Flavor Trends, Strategies and Solutions for Menu Development

Author: Flavor & The Menu Staff

Raiding the Pantry The Purple Palm Restaurant & Bar | Palm Springs, Calif.

PHOTO CREDIT: Flavor & The Menu Staff Necessity is the mother of invention, and for Nick Tall, The Purple Palm’s Executive Chef, it helped guide him to one of the restaurant’s most successful and popular dishes. “I knew I wanted to get more fish on the menu,” he says. “A grilled fish would bring balance back to the station distribution of our menu.” He also had a lot of inventory left over from the previous chef, including Israeli couscous, pine nuts, smoked paprika and saffron. “It was hundreds of dollars just sitting on the shelf, taking up much-needed space.”...

Raising the Potato Bar Idaho Potato Commission & Macy’s Restaurants | based in Cincinnati

PHOTO CREDIT: Flavor & The Menu Staff In honor of the store’s 125th anniversary last year, Macy’s brought back its heralded Stuffed Baked Potato Bar to its restaurants, a concept born at the store in 1926. As part of the month-long promotion, it offered a whopping 125 toppings, cleverly tying the anniversary milestone to a dizzying array of customizable flavor options. Toppings included flavor-forward ingredients like short ribs, cochinita pibil and chorizo, candied walnuts, tortilla strips and jalapeño bacon, as well as curry sauce, guacamole and sambal. “Chefs recognize Idaho Russet potatoes as one of nature’s premier culinary building...