If You Want to Impress Your Dinner Guests, Consider a DIY Taco Bar

September 30, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

How Eater Young Gun Annie Rupani makes her dinner parties truly interactive

This is Party Time, a column featuring industry and Young Gun-approved approaches for acing a dinner party.

Annie Rupani started in the industry as a one-woman show. The 2015 Eater Young Gun had intended to launch a career in law, but during post-graduate travels, she grew inspired to pursue her love of chocolate. After chocolatiering school, Rupani landed in Houston, where she launched her business, Cacao & Cardamom, as not just its chocolatier, but also as the dishwasher and the handywoman, the salesperson, marketing specialist, and financial planner — basically everything needed to get the business off the ground.

The dedication paid off, and over five years she has grown Cacao & Cardamom to include a team of 10 employees. “We’ve grown from just producing chocolate bon-bons and truffles to expanding our selection with candy bars, dragees, mendiants, artisan bars, and rochers,” Rupani says. “I still love the R&D of creating new flavors for each season, but my primary job has evolved to be more on the managerial end.” Perhaps not surprisingly, Rupani’s ability to multitask comes in handy when it comes to throwing dinner parties, and although a totally DIY taco bar — complete with tortillas made from scratch — seems like a heavy lift, in this edition of Party Time, Rupani shares how she makes it happen:

Arina P Habich / Shutterstock

“Fish Taco Night is an experience my husband and I love to share with friends and family,” she says. “We love the freshness and versatility of all the ingredients; we make everything from scratch, from the tortillas to the salsas to the sides.” The concept is versatile, and Rupani says she’ll change up the fish (salmon or snapper) and experiment with spicy salsas or refreshing mango versions. Most importantly, it’s interactive. “Every time we prep for fish tacos, it’s an adventure, and allows for family and friends to participate in pressing tortillas.”

Rupani stresses that “making tortillas is so much easier than you might think.” Rupani makes the dough from masa harina ahead of time, allowing it to rest and then separating it into balls. When guests arrive, she’ll have them press their own tortillas, and while having a tortilla press is handy, isn’t not totally necessary: “Just use the back of a saute pan to flatten out the tortilla balls,” she suggests.

Overall, the most important thing about her family’s fish taco nights are to keep up a communal vibe. “Not only are fish taco nights a DIY meal where you get to put whatever you want in your perfect taco, but there is the beauty of focusing on our relationships, conversations, and love shared during the whole process of creating the meal and then sitting down to enjoy it that makes the experience that much more satisfying,” Rupani says. “There is an intimacy built during the teamwork of putting the meal together, that brings you close to friends and family.”

Del Taco Has a Line of Churro-Scented Essential Oils Because ‘Wellness’ Is Everywhere

September 30, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Plus, meat crime, and more news to start your day

“Self-care!” cries taco chain

Del Taco is branching into Goop territory with a new “Craveable Sweets & Scents” aromatherapy set of essential oils available starting October 1, in honor of the taco chain’s new “mini churro dipper” milkshake. This isn’t the first time a fast-food brand has gotten into the scents game — KFC introduced a gravy-scented candle, Burger King a Whopper-scented perfume, White Castle a burger-scented candle — but unlike its predecessors, Del Taco is playing it safe and traditional with vanilla, chocolate, and churro scents. Where’s the taco-scented essential oil, you coward?? The savory-over-sweet types who want a room to reek of wet burrito plato deserve marketing gimmicks, too!

And in other news…

• Employment for chefs continues to fall, but employment for cooks has grown to an all-time high, according to data by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. [Chef’s Pencil]
• Another one of those “feel-good” stories that should be more of an indictment of wages and labor in the U.S.: A single mom who, for the past year, has been walking an hour to her job at KFC because she couldn’t afford transportation, was given a car by after her boss entered her in a company drawing. [CBS News]
• Two executives of a now-defunct meat company pled guilty to selling $1 million worth of contaminated, uninspected beef to federal prisons. [New Food Economy]
• The state of New York is suing Dunkin’ over a data breach that affected 20,000 customers. [Restaurant Business]
• Excellent advice on letting your kid run around a restaurant: don’t do it! [Slate]
• How fast food uses the idea of “choice” to serve unhealthy food. [Quartz]
• I’m just going to guess this is the first T-shirt made out of milk. [Insider]
• There is a mobile game in which all you do is peel fruit and it is called I Peel Good. [@tejalrao/Twitter]
• Yes:

• All AM Intel Coverage [E]

Montmorillonite Clay Is This Chef’s Holy Grail Self-Care Product

September 30, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Benne on Eagle chef and Eater Young Gun Ashleigh Shanti went “clay crazy” when she discovered the multipurpose clay at the health-food store

Eater Young Gun Ashleigh Shanti (’19) isn’t totally sure who first told her about montmorillonite clay, but it’s been a staple of her self-care routine for at least three years now, purchased in bulk from her local health-food store. “When I first started using it I went clay crazy,” says the chef de cuisine at Benne on Eagle in Asheville, North Carolina, who is known for her expertise in fermented foods and thoughtful menus drawing from traditional African-American Appalachian cuisine. “I was using it to brush my teeth, in detox baths, in my hair mask.”

Montmorillonite clay, also sold as French green clay or European clay, is a mineral powder similar to bentonite clay (which is the primary ingredient in Aztec Secret Indian Healing Clay ($10), the best-selling facial mask on Amazon). Shanti’s preferred montmorillonite clay is from vitamin and supplements brand Now Foods (from $7), which she uses on its own or in a couple of easy homemade recipes she keeps going back to. “I’ll mix the clay with honey and lemon juice,” Shanti says. “I’ve also done some avocado too. My face is naturally oily but my partner, her face is more normal, so she normally puts some avocado in hers.”

Medicinal clays are reported to have antibacterial properties, and devotees swear that a clay face mask can help with acne and clogged pores. For Shanti, a clay mask has immediate results: “Instantly I notice that my skin is much brighter, my complexion is much clearer.”

Mixing up a clay mask also gives Shanti a moment to unwind from hectic days and nights in the kitchen, a boon since time to herself is at a premium. “I’m not doing a lot of self-care these days, unfortunately,” she says. “I eat fermented foods — that’s definitely self care.” But when she does have the time to slap on a clay mask, Shanti says, “It makes a huge difference.”

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Revisiting ‘Big Night,’ the Movie That Made Me Fall in Love With Restaurants

September 28, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Notes on a classic restaurant film, plus a roundup of the week’s food-related entertainment news

A version of this post originally appeared on September 27, 2019, in “Eat, Drink, Watch” — the weekly newsletter for people who want to order takeout and watch TV. Browse the archives here.

