On a sunny, bustling morning at New York’s Union Square farmers market, among the parents and college students rifling through snap peas, Vongerichten is looking for bargains. It’s not uncommon for the chef to do the market shopping for his NYC spots—and he’s always on the search for seasonal savings.
“I go to the markets two or three times a week, and prices fluctuate,” explains the chef. “Tomatoes are half the price they were a month ago, and a luxury item like lobster was $15 but now it’s $9. I had to charge $70 for a pound-and-a-half lobster, and maybe some people decided at that price they weren’t going to eat it, but now I can charge less. It’s like the stock market.” Vongerichten has watched as once-predictable prices of steak and other meats shoot up and down with little warning.
“There is a desire to eat less meat, which is cost-effective,” says Will Cox, a veteran of Le Bernardin and Bar Boulud. He oversees all the restaurants run by the upscale restaurant group Major Food Group at the Boca Raton, a top South Florida resort. Cox is using diners’ shifting tastes and a broad interest in eating less meat to his advantage. “I am making a Stroganoff with wild mushrooms that are sourced locally, and it’s now a top seller, which helps our bottom line,” he says.
Donna Lennard, who owns the il Buco in Manhattan and il Buco al Mare in Amagansett, Long Island, says substituting local items for imported ones has been another way to cut costs during inflation. Her fluke crudo embellishment has switched from Mexican mangoes to Long Island cucumbers. “Everybody is in the same position; we are being smarter about what we put on the plate,” she says.
An inadvertent environmental upside of chefs working to fight inflation is a rising consciousness about waste. “We now take the water we use to wash lettuce and use it to water our plants, and we have cut down on linens, so we are saving on utilities,” says Daisy Ryan, executive chef and co-owner of Bell’s Restaurant, a French-inspired bistro in Los Alamos, California.
“It’s about being super tight; you are watching everything,” Lennard says. “It’s a lot more work for my chefs, but they are really careful with purchasing, inventory, and waste.”
As a result of these changes to how chefs are building their menus, you might wind up with unsightly ingredients on your plate—those bits and bobs that once got thrown out for purely aesthetic reasons. But a lot of the time, you may not even know it. Vongerichten says that parts of vegetables that are less attractive are now being put to use. “We will put the end of a tomato in gazpacho or add the dark green part of leeks to mashed potatoes,” he says. “They are delicious but less visually appealing.”
When it comes to adapting wine service in the face of rising costs, getting creative and being flexible is more of a challenge. With the exception of reducing the size of pours by the glass, which some places have done, restaurants are having to find creative ways to serve wine without losing out on profits.
Wine importer and distributor Karen Harris observes that some upscale restaurants are buying less expensive wines, ones they wouldn’t previously have considered serving. “One high-volume restaurant in Montauk decided to take Sancerre off the list because those prices are out of whack, and they substituted with another Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire,” she says. “They are buying it for $7.75 and selling it for $16 a glass, so they are making a tremendous profit and giving customers a quality wine.” Carlton McCoy Jr., a television host and the managing partner at Lawrence Wine Estates is well aware that raising prices too much could isolate would-be customers. “We try to share the pain when we consider pricing changes because you can easily price yourself out of your clientele,” he says.