In LA’s Chinatown, New Restaurants Face Sharp Opposition From Community Advocates Over Gentrification Fears

June 30, 2021 Admin 0 Comments

In addressing the forces of gentrification through Instagram, a grassroots organization sparked thoughtful discussion and action among restaurateurs

Voodoo Doughnut Employees Say the Company Is Firing Them for Participating in a Heat-Related Strike

June 30, 2021 Admin 0 Comments

On Sunday, Voodoo Doughnut workers walked out in protest of the Old Town shop’s working conditions during the heat wave. Now, employees say the company is firing them in retaliation.

Former Salare and JuneBaby Workers Unite to Address Toxic Kitchen Culture Following Accusations of Sexual Misconduct Against Edouardo Jordan

June 30, 2021 Admin 0 Comments

The “Goth Baker” Who Found Her Calling for Surrealist Cakes

June 30, 2021 Admin 0 Comments

Baker Bronwen Wyatt emerged as a trendsetter during the pandemic, and found a community of queer-owned businesses along the way

How Big Business Exploits Small Business

June 30, 2021 Admin 0 Comments

Companies like Facebook and Uber say they’re supporting small businesses while squashing them.

Meet the Women Leading LA’s Barbecue Revolution

June 30, 2021 Admin 0 Comments

From Chinese-American smoked meat mashups to brisket and ribs with a side of Southern comfort, female pitmasters are pushing barbecue boundaries in Los Angeles

Where’s Guy Fieri’s Sympathy for Restaurant Workers?

June 30, 2021 Admin 0 Comments

In a New York Times interview, Fieri — regarded as a populist hero — compared workers collecting unemployment to kids filling up on Doritos

Guy Fieri has spent the entire pandemic working to save restaurants. He partnered with the National Restaurant Association to launch a $21.5 million relief fund, offering $500 grants to hospitality workers. He fed firefighters in Northern California. He called out Jeff Bezos for not donating. He has used his popular, lovable, nigh-indestructible persona as a populist hero to shine light on small businesses across the country. But he also has a confusing message about the return of restaurants: Spoiled workers are holding the industry back. “You can’t sit on your ass and expect that it’s going to come to you because it’s not,” he told Kara Swisher on her New York Times podcast Sway.

During the interview, Fieri rightly chastises legislators for giving massive handouts to airlines and other big industries while the Restaurant Revitalization Fund keeps running out of money. “How about everybody that’s in legislation that loves to go to restaurants?,” he asks. “How about you just ask your local restaurant what you could do to help them stay afloat?” He also specifies that, though he brought up Bezos’s failures in the past, he’s “not into shaming people.” He just wants to save restaurants.

But what about the people who make them possible? Fieri seems taken with the idea that workers aren’t coming back because they’re too cozy enjoying federal unemployment benefits, comparing their reluctance to return — driven by concerns over low wages, a lack of child care and sick leave, and there still being a risk of contracting COVID, particularly as the Delta variant spreads throughout the country — to a child refusing a healthy dinner after snacking on junk food all day: “Why would you go and eat broccoli if you just got to eat Doritos?,” says the man who built his empire on serving burgers topped with mac and cheese and fried cheese steak spring rolls.

In this analogy, unhealthy-but-desirable snacks are unemployment benefits, or perhaps specifically the federal pandemic unemployment programs put in place through the CARES Act as millions of workers lost their jobs due to the pandemic. Meanwhile, broccoli — good for you but unappealing — is getting back to work. When Swisher points out that, despite the pandemic, the restaurant industry is overwhelmingly offering workers the same low pay and negligible benefits as it did in 2019, Fieri counters that “the restaurant business is awesome” to work in, and anecdotally talks about a friend’s son who works at In-N-Out, notoriously an outlier in the fast food industry with regards to working conditions.