Usually, this newsletter covers all the hot food TV shows du jour. But since this is actually my last installment of Eat, Drink Watch (more on that in a bit), I’d like to focus on a nostalgic favorite that, like Julie & Julia and Eat Drink Man Woman, brought the best aspects of cooking to the big screen, and inspired my own personal love of this genre. Let’s now turn our attention to a little movie called Big Night.

The ultimate movie for restaurant lovers

Big Night/YouTube

Big Night is the rarest of all food movies: a tight, smart comedy with a big heart, that captures so much of what we love about restaurants. I’m pleased to report that 23 years after its initial release, Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott’s indie film is still as charming as ever, and its exploration of the tension between commerce and creativity in the food world still feels fresh and relevant today.

The movie tells the story of two Italian immigrants— chef Primo (Tony Shalhoub), and his maitre d’ brother Secondo (Tucci) — running a struggling restaurant in 1950s New Jersey. Their business, Paradise, is perpetually upstaged by the flashier Italian restaurant across the street, Pasquale’s, whose owner, Pascal (Ian Holm), has designs on bringing the brothers into the fold. Facing foreclosure, Primo and Secondo take a tip from Pascal and decide to cook a blow-out meal in the hopes of attracting jazz singer Louis Prima, thinking that his appearance might raise the profile of their modest restaurant.

The meal in the last act of Big Night is unquestionably one of the greatest culinary spectacles ever committed to film, but it’s the finale — a wordless scene where Secondo tries to repair the damage from the night before by cooking an omelet for his brother and the prep cook —that feels like the real heart of the film. It gets me every time.

Big Night is not always perfect: Tucci and Shaoulb occasionally verge on sitcom territory with their acting choices, and it’s a shame that co-stars Minnie Driver, Allison Janney, and Isabella Rosellini don’t have more to work with here. But the overall experience of watching Big Night is something akin to being presented with the timpano featured in the film: it’s a big jumble of stray ingredients that seamlessly blend together to form something totally unique.

I shamelessly picked Big Night for my final Eat, Drink, Watch newsletter, because seeing this movie during its original run completely shaped my understanding of the restaurant world. I’d always had a passing interest in food and cooking, but after watching Primo and Secondo try to reverse their fortunes at Paradise, I became obsessed with the stories behind the restaurants I loved, and the unique relationships that exist between chefs, restaurateurs, diners, and critics.

Thirteen years after seeing Big Night for the first time, I got a job here at Eater covering the drama of the restaurant scene, and now, almost ten years after my first Eater byline, I’m leaving this publication — and the food media world — to pursue a new, and very different opportunity at a Bay Area start-up. I’ve learned so much over the years, and I’m lucky to have worked with so many great people. And while part of me is sad to be departing the world of 24/7 restaurant obsession, I’m also looking forward to following all the action now as a reader and member of the Eat, Drink, Watch Facebook group.

It occured to me while rewatching Big Night that Hollywood’s interest in food has increased by leaps and bounds since the release of the film, and especially in the decade since I started working here at Eater. Now, if you want to learn about the inner-workings of a restaurant or the secrets to good cooking, you don’t need to flip on the Food Network or hope to catch a movie like Big Night on TV — you instantly can summon Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, Chef’s Table, The Great Britiish Baking Show, Ugly Delicious, Parts Unknown, Taco Chronicles, or Eater’s series with PBS, No Passport Required. There may not be another indie gem like Big Night on the horizon — the movie business is so different now — but there’s no doubt in my mind that the food TV scene is just going to keep getting better.

Big Night is available to stream on YouTube, Amazon, iTunes, and Google Play.

In other entertainment news…

• Carl Ruiiz, a New York-area chef who frequently appeared alongside Guy Fieri on his Food Network shows, died last weekend. He was 44.
• Here’s screenwriter John Carcieri explaining why the Righteous Gemstones always eat at the same steakhouse buffet.
• Even though they’re rich and famous, celebrity chefs often have a hard time keeping restaurants open for very long.
• I was really rooting for Sandra Lee and Andrew Cuomo, but alas, they have separated.
• Jennifer Lawrence is now recommending kitchen appliances on Amazon.
• And speaking of Amazon, the commerce titan is partnering with Food Network on a new $7 a month subscription version of the cable channel that will include live cooking demonstrations from people like Ina Garten, Bobby Flay, and Guy Fieri.
• And finally, Jimmy Fallon is the kind of guy who shares his surprise birthday ice cream cake with everyone else at the restaurant.

Have a great weekend everyone, and thanks so much for reading Eat, Drink, Watch.

Plantain Chip Company Started by White People Criticized for Cultural Appropriation

September 27, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Selling plantain chips in prettier bags for quadruple the price doesn’t count as “revolutionizing” the snack

Every year, British website Health Food gives out awards for the best “healthy products” of the year, ranging from the best freezer meals to low-calorie desserts. But this year, the best snack category is stirring up some controversy. Wild Garlic Purely Plantain Crisps was named “best crisp” of the year, which the site called “savoury sensations.” The problem is plantain chips aren’t exactly new. Fried plantains or bananas are found all over West Africa, the Carribean, South Asia, and South America, and people are calling the company (which was founded by two white people) another example of cultural appropriation.

Writer and artist Samuel Williams tweeted about the awards, pointing out the ridiculousness of the idea that fried plantains are some sort of innovation, and that Purely Plantain was using the hashtag #plantainrevolution on their Instagram, as if they were single handedly bringing the fruit to the rest of the world. Williams declined to comment for this story, but balked at the fact that “a 75g bag costs £1.99.”

The chips weren’t the only snack product to take a longtime staple of a non-white culture and turn them into a neatly packaged snack (Moorish Pea Humous won for Best Dip). But Purely Plantain, which posted about their win on Instagram, is getting slammed with comments accusing them of “Columbusing” plantain chips, and profiting off marginalized cultures’ staple cuisines.

The vitriol is fueled by a previous Instagram post of theirs, in which they say a trip to South America “sparked an idea” that would become Purely Plantain. “Just because you guys finally discovered plantain doesn’t mean us diasporic folks think it’s new,” wrote one commenter. “There’s literally an entire population that grew up eating 25 cent bags of these.” Food editor Alexis Adeji also commented, “Whilst we as Africans or Caribbeans don’t own plantain, it is something that is most certainly been imbedded [sic] in our food culture and to not be given credit or even be acknowledged during your inspiration to start this not so ‘revolutionary’ brand is quite frankly insulting.” (We reached out to Purely Plantain for a comment, but have not received a response by press time.)

