A look at restaurant show, from chef's point of view
TRADE EXHIBIT | Bayless sees it as time to get fresh ideas, especially with a new venture planned for next year
If it's been tough to get a restaurant reservation this week, that's because the hospitality industry was hosting its own -- some 74,000 chefs, restaurateurs and hoteliers from across the United States and 115 countries, in town for the National Restaurant Association Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show.
More than 2,200 exhibitors showcased everything from massive mixers to prepared foods to custom orthotics for tired chefs' feet at McCormick Place Saturday through Tuesday.
(Leah Zeldes/For the Sun-Times)
Celebrities on hand to speak and sign cookbooks included Mario Batali, Sara Foster and Chicago's Rick Tramonto, Gale Gand, Art Smith and Rick Bayless.
For Bayless, the show was more than a marketing opportunity. Like other restaurateurs, he and his chefs from Frontera Grill and Topolobampo combed the floor looking for new goods and ideas.
Bayless sought specific items for his two restaurants and a new concept he's opening in an adjoining space next year, as well as conversation with suppliers.
"Sometimes you get in a rut" he explained. "You work with a lot of vendors, but they don't always see outside the box."
The chef spent time looking at high-tech, automated citrus juicers to replace his one-at-a-time model and induction cooktops he might employ in his new kitchen.
He stopped at a booth showing his favorite dishes, made by Steelite, which uses ceramics like those in spark plugs.
"They're so durable, we wear them out before we break them," Bayless said. He was tired of the plates he's using at Frontera Grill now, and looking for a new design.
"I'm loving the shape," he said, holding up a slightly squared dish.
He thought the plate might not be large enough, though, and the vendor offered to send one to try. Bayless said that sometimes he's remade an entree to fit the china.
Like the old plates, the new ones will be white, to show off the food. "We change our menu so often that we have to have something pretty neutral," Bayless said. The vendor said that 70 percent of their sales are white china.
Bayless oohed and ahhed at glossy stainless-steel service pieces he said were beyond his budget, but he turned up his nose at some glass. "It looks like belongs in a strip club or a casino."
He also strode past the booths displaying food items, not even stopping for free samples.
"We don't ever look at food here," he said.
Although some produce and meats and ingredients such as eggs and seasonings were exhibited, most food products on display were prepared items, such as pre-grilled panini, cook-in-bag meats or fully cooked microwaveable entrees, used in foodservice operations less chef-driven as Bayless'.
Chicago's Vienna Beef Ltd. showcased its various goods for fast-food restaurants, including new All Natural Franks, made without nitrites, nitrates or artificial colors. Although they taste similar to Vienna's regular skinless wieners, these dogs look awfully gray in their buns, and even its backers acknowledge that you're unlikely to see them at local hot dog stands.
Staffers also handed out "no ketchup allowed" stickers and playfully squirted visitors with a trick ketchup bottle loaded with red string.
"I've had the Heinz people here five times today, upset that we're telling people, 'no ketchup,' " Vienna Vice President Jim Dencek said.
Other new food products you soon might taste while dining out included Bacon Salt, a kosher, vegetarian seasoning; thaw-and-serve carpaccio made from free-range, grass-fed beef, and $100-per-pound Iberico ham from Spain.
Innovators also debuted such new technology as the Cucina 2000 Series Automatic Pasta Cooker, which cooks pasta al dente in less than 90 seconds with the push of a button, and the Saf-T-Wash Food Sanitizer, which blasts meats and produce with ozone to protect against bacteria and prolong shelf life.
Leah A. Zeldes is a local freelance writer.