“So for me, no, you can’t sit on your ass and expect that it’s going to come to you because it’s not,” says Fieri, referring to either money or to work. He suggests that there will be a domino effect, where a lack of workers will turn into a lack of work. “If we don’t get ahead of this and we don’t fix this, we’re going to get into a situation where everybody wants a job, and you can’t get a job.”

Fieri implies, in other words, that restaurants will now die — not because restaurants had to fight for even the most paltry financial relief, not because we didn’t cancel rent, or enforce better pandemic safety — because workers would rather stay at home and collect unemployment than get back to work. This has been a common refrain as America opens back up, with Republicans using it as fuel for cutting benefits to supposedly save the country’s economy. But that narrative is largely a myth perpetuated by business organizations and fast food corporations. As workers themselves explain, the jobs aren’t worth the risk of contracting COVID, the low pay, lower tips, and fighting with customers about safety protocols, especially if they have family to care for at home. “I haven’t been back since [early 2020],” one line cook told Eater, “because I can’t really trust any restaurant owners to provide a safe environment for their employees.”

Many hospitality workers aren’t even eligible for the extended unemployment benefits that Fieri’s argument presupposes. As states relaxed or did away with stay-at-home orders, many refused to extend benefits to workers who did not want to return to work for fear of their health and safety, with some state officials even asking employers to report those workers to the state. And yet, the New York Times has reported, where jobless benefits were cut early, people are still hesitant to return to work: “[Workers] are more likely to point to child care and continuing health fears with less than half the population fully vaccinated. Nor should it be surprising that the nation’s road back from the harrowing limbo of the pandemic, in which millions of jobs vanished and more than 600,000 people have died, is bumpy.”

Fieri does say wages, especially for back-of-house workers, should go up, but is vague as to when and by how much. He evades Swisher’s questions about a $15 minimum wage, unionization, and conditions at his own restaurants; when asked about workers at a Pennsylvania location of Guy Fieri’s American Kitchen + Bar alleging unfair pay and racial bias, he just notes that it’s been “resolved.” He also takes a firm anti-regulation stance when it comes to restaurants caught in the bind of relying on third-party delivery services to stay afloat, and being at the mercy of high commissions and hidden fees. “I’m not a big fan of rules. I think that all of a sudden [the] government jumps in and makes [it so] certain groups can’t work together and all this kind of stuff,” he says.

As a solution, Fieri posits that it “would be awesome if some gigantic philanthropist could say, ‘Hey, you know what? Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll make it so we’re a nonprofit delivery company. And we’ll make sure drivers make money and restaurants make money...I’ll put it together, and it’s going to cost me $50 million to make this thing work.’” A lot of things would be awesome, but our billionaires seem too preoccupied with going to the moon. Fieri just signed an $80 million contract with Food Network though, so maybe he could give it a shot?

Fieri is right when he says restaurants “can’t get the money out of their pockets that they don’t have.” With no philanthropic billionaires in sight, ongoing support for one of the hardest-hit industries in the pandemic is going to have to come from elsewhere — especially as the government continues to abdicate responsibility to restaurants and their employees. But at the very least, there needs to be an understanding that workers shouldn’t settle for the crumbs they had been getting, especially from someone who’s built his image and empire on being a supposed man of the people. Unfortunately in this instance, Fieri’s empathy has hit a wall when it comes to some of the people he could help the most. By comparing concerned, alienated workers to picky, spoiled children, he’s showing his well-hidden elitism and distancing himself from the very real people who make up his beloved industry.

You No Longer Have to Fly to Denmark to Get a Taste of Noma

June 29, 2021 Admin 0 Comments

The lauded Copenhagen restaurant of chef René Redzepi will release a home line of vegetarian and vegan garums

A fun part of my pre-pandemic life was thinking about all the restaurants I would never have the pleasure of eating at, and then feeling terrible about myself. Maybe they were too expensive, or too hard to get a reservation at, or just too far away. Then there was Noma, the award-winning Copenhagen restaurant of chef René Redzepi. It was a trifecta: Distant, truly expensive, and impossible to get into. But now, for those of us not lucky enough to fly to Denmark for a 20-course meal even without a global pandemic holding us back, the Noma Projects arm of the restaurant is poised to release a line of garum condiments.