It’s not like the Health Food awards are the ultimate word in healthy snacks—though they’ve been running for 11 years, companies have to submit themselves for consideration. Chef Wunmi Etti, owner of Angry Black Kitchen, said she had never heard of the awards before today. But she tweeted that the product was “neo-colonialism at its finest.” In an interview over Twitter DM, she said her frustration is two pronged: the “gentrification of foods” that lead to inflation of prices of things that are staples to non-white communities, and the lack of acknowledgment that there were any forerunners. “Repacking and selling our native foods to the white market is insulting,” she said, “because it insinuates they will only buy from their own people, which is inherently oppressive.”

People love to counter arguments about cultural appropriation by throwing their hands up (“oh so I’m just not allowed to do anything??”) and accusing marginalized people of wanting total cultural segregation. But as Adeji wrote, nobody “owns” plantain chips. Of course, two white people are allowed to enjoy the taste of fried plantains, to add different flavors, and even to market them to others who may be unfamiliar with them. But the frustration comes from, yet again, watching as white people, who could have been buying these foods for decades, are just now won over because it’s made by other white people. It’s food sites assuming readers don’t know what pho is. It’s the sadness of watching everyone jump to make a “spiced chickpea stew with coconut and turmeric” (which, to its credit, acknowledges its culinary influences) instead of the chana dal your family has been eating forever. It’s watching banana prices stay low because of their increased popularity in Europe and North America, while banana and plantain farmers are chronically underpaid. And it’s the constant centering of the white perspective, assuming any non-white cuisine needs to be “introduced” and repackaged to have value.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to buy pre-packaged plantain chips, or with not knowing they were a thing until you saw them in pastel packaging in a health food store. There’s a first time for everything. But what any accusation of cultural appropriation or “Columbusing” is really about is wanting marginalized cultures to be given credit, and money, for the things they’ve created, and for any cross-cultural exchange to be done in good faith. It’s about asking the world to consider who has been doing the work, and who just slaps different packaging on it to make it cool. To paraphrase: cite, don’t bite. Or really, cite, then bite.

How Movie Theaters Became Restaurants

September 27, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Eater’s Digest unpacks the iconic British nose-to-tail pioneer’s unusual stateside move

Anthony Bourdain once called St. John the “restaurant of his dreams.” The London restaurant, which has long been considered one of Britain’s most influential and the birthplace of the modern nose-to-tail movement, confirmed this week that it’ll be opening its first location outside of the country — in a Los Angeles mall.

The Platform, located in Culver City, CA, is a shiny new development filled with millennial-bait brands like Lululemon and Van Leeuwen ice cream. Brooklyn favorite Roberta’s has also opened an outpost there, bringing a copycat version of its Bushwick original to west L.A.

The St. John move, a seemingly out-of-left-field development first reported by Eater London, comes hot on the heels of the iconic restaurant’s 25th birthday. Opened in 1994 by Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver, St. John has expanded a number of times within London. A bread and wine bar, a now-defunct hotel in London’s Chinatown, and a bakery all bearing the St. John name grew out of the original; but the influential brand has never successfully made the leap outside of London’s sprawling borders.

Adam Coghlan, editor of Eater London, says the team has tried and failed to open in New York in the past, making the move to Los Angeles even more surprising. But, Coghlan says, the commercial opportunity presented by the Platform must’ve been too good for Henderson and Gulliver to pass up.

Still, it raises the question: Can an iconic hometown hero open outside of that home and still be wonderful? St. John’s name can be transplanted, but can its soul?

To find out, Amanda Kludt and Daniel Geneen called up Coghlan and Eater LA’s Farley Elliott on this week’s episode of Eater’s Digest.

Listen and subscribe to Eater’s Digest on Apple Podcasts.

Below, a lightly edited transcript of our interviews with Adam Coghlan and Farley Elliott.

Amanda Kludt: Daniel, the biggest story of the week, kicking off the show with it. St. John, the iconic London restaurant is opening a branch in a mall in Los Angeles called The Platform.

Daniel Geneen: So much to unpack there.

Amanda: This blew my mind a little bit. St. John has not expanded outside of London, ever. It’s a 25-year-old restaurant. I think the first time I went to London as an adult, it was the restaurant that was on my list. I had to try really hard to get a reservation. It was super, super exciting to eat there. I go back every single time I go to London.

Daniel: Really?

Amanda: Yes.

Daniel: I think if you look at smaller cities that have a prominent restaurant, you know Montreal has Pierre du Cochon, and Joe Beef actually, and funny enough, they’re kind of similar. If you look at a smaller city that has a restaurant that is important and the weight and how synonymous that city is with that restaurant is equal to how much St. John, as a name, matters to London-

Amanda: Which is a very big city.

Daniel: London is obviously a huge city.

Amanda: Yeah.

Daniel: Can you, off the top of your head, come up with a bigger restaurant, important restaurant to an important city moves to LA? The only one I can think of is like if Noma was opening in LA. That would be just as big. There’s a lot of like-

Amanda: Sure, there’s a lot of restaurants I could, but have they in the past? No.

Daniel: But ones that you wouldn’t expect.

Amanda: No, and I think it’s really important.

Daniel: It’s the biggest transplant ever.

Amanda: It’s huge and St. John is so cool. It’s so cool. And they are opening in The Platform. Longtime listeners of the show will know that The Platform is not cool. It’s cool in this... It has the veneer of cool. It’s basically a mall, an outdoor mall, where the curator of this development picked a lot of quote, unquote, “cool brands”.

Daniel: Right.

Amanda: So you walk around it and as a yuppie millennial type, you see like, “Oh, there’s a Roberta’s, there’s an Asos, there’s a Soul Cycle, there’s a cool ice cream shop. There’s a really fancy organic nail salon,” that you can’t even walk into.

Daniel: Yeah.

Amanda: It’s just annoyingly all mushed together and it takes away the originality of some of those brands like Roberta’s. I had a pizza at Roberta’s there earlier this year when I was in that neighborhood and it was great, but also made me sad. Anyway, that’s enough of us talking about it. I think we should call up the expert, Adam Coghlan, Eater London editor, who broke the story.

Daniel: Broke it?

Amanda: He broke the story. The LA Times, I think, had the scoop or had the story and then Adam got it out about an hour before they did.

Daniel: Do you love that?

Amanda: I do.

Daniel: That’s some old fashion Eater grit.

Amanda: Adam, where are you joining us from?

Adam Coghlan: I am joining you from a very nice new hip cafe in East London.

Amanda: Ooh, what’s it called?

Adam: It’s called The Factory.

Daniel: Wow. What’s the weather like?

Adam: Oh, it’s been biblical today.

