and other seasonal items are making it onto the menu, too.
“We ran a very cool salad that featured a ‘tomato tartine,’” a tomato pie on puff pastry, said Phil Costner, chief operating officer of the 60-unit Dallas-based company.
That salad had a base of field greens, cherry tomatoes and grape tomatoes, balsamic-glazed roasted mushrooms, and blue cheese, tossed with the chain’s signature blue-cheese vinaigrette.
La Madeleine also offered a Balsamic Couscous Salade this summer, on a field-green base with grape tomatoes, balsamic vinaigrette and cool couscous made with cilantro, corn, tomatoes, green onions, red and green peppers, olives and herb vinaigrette.
“The Tomato Tartine Salade is firmly positioned under our ‘country French heritage’ and is in keeping with our strategy to offer authentic products that cannot be found elsewhere,” Costner said.
Maggiano’s Little Italy prides itself on “using product that mother nature gives us each season,” the chain’s senior culinary director Keith Brunell said.
This August that means seared scallops with sweet corn relish.
The 44-unit Brinker International subsidiary also has the chef in each restaurant select local fish, which is served with “confit” vine-ripened tomatoes, roasted red onions, garlic, basil, olive oil and lemon.
The tomatoes are cooked whole in an olive oil bath with herbs and peppercorns for several hours, until the skin comes off, Brunell said.
They are seared to order “to caramelize the natural sugars in the tomatoes.”
Eat’n Park, a 75-unit chain based in the Pittsburgh area, has long worked with local farmers through its FarmSource program, through which the family-dining restaurants buy from farmers near the communities where they operate in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.
“Our purchasing team has worked closely with 120 local farmers to get as many of their products into our produce supplier as possible,” executive chef John Frick said.
Apart from Eat’n Park’s salad bar, the local ingredients of which are posted on the company blog, the chain also is currently offering a seasonal vegetable soup containing zucchini, yellow squash, green beans, carrots, celery, cauliflower and onions.
“This is the second year for it, and it’s very popular,” Frick said.
Contact Bret Thorn at bret.thorn@penton.com.
