Chefs' $30 Challenge Chefs from three new market-restaurants make delicious meals with ingredients from their own shops—for under $30. By Emily Kaiser
Food & Wine
February, 2008
Many chefs would sooner part with their sharpest knife than share the names of their suppliers; the first secret to good cooking, after all, is securing the finest ingredients. But during the past year, there’s been a surge of new market-restaurants, in which chefs sell the very ingredients they serve. The one drawback: These epicurean markets can be expensive.
F&W asked three market-restaurant chefs to prepare a meal for four people for less than $30, buying the ingredients at their own stores. Masterfully stretching their budgets, all three used lots of low-cost, in-season produce and staples like bread and eggs. Barbara Lynch of Boston’s Butcher Shop and Plum Produce created an Italian-style meal with chicken cacciatore. Daniel Orr of Farm Bloomington in Bloomington, Indiana, made a Midwestern dinner of sausages and apples. Mike Price of New York’s Market Table crafted a Spanish-inspired blood-orange salad and frittata. Expertise is rarely so affordable—or more delicious.
Mike Price • Market Table • New York City
With the kitchen behind the counter, chef Mike Price relishes his new role: cooking coach. Last Fall he found himself inviting a customer into the kitchen to show her how to sear a fish he’d sold her: “That’s the deal behind this place,” he says.
Total: $22.75 (to try the recipes, click on the titles)
Blood Orange and Red Onion Salad ($4.25)
Serrano Ham and Potato Frittata with Watercress Salad ($15)
Brown-butter Crêpes with Nutella and Jam ($3.50)
Daniel Orr • Farm Bloomington • Bloomington, IN
It’s fitting that Indiana native Daniel Orr opened his market-restaurant last month in what was once an Odd Fellows Lodge: The fraternal order aided farmers in the days before crop insurance. At Farm Bloomington, the chef promotes every kind of local ingredient, from grains to whiskey. With many of the same products on his menu and his store shelves, Orr says, “Customers can stay in and see what we do, or they can go home and try for themselves.”
Total: $25
Savoy Cabbage and Rutabaga Slaw ($6)
Pan-seared Sausages with Apples ($8)
Cheesy Grits with Scallions ($3)
Apricot Blondies ($8)
Barbara Lynch • The Butcher Shop & Plum Produce • Boston
Since 1998, Boston native Barbara Lynch has served exquisite seasonal food at No. 9 Park, a restaurant in Beacon Hill. A stint as a clerk at Filene’s Basement in her teens put her off retail for a while. But she got over it enough to open two fantastic food markets, the Butcher Shop and Plum Produce, where shoppers can purchase grass-fed beef, truffles and house-made jams.
Total: $30
Creamy Broccoli Soup with Cheddar Crisps ($4)
Spicy Chicken Cacciatore ($11)
Farro Risotto ($8)
Brandied Prunes Jubilee ($7)
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