Amanda: So first up, tell us what is St. John, for people who aren’t super familiar with this restaurant?

Adam: Wow. I’d say it’s probably the most famous and most influential British restaurant in terms of how long it’s been open, how sort of universally adored it is really, and also critically, how many important and influential chefs have gone through its kitchen. And not just chefs though — front of house, maitre d’s, etc.

Amanda: Can you talk a little bit about Fergus Henderson?

Adam: So Fergus is an interesting character. He was not a chef. So it opened in 1994. Fergus Henderson is a trained architect and he sort of just got into cooking and opened St. John with a guy called Trevor Gulliver who had run this kind of bar restaurant in London and got to know Ferguson. Together, they did this thing.

One of the reasons it became so big was because they were so well connected with the art world. It became the hangout for the young British artists. Tracy M. and the Chapman brothers, those kinds of characters. So it became like the hip place in the mid-’90s and late ‘90s, and then has evolved ever since really. It’s still really cool.

Daniel: So Adam, now that you’re making bold proclamations like saying it’s the most influential London restaurant. Would you say it is the most influential restaurant in the nose-to-tail movement as well?

Adam: Probably, yeah. I think one of the things I would say about the whole nose-to-tail shtick, that’s an extremely kind of neat marketing strap line in a way. And I think particularly for American audiences, that’s the thing that kind of has caught on. And yes, he’s written books that that’s the name of the book and that is definitely the philosophy. But I think, as is often the case, the story is much more rich than nose to tail.

Adam: St. John’s has the best cheese on toast in London, it serves the best green salad in London. It’s the most interesting place to eat seafood. It’s like people think that you go to St. John and eat pigs nose and —

Daniel: Pigs tails.

Adam: Yeah. And you do.

Amanda: You do.

Adam: Yeah. But it’s only, to me, it’s a part of a much bigger and more interesting story about what they’ve done with food.

Daniel: That’s interesting. So you feel like the message or the understanding that people outside of London and outside of England have of St. John’s is solely rooted in that idea of nose to tail or whole animal dining-

Amanda: It’s reductive.

Daniel: It’s reductive, and it’s not how you guys there consider it?

Adam: I don’t for a second deny that that is one of its critical influences and a huge pillar of their philosophy. But I think there is more to it. I talk about it myself as a British restaurant. It is a British restaurant. It’s also basically a French restaurant. It’s also basically an Italian restaurant.

That’s another interesting kind of facet of this story and how this story has evolved in the mythology around St. John’s has caught so many people’s attention. It’s a fascinating sort of case that in so many respects. There’s so much about the culture of it that’s like Southern European and yet, it’s got this sort of reputation of being an old British working men’s kind of pie restaurant in some respects. It’s very urbane actually, very urbane.

Amanda: So they are celebrating their 25th anniversary this week. Can you talk about how they’ve expanded within London over the last two decades?

Adam: Yeah, so it’s a bit of a mixed picture really. They opened in ‘94 in Smithfield on the edge of the big meat market. That was one of the reasons why they kind of opened there. They then in 2003, I think it was, they opened St. John Bread and Wine, which is personally my favorite. Often the menu is more interesting, a little bit more creative. They actually opened a hotel which closed after about three years. It really was not a success.

Amanda: Do you know why at all?

Adam: I think the location was problematic. The thought process of the whole project was kind of perhaps a bit rushed. They’ve now opened a standalone bakery in Common Garden. So I have this theory that their thing, whether or not Brexit happens, the thing that will save the London restaurant industry and food industry in general is bread and wine, because people just seem to always want that and people are going to need sustenance and they’re going to need to drown their sorrows.

Amanda: So with this Los Angeles expansion, why do you think they’re going to LA and why The Platform specifically?

Adam: It’s so weird. I honestly did not believe it when I first heard it. I think they’ve been presented with an exciting commercial opportunity. I also think, despite the fact that there’s this sense, and I thought it myself, that it would be a much better fit in say New York, which is much more like London. I kind of feel like, based on what I was saying earlier about the fact that it’s so French and Italian in so many ways, that the southern European nature of Los Angeles versus what I think of as New York as more Northern European.

I don’t know. It sort of seems to fit in a way and I think they’ll be able to do some exciting things with produce, given their kind of architectural past and kind of connection to the art world and sort of adjacent fashion worlds and hip scenes. I can only think that that sort of kind of factored into their thinking. I presume it’s just a box. They can do really whatever they want.

Daniel: When you say that it’s an exciting commercial opportunity, what do you mean by that?

Adam: So I think they want to make some money. Trevor, Trevor Gulliver, Fergus’s business partner, who I get the impression is very much leading this project, he’ll have calculated the numbers and realized that LA is a food city either is very, very, very exciting and that he thinks that they can do well. The power of the brand is serious. I think it’s a boon for LA to be honest.

Amanda: Adam, thank you so much for spending the time with us.

Adam: Thank you for having me. Great to talk to you guys.

Daniel: So now that we’ve heard about St. John from the London side, how else could we conclude the story without hearing what’s going on on the ground in Los Angeles? We have none other than Farley Elliot, Eater LA. Farley, break this down for us.

Farley Elliott: So yeah, obviously you guys have talked to Adam. St. John is a seminal restaurant for London and it was a really big surprise that the place was managing to come to not just Los Angeles, but Culver City, which is traditionally been a little bit of a bedroom community for folks who worked elsewhere. It’s been booming in the past couple of years. Amazon is putting studios in there, Sony, it’s got a lot of development projects. It’s where Vespertine is. So it’s a big get for the area and everyone’s really excited.

Daniel: Hmm. Do you have any sense of how LA scored this deal?

Farley: You know, my understanding and some of the reporting I’ve seen elsewhere, is that the developers who own the Platform Project, which we’ve talked about on the podcast before, is a sort of modern play place for well-to-do millennial adults. They also own a big project in downtown called The Row, which is a much more massively scale urban development. And the St. John’s folks got taken over and wined and dined and they thought about putting a place in there before backing away. And so The Platform was actually a secondary option and a little bit of a surprise in that regard.

Daniel: Interesting.

Amanda: Do you think it’s going to be a huge success?

Farley: You know, I’m curious about it. Los Angeles is a pretty particular dining town. We’re not the scene that traditionally cares about all the big names. David Chang is popular and he’s got a show on Netflix and Major Domo obviously does well, but Nomad has sort of famously struggled here. Andy Ricker got sent out of town. So I’m curious as to how much the average diner actually knows about St. John. But I do think that this is a type of dining that we don’t see that often. It’s very European. We’re going to put bone marrow on things, we’re going to make it really, really rich and exciting and sort of lavish times. I’m hopeful that people can come and find their voice at this restaurant and really enjoy it.

