Carrots find roots on restaurant menusCarrots find roots on restaurant menus

Carrots have been trending on menus for some time, propelled by a combination of renewed consumer interest in vegetables and the rising influence of New Nordic cuisine.

While Danish chef René Redzepi, a New Nordic leader and co-owner of Copenhagen’s seminal Noma restaurant, has been a prominent cheerleader for all underappreciated root vegetables prevalent in Scandinavian kitchens, he’s been a veritable virtuoso with carrots. Among other treatments, he has fermented them into cocktails, smoked and dried them, roasted them in goat butter, and slow-cooked them over black-hay ash. While these edgier culinary experiments won’t translate to the broader market, his embrace of the vegetable has been a factor in its revival. And since carrots happen to be available, affordable and acceptable to a wide audience, it has been easy for restaurants at all levels to get in on the action.

Nancy Kruse

Versatile preparation. Independent operators have been especially creative with carrots. At Publican in Chicago, carrots are barbecued and served with creamy herbed dressing and pecans, while at Partake in Santa Rosa, Calif., they’re caramelized and served with guajillo chiles and pepita brittle. They make the scene at super-trendy spots like Edmund’s Oast in Charleston, S.C., where baby carrots are fried and finished with yogurt, mint and chile, and at Mei Mei Restaurant in Boston, where carrots are smoked with black sesame purée. A candidate for the root veggie hall of fame, the Carrot Glazed Carrot at American Cut in New York City grabbed headlines with its presentation of one very large carrot, which has been glazed in orange and carrot juices, plated with mint and Maldon salt, and priced at $10.

Other restaurateurs are busily putting carrots where you’d least expect to find them. DeepWood in Columbus, Ohio, has featured Carrot Risotto, and in a similarly Italianate approach, Domenica in New Orleans offers Roasted Carrot Pizza, which also boasts goat cheese, red onion, Brussels sprouts, beets and hazelnut. Narcissa in New York City has garnered lots of attention with an innovative Carrots Wellington, in which carrots sub for the typical beef and are wrapped in the requisite puff pastry with mushrooms.

Ingredient friendly. Their natural sweetness makes carrots nice foils for assertive flavor treatments, like the harissa-pickled carrot condiment at Pickle Shack in Brooklyn, N.Y., or the Spicy Moroccan Carrots at Crossroads in Los Angeles, which get their jolt from chile and cumin. Carrots also marry well with dairy products, and at Odd Duck in Austin, Texas, they’re roasted in hay and topped with chèvre. They’re also roasted at King Duke in Atlanta, but the medium is wood and the topping is feta. By contrast, Glen Ellen Star in Glen Ellen, Calif., crowns the Cauliflower Agnolotti with carrot butter. In a nod to the Mediterranean diet, Petruce et al in Philadelphia pairs its Roasted Carrot appetizer with bagna cauda, a warm, anchovy-inflected dipping sauce, while Sitka & Spruce in Seattle dishes up Roasted Carrot Salad with chickpea purée.

Healthy image. Chain operators have not been sitting out the carrot craze. On the contrary, they’ve embraced it with gusto and emphasized its healthful dimensions. The Carrot Ginger Soup at Au Bon Pain, for example, is vegetarian-friendly and includes celery, onion and a touch of honey. Peet’s Coffee & Tea rolled out a new food menu last winter to 126 Northern California locations that included Hummus & Carrots — house-made hummus with carrot chips for dipping. This spring, Corner Bakery Café debuted several new better-for-you items like the Orange Carrot Ginger Smoothie, made with 100-percent fruits and vegetables and available for breakfast, lunch or snack. In a similar vein, Smoothie King promises patrons a beta-carotene fix and delivers with the Berry Carrot Dream Smoothie made from carrots, orange and apple juices, strawberries and bananas. True Food Kitchen promotes Root & Remedy, a quaff that combines carrots, beets, ginger, turmeric and lemon, on its Natural Refreshments beverage menu.

Carrots can be indulgent, too. Several ice cream specialists, like Ben & Jerry’s, have scooped Carrot Cake Ice Cream, and Carrot Cake Doughnuts are a fixture at Doughnut Plant in New York City, where they are made with carrots, raisins, walnuts and an ooey-gooey cream-cheese filling.

Nancy Kruse, president of the Kruse Company, is a menu trends analyst based in Atlanta. As one of LinkedIn’s Top 100 Influencers in the U.S., she blogs regularly on food-related subjects on the Linked In website.