Daniel: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: What’s your take on The Platform as a dining experience?

Farley: It’s funny. I’ve said this before, but it’s the only place I think that a sort of actually looks like what you thought it was going to look like when they first started talking about it. There’s a lot of young folks hanging out in front of a Sweet Green with laptops and Roberta’s from Brooklyn is there turning pizzas and they’ve really come alive and become a sort of go-to destination.

It’s not the traditional place that you would think a lot of people from outside Los Angeles are coming to open. For example, Girl on the Goat out of Chicago was opening in a warehouse-y sort of space down in the Arts District, but if they can find the right push, I think that St. John can really make an effort to change the demographics of that neighborhood and get people excited in a way that they been before. So I’m certainly rooting for the whole thing.

Daniel: Mm-hmm. Were you pumped when you heard this? Not that we need to wade into the New York versus LA debate because obviously it’s been trod over, but it feels like a pretty big win for LA, especially if you are a big follower of the food world.

Farley: Yeah, I think in thinking about it in terms of: We got something that New York or even Vegas didn’t get, or even the San Francisco for that matter — that’s pretty great. And I think the ability to pull in a name that is so universally known by a certain type of dining set is a really big deal for the city. I am surprised that St. John didn’t end up in New York City first, but as they’ve said, they like to kind of buck convention a little bit, so why not do it in Culver City, of all places?

Daniel: Yeah. Well, Farley, thank you so much calling in. We appreciate your time.

Amanda: Thanks, Farley.

Respecting Non-Formal Culinary Education Is One Way to Empower Women Chefs of Color

September 27, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

How Across Our Kitchen Tables serves the women of Los Angeles

In the food world, from cooking shows to celebrity chefs, it can seem like there’s only one path to break into the industry — by going to culinary school and rising from there. But for those that grow up in immigrant communities, where food and cooking can be a centerpiece in the family crest, working with and around food can come more naturally. People in less formal restaurant environments often hit the ground running, able to prepare dishes that they grew up with as a form of income for their family.

“They may or may not have a permit or an Instagram page, but they’re amazing chefs and cooks,” chef Valeria Velazquez Duenas says. “It’s not always art for art’s sake.”

Velazquez Duenas is one of those chefs that didn’t walk the traditional path. Her parents owned a restaurant and she transitioned into the food industry following her plant-based cuisine training. After launching her Los Angeles catering business Cocina House, she jumped into vending food at community events and festivals to build her business.

Over time Velazquez Duenas started sharing vital resources and lessons with other women in her network that like her, didn’t have a formal culinary background. For these women chefs and burgeoning entrepreneurs, the goal wasn’t to learn special techniques in the kitchen, but rather to share information about how to grow and fund food businesses, from catering to private chef work, to social justice and retail.

“Together, we had a lot of information, but separately, they were things that we still struggled with within our respective businesses,” Jocelyn Ramirez says. Also a vegan chef, Ramirez was able to launch her plant-based business Todo Verde after learning more about sourcing investment. Across Our Kitchen Tables (AOKT) was created two years ago from this mutual desire to share skills and connect at an annual symposium, where founders Velazquez Duenas, Ramirez, and Claudia Serrato invite food entrepreneurs to connect. Their initiative was to make business resources accessible to women chefs of color who, without an institution-centered education, might miss out on such insights.

Across Our Kitchen Tables works with event participants to workshop business plans, plan recipe development, raise capital, adopt tips for food photography, and learn about ethical sourcing, wellness, licensing, and more.

“A lot of the women that come to our events want to address food insecurity or food deserts, so these voices aren’t marginalized or tokenized in the media,” Velazquez Duenas says. “Talking about those communities adds texture to the conversation around food.”

A 2017 Eater report showed that women hold only 21 percent of head chef positions across the U.S. In those environments, Ramirez says, “it’s hard for women of color to find their voice within those spaces and feel heard.”

Velazquez Duenas agrees. “There’s this whole universe of women of color chefs that have been doing the work, but also getting involved in social justice organizations. Each of us has different levels of privilege and access, and we feel a responsibility for our communities to address these social justice issues,” she says.

AOKT includes food justice and policy as one of the areas covered in their skillshare resources and symposium.

“It’s important to begin to demystify these ideas behind our current way of understanding and knowing food,” Serrato, chef and co-founder of Native-based catering company Cocina Manakurhini, says. “I used to say that I didn’t have a culinary background, and now I’ve learned to own it. That’s something AOKT does. It empowers us to say, ‘I come from a culinary background. It may not be formal, but it’s rooted from the generation before me through indigenous and cultural traditions.’”

“This is how we practice our culinary activism,” Serrato says. “We’re challenging colonial models that have been established through formal culinary institutions as the only way to achieve any kind of [fame].”

That’s at the heart of the Los Angeles-based organization — to demystify and make a safe space for women of color to tackle these food-driven conversations and empower each other through their resources.

“When you feel like you have a solid business and you’re growing it in a way that makes you feel legit, you feel more confident in general,” Ramirez says.

Serrato says that initially, they expected the women that approached the event series to be chefs, but the demographics have surprised her and the team. The symposium and workshops have attracted food photographers, food bloggers, recipe testers, food stylists, and cookbook authors. The attendees are mostly under 40 years old since they reach the community through social media.

“I was surprised, since we thought everybody that was going to come was because they were opening a food-based business,” Serrato says. “There’s a whole spectrum of how you can be engaged with food.”

Their second annual symposium comes to fruition this weekend, on September 29, with the theme of “Build Your Own Table.” The AOKT team hopes to grow from last year’s 100 attendees while reducing the number of panels to create more in-depth learning and networking experiences. The one-day event dives into sharing more about technology, social media, and investment dollars for attendees to scale their platforms. Eventually, the co-founders would like to move the programming beyond an event series to a permanent in-person presence, inspired by San Francisco nonprofit incubator La Cocina.

The organization is in talks to open a commercial kitchen space with a retail storefront in partnership with another nonprofit in Boyle Heights, a predominantly Latinx East LA neighborhood that has long been under-served by mainstream grocers. AOKT chefs would ideally be able to produce their food, connect with their audiences, and grow their brands with like-minded businesses and tangible infrastructure.

“There are a lot of opportunities moving forward. We could provide more support as a full-time project,” Ramirez says. “But we would have to make sure that we can financially support that model.”

Muriel Vega is a freelance writer living in Atlanta. Oriana Koren is a Los Angeles-based photographer and writer.

You Already Love the Spritz, So Embrace the Wine Cooler

September 27, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Wine coolers, spritzers, and other wine cocktail intel from Air’s owner, Ariel Arc

Welcome to Ask a Somm, a column in which experts from across the country answer questions about wine. Today’s installment: What are wine coolers and what wines make the best ones?

Wine cocktails get a bad rap, and much of that ill will can be blamed on the wine cooler. Broadly defined as a combination of (usually cheap) wine, fruit juice, sugar, and carbonated water, wine coolers were maddeningly popular in the 1980s. It’s also not terribly surprising that some people think wine fridges when they hear wine coolers, and that a lot of people shudder when they think of them at all.

Its precursor — the spritzer — however, increasingly the gold-standard when it comes to delicious, refreshing, summertime drinks. But whether it’s disdain or adoration you feel towards the humble cooler, it all depends on how you frame it. That is, if you can separate wine coolers from the 1980s — and forget sugar-laden, brands like Seagram’s — well, you just might love them.

New York restaurateur and empire builder Ariel Arce — who cut her teeth a beverage temples The Office, Pops for Champagne, and Birds and Bubbles — serves two coolers on the cocktail list at her Manhattan Champagne chapel Air’s. There’s the What Would Bill Murray Do, which is Champagne on ice with bitters and expressed lemon — that’s twisting, rubbing, and dropping a citrus rind in and around the glass; and the Bugey on Ice, just Bugey Cerdon, a little known French appellation exclusively turning out excellent sparkling rosé made from gamay and poulsard, on ice with expressed orange.

Arce believes that the wine cooler is open to interpretation, with her favorite iteration being some version of bubbly on ice with citrus zest; and something everyone should try making. But, as a preacher of all things bubbles, she does have some recommendations first.

1. Throw out the still-wine-with-seltzer recipes

Ideally, according to Arce, you’ll consider using sparkling wine on ice instead of a still wine with fizzy water, since that water will just dilute an otherwise excellent sipper. Sticking with wines that already sparkle means you can focus on adding spritzes of real fruit and twists of citrus. And if you are going with something bubble-free, Arce thinks any color will do.

Shutterstock

2. Pick a bottle that’s already fruit-forward

“You want to think of wine coolers as a way of expressing the best quality of the wine,” says Arce. Which, she adds, is exactly why you should look for wines that are more rich and where fruit is present already, instead of focussing on the addition of artificial fruit or sugar. Arce specifically calls out fruit-forward rieslings, ripe California wines, French wines with wood in them, and some western-American wines.

“Look for wines from warmer regions, wines with more ripeness to it; anything with more fruit, or more residual sugar would be fun.” For Arce there isn’t any reason why you shouldn’t think of making a wine cooler like any other cocktail: you want to use a lot of quality bases that will stand up.

As far as what to avoid, Arce suggests staying away from anything too light, incredibly complex anythings, and a lot of wines coming from Mount Etna in Italy, where wines are characterized by spritely and crisp acidity. “These are already relatively fresh wines, adding anything to it would just make that disappear.”

“So many different wines in the world have their own integrity,” says Arce. “If you go to the south of France you’ll see them drinking rose and glou glou wine on ice.”

3. You don’t need to spend too much

Too many cooler recipes out there make a case for grocery aisle and convenience wines when, really, you want to use something relatively inexpensive but still of good quality. “Sure, in theory the best thing would be some super-rich white Burgundy,” says Arce. But, if you’re going to be changing the cohesion of the wine, there isn’t a lot of use in spending more than $15 on it, she says, adding that there are a lot of great wines to be found in that range.

Ultimately, says Arce, “if it intrigues you to create a cocktail where the base of it is wine, just go for it.”

Nine Celebrity Chef Restaurant Super Flops

September 27, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

These stories prove that opening a restaurant is hard, even if you’re a rich and famous chef

Celebrity chefs are good at many things — posing for selfies, autographing cookbooks, complementing each other on Instagram, etc. — but running restaurants is not one of them.

Although it seems that Food Network stars and their major network colleagues have no problem scoring lucrative restaurant deals, many of these projects fizzle out fast due to some combination of poor management, bad reviews, overspending on the build-out, and lack of involvement from the star chefs after the doors swing open. Of course, there are some obvious exceptions here: Bobby Flay, Emeril Lagasse, Tom Colicchio, and Giada De Laurentiis all seem to have the golden touch when it comes to opening restaurants that stick around for a while. But for every Craft or Emeril’s, there are at least a few Fuscos and Fat Cows that crash and burn faster than you can say “Let’s kick it up a notch!”

With that in mind, here’s a look back at nine restaurants from extremely famous TV chefs that bellyflopped, big time.

Ilya S. Savenok/Getty

Phil and Anne’s Good Time Lounge

Celebrity chef: Anne Burrell
City: Brooklyn
Duration: 11 months
The gist: After a nine-year hiatus from the restaurant industry, Tintin-haired Worst Cooks in America host Anne Burrell decided to team up with a bar owner friend Phil Casaceli on a Brooklyn bistro with metallic orange wallpaper and menu of “Mediterranean cuisine with Italian influences” that also, bafflingly, included a cheeseburger, Cheetos-crusted fried pickles, and a riff on pigs in a blanket called “hogs in hoodies.” While some of the food wasn’t bad, the restaurant struggled to find an audience, and didn’t make it past the one-year mark. Apparently, the good times between Phil and Anne didn’t last for very long, either: Casaceli claims that six months after opening, Burrell sent him a text about closing that read, “I will be fine. You will still always be the miserable fuck that you are.”

Daniel Krieger

Waxman’s + J Bird

Celebrity chef: Jonathan Waxman
City: San Francisco
Duration: 18 months, one month
The gist: Although Jonathan Waxman, a former Top Chef Master and frequent visitor to Guy’s Ranch Kitchen, is regarded as one of the pioneers of California Cuisine, Waxman’s was actually the chef’s first-ever San Francisco restaurant.

This Cal-Itala behemoth on tourist-friendly Ghiardelli Square failed to impress the locals, including the SF Chronicle’s old softee Michael Bauer, who wrote, “Too many dishes repeat the same formula — thick purees and raw greens with cooked proteins — and the results end up tasting one-dimensional.” Seventeen months into its run, Waxman decided to turn part of the space into a fast-casual restaurant selling the chef’s signature dish — roast chicken — but even this move couldn’t save this doomed endeavor: Both Waxman’s and J Bird shuttered for good one month later.

On the bright side, at least this project didn’t become a critical punching bag like Waxman’s much-hyped reboot of his ’80s hit, Jams.

Getty Images for NYCWFF

Scott Conant’s Post-2016 Italian Collection

Celebrity chef: Scott Conant
Cities: NYC, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas
Durations: One year to 18 months
The gist: Most houseplants live longer than Scott Conant restaurants. The Chopped judge lands on this list not for one super flop, but a string of them — all with interchangeable menus of city slicker Italian food — over the last three years: Masso (Las Vegas, February 2018 to May 2019), Fusco (NYC, April 2017 to August 2018), Ponte (LA, February 2017 to December 2018), and Imperro Cafe (NYC April 2016 to July 2017).

While Conant’s 2016 to 2019 run is impressive even by super flop standards, no closure will ever sting quite as much as Faustina, a hotel restaurant that the chef opened at the apex of his culinary career in February 2010 and closed before the end of that year.

Vivien Killilea/Getty Images

Rotisserie & Wine

Celebrity chef: Tyler Florence
City: Napa
Duration: One year
The gist: No true celebrity chef/restaurateur can resist the siren song of California’s Napa Valley, a wine region that is heavily trafficked by gastro-tourists during much of the year.

In late 2010, Great Food Truck Race host Tyler Florence decided to take a crack at Napa cash grab with the opening of this culinary marketplace/wine bar/rotisserie. Although the restaurant occupied a prime slice of real estate, and boasted a menu created with the help of San Francisco hot shot Jeremy Fox, the tourist hordes never quite materialized. Florence decided to close up shop one year in, with vague plans for a revamp that never actually happened.

After TyFlo was officially out for good, Mike DiSimoni, the developer of the space, told a local paper, “I think he had the concept that could have worked, but he didn’t stick with it long enough.”

Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images

Tribeca Canvas + Bisuturo

Celebrity Chef: Masaharu Morimoto
City: NYC
Duration: Nine months, three months
The gist: In 2014, Morimoto — a chef whose love of sushi is rivaled only by his passion for karaoke — turned a windowless, subterranean lair into his first (and last) attempt at an “American comfort food” restaurant with strong enchanted forest vibes. The result was easily the worst-reviewed New York restaurant since Guy’s American Kitchen and Bar.

New York Post curmudgeon Steve Cuozzo singled out the “kurobuta corn dogs” and “duck duck cous” as clunkers on the menu, as well as Morimoto’s mac and cheese, which the critic described as “limp elbows and four unidentifiable cheeses in a somnolent alloy that a bread-crumb sprinkling failed to arouse.” Morimoto closed the restaurant that summer and briefly reopened it as an Asian-inspired bistro with clubby decor called Bisuturo, but the redo lasted less than three months.

After hearing the news, Cuozzo tweeted, “Yes! Morimoto quits Bisutoro, causing it to close before critics waste time there hoping to be kinder than we were about Tribeca Canvas.”

Getty Images/Dimitrios Kambouris

Amada NYC

Celebrity chef: Jose Garces
City: NYC
Duration: Just shy of two years
The gist: In 2016, Iron Chef champ Jose Garces hatched a questionable plan to recoup some of the losses from his Philadelphia empire by bringing one of his most popular restaurants, Amada, to New York City.

The chef found a massive space in Battery Park City and carved it up into a main dining room, a cocktail bar, a tapas bar, a chef’s counter, and several private dining nooks. Although Amada NYC had all the trappings of a buzzy opening — acclaimed out-of-town chef, prime real estate, design by AvroKo, etc. — the critics and diners just didn’t care about this one. Garces shuttered Amada NYC a month before its second birthday amidst a flurry of lawsuits from investors waiting for the chef to pay them back (one pair of backers even referred to his operation as a “Ponzi scheme”).

The chef filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy and sold off his restaurant group later that year.

Photo: Daniel Zuchnik/WireImage

Fat Cow

Celebrity chef: Gordon Ramsay
City: Los Angeles
Duration: 18 months
The gist: Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant portfolio includes everything from fine dining gems to casino gastropubs to culturally-insensitive Asian clubstaurants, and yet somehow, the overextended chef manages to keep them open and busy. But Fat Cow, Ramsay’s admittedly stylish restaurant in LA’s most popular shopping center — the Grove — is the one that got away from the shouty chef.

In the pages of LA Weekly, critic Besha Rodell wrote that the branzino ceviche was “so besmirched by dollops of goo both green (avocado?) and yellow (horseradish?), it looked like a science experiment gone wrong.” The critic also complained that the batter on the fish and chips was “thick and doughy and more like something you’d find surrounding your deep-fried Twinkie at a sketchy carnival than the work of a kitchen headed by a world-famous chef.” Aside from this memorably bad review, Ramsay had bigger problems on his hands: the Fat Cow’s employees filed a class action lawsuit over unpaid wages, and the chef’s contractors sued him over an outstanding tab from the build-out.

Bafflingly, when Ramsay’s camp did decide to announce a plan to close up shop the team explained that “another restaurant bearing the same name is threatening Gordo’s place to change its name… or close.”

Getty/Jason Kempin

Fatbird

Celebrity chef: Cat Cora
Location: New York City
Duration: Seven months
The gist: Not content with merely opening a string of airport bars and college cafeteria salad counters, Iron Chef Cat Cora decided to tap into her Southern roots with the opening this chicken and biscuits restaurant in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District.

On an early visit, Eater NY critic Robert Sietsema encountered “flavorless” fried chicken, “repulsive” barbecued oysters, and a mint julep made with salt instead of sugar. This colossal misfire of a meal prompted Sietsema to wonder, “Do New Yorkers or even New York visitors want a menu so heavy with frankly stupid drinks served in jars?” The answer, apparently, was no: Cora shuttered Fatbird after seven months, and sued her business partner for reneging on a promised consulting fee, a move that would net her more than $550,000.

Getty/David M. Benett

Barbecoa Piccadilly

Celebrity chef: Jamie Oliver
City: London
Duration: One year
The gist: If Jamie Oliver’s career was Goodfellas, the opening of Barbecoa Piccadilly would be the part where the helicopter begins following him and Harry Nilsson’s “Jump into the Fire” starts playing on the radio.

Oliver shuttered six of his other restaurants in January 2017, the same month that he opened this second location of his hit London steakhouse. In the fall, the chef announced plans to fold his magazine and close a 340-seat location of another Italian restaurant amidst management departures at his hospitality group. By winter 2018, Oliver’s restaurant group appeared to be in free-fall: The chef closed 12 more Italian restaurants along with his year barely one-year-old steakhouse.

Since the shuttering of Barbacoa Piccadilly, Oliver sold or closed the rest of his UK restaurants, while also striking up a spokesperson deal with a grocery store chain and a consulting gig with Shell gas stations. “If you’re not bendy like this pasta, then you break,” Oliver told the New York Times last month. “And that’s what happened.”

(Dis)honorable mentions: Goefrey Zakarian’s pretty, but forgettable Hollywood brasserie Georgie (it lasted two years); Amanda Freitag’s briefly buzzworthy Empire Diner reboot in NYC (less than two years); and Carla Hall’s well-received, but ultimately ill-fated Brooklyn restaurant Carla Hall’s Southern Kitchen (a year and change).

And a note about Guy Fieri ...

Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

If you’ve made it this far down this list, you’re probably wondering: Where the hell is Guy Fieri’s Times Square restaurant? The answer is simple: Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar isn’t on here because it wasn’t really a flop. Although the restaurant received the most famous bad review in the history of food criticism, Fieri’s Broadway baby kept chugging along for another five whole years — that’s twice as long as any of the restaurants on this list. What’s more, Guido (as he calls himself) has since opened spinoffs of this very same restaurant in eight other cities around the world. The moral of the story: Never bet against the Mayor of Flavortown.

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Square’s Fee Increase Isn’t Great News for Coffee Shops or Their Customers

September 27, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Plus, plastic teabags leach a lot of microplastics, and more news to start your day

Square pricing change could negatively impact your favorite coffee shop

Square, the financial services and mobile payment company whose swiveling white stands are commonly found in hip coffee shops, is making a change to its payment processing rate that could majorly impact small businesses. Starting November 1 for existing clients, and immediately for new ones, Square will charge merchants 2.6 percent plus 10 cents for each tapped, dipped, and swiped credit card transaction, instead of the 2.75 percent it’s been since 2011, the company announced in a recent blog post. While this may not sound like a huge difference, adding a fixed charge of 10 cents means a significant price hike for small businesses with a high volume of transactions, but lower average transaction values — in other words, places like coffee shops.

Per coffee news site Sprudge:

As an example, on a $5 transaction for your favorite cappuccino, Square would take $.14 in their old pricing model. Under the new model, they will take $.23, which is just under a 67% increase. In fact, in order for a business to not see a rate increase, their credit card sales would have to average $66.67 per swipe.

This pricing update will almost certainly help Square increase its margin among smaller merchants, as the Motley Fool writes, but for patrons of independent coffee shops and other small businesses, two possible scenarios are likely: expect either to see the price of your latte go up, or to watch your favorite cafe fight harder to stay afloat.

And in other news…

• The hot new thing in beer is … foam? [NYT]
• A study from researchers at McGill University found that plastic tea bags release billions of microplastics when steeped in hot water. [The Guardian]
• Researchers considered what food could be part of a self-sufficient system feeding a colony of one million people on Mars. The answer includes insects and lab-grown meat. [The Takeout]
• The CEO of Impossible Foods had some harsh words about his fake-meat competitors. [Business Insider]
• A woman had to go to the hospital after downing a whole ball of wasabi, thinking it was avocado. Incidentally, Eater’s pop culture editor Greg Morabito points out, this also happened in the Whoopi Goldberg/Ted Danson rom-com Made in America. [People]
• Domino’s Australia is hiring a one-day “chief garlic bread taste tester” in a move that seems designed to be no more than an elaborate PR stunt. [LinkedIn]
• Bobby Flay and Seth Meyers make game day dips together on Late Night. [YouTube]
• Looks like René Redzepi is up to some stuff!

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My Obsession With Prue Leith’s Necklaces Led Me Down the Etsy Rabbit Hole

September 27, 2019 Admin 0 Comments

Until the “Great British Bake Off” host launches her own line of necklaces, we have Etsy

For years, I’ve stated that I couldn’t wait to be a woman of a certain age and fully dedicated to the “art history professor” style: textured caftans, layered scarves obtained on glamorous-sounding vacations, and impossibly gargantuan statement necklaces. Turns out, all this time I just wanted to be British chef, author, and television presenter Prue Leith.

My fixation with Leith’s taste in necklaces, which has been on full display in her role as a judge on The Great British Baking Show, is well-known. And I’m not the only one. U.K. media has named Leith a bona fide style icon (her necklaces, people have noticed, often match her statement spectacles, and her tunics and fitted jackets tend toward bright pops of color). The look is in such high demand that rumors at the end of 2018 suggested that Leith might design her own necklace line. But it has yet to hit stores so, inspired by a contestant’s recent use of a cowrie-shell necklace as a Showstopper decorative element, I’ve taken it upon myself to trawl the internet for Prue necklace dupes (sadly, finding the real deal wasn’t as easy as heading to a modern art museum gift shop — trust me, I tried).

Leith’s penchant for a single, large, round beaded necklace (versions have appeared in red and black, yellow, and blue) has drawn repeated, and not-entirely incorrect, comparisons to a ball gag. Versions on Etsy lean into the edginess by stringing the large bead on a thicker, more obviously rubber cord, making the cord a bigger part of the look. Other options place a smaller bead on a thinner choker designed to be worn closer to the neck.

Buy Red ball statement necklace, $68

Buy "Red Planet" blown glass choker, $45

What’s better than one ball on a cord? Multiple balls on a cord (and sometimes, those balls are accompanied by other geometric shapes to create more asymmetry). Necklaces featuring oversized ceramic spheres — in all manner of color combinations — are pretty easy to find online. If you’re feeling slightly sassier, there’s always the double-ball corded look, which sticks the globes on different loops.

Buy Ceramic bead necklace, $29

Buy Double layered ball statement necklace, $65

The second most common style of Prue necklace is abstract squiggles linked together on a chain. Close duplicates have proved difficult to find online, but I love these more-structured versions that build the piece on bold, clean lines:

Easily my favorite necklace Prue’s worn so far on GBBO, this number looks like a sleek, elegant piece of party confetti. The version on the show looks to be made of vinyl or plastic, but a ceramic version found on Etsy pulls of a similar vibe.

This ode to the Red Vine — or, a sweet that hasn’t been tackled yet on the show, the jalebi — contains a sense of chaotic whimsey inside a more conventional circle shape. Red rope necklaces online tend toward a chunkier, nautical vibe.

Buy Nautical knot statement necklace, $10

Buy Red statement bib necklace, $42

Perhaps the necklace that inspired the most online mockery, this number worn during the Season 6 premiere was dubbed the “Kerplunk necklace” due to its similarities to the playing pieces of the children’s board game. To be fair to Prue, the charms around her neck definitely have more heft to them, but to keep that “repurposed” vibe, this piece upcycles zip ties to create its statement:

• In Appreciation of Prue Leith’s Necklace Collection [E]
• All Great British Bake Off Coverage [E]

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