Garum, reaching back to the Roman Empire, is traditionally a fermented sauce of fish, salt, and sometimes herbs. In Noma’s case, according to the Wall Street Journal, these garums will actually be vegetarian and vegan, respectively.

The egg white and smoked mushroom garums are, in some ways, a product of pandemic circumstance. The restaurant was developing fermented sauces as far back as 2014, when Eater took a look into Noma’s now-closed Science Bunker, but Redzepi and his team never had time to fine-tune their product. “It’s something we’ve been thinking about for many years,” he told the WSJ, “But we were always too busy.” Now, the restaurant’s Fermentation Lab is ready to introduce their first two shippable products to home cooks.

Ditte Isager

Because it took so long for these condiments to reach the market — they won’t actually be released until fall or winter, according to the Noma Projects website — the restaurant is, for once, not leading the charge or setting the trend. In the past year, with so many people stuck at home and cooking for themselves, tons of restaurants have come out with condiments and other use-at-home goods designed to improve the lives of home cooks who miss restaurants. You can buy chili crisp, barbecue sauce, or spice blends and hot sauces from any number of beloved institutions. Selling condiments that travel well was a way for restaurants to connect with diners during a time of intense isolation. But it seems the trend might stick around for good. And for Noma, a restaurant that a majority of diners will never get close to, condiments and other packaged foods that travel well could be the perfect way to offer just a taste of a very elusive experience.

Of course, like anything Noma does, these two condiments are the result of a very, very exhaustive creative process. They were, according to the WSJ, chosen from hundreds of vinegars, misos, kombuchas and garums developed by the restaurant’s test lab. Jason Ignacio White, the Fermentation Lab’s director, said that these garums work their way into all sorts of soups, sauces, and vinaigrettes at the restaurant: “The same way you might put a tiny bit of zest on a dish.” To make these non-fish garums, the ingredients — mushrooms and egg whites, in this case — are brewed in a warm solution of koji rice, the grains inoculated with an edible mold. According to the WSJ, Noma Projects will release more garums once the first two are out in the world, including one flavored intensely with roasted chicken wings. Redzepi told the Journal that he hopes the vegetarian garums will help home cooks transition to more plant-based diets. Internally, he’s hoping this product line will make the restaurant some money. Since Noma opened 18 years ago, according to Redzepi, the average profit margin has been only three percent. Ideally, these funky condiments will help pad the restaurant’s pockets a bit.

Admittedly, I did not spend a ton of time the past year wondering what Noma was up to, slightly more concerned with, you know, making it through a pandemic. But my friends are traveling again, posting about it on Instagram, and the good ol’ FOMO has come creeping back in. I feel perfectly content these days poking my head out of the house to have drinks, or even eat in a restaurant’s crowded dining room. World travel, alternately, still doesn’t feel that appealing, especially when even my local coffee shop still feels like an adventure. But topping my eggs or rice with a funky sauce made by some of the world’s foremost fermentation experts? Still pretty exciting.

Dallas’s Gayborhood Oak Lawn Is Making a Post-Pandemic Comeback. Many LGBT People Still Don’t Feel Welcome.

June 29, 2021 Admin 0 Comments

Activists and longtime regulars say Oak Lawn’s LGBT nightlife destinations have a long way to go in creating safe spaces for all people

How to Make Delicious, Crunchy Focaccia From a Hudson Valley Mainstay

June 29, 2021 Admin 0 Comments

Peak summer produce makes Talbott & Arding’s focaccia an all-star seasonal meal

Since 2014, Talbott & Arding has been a mainstay of the culinary scene in New York’s Hudson Valley. Helmed by Mona Talbott, a veteran chef and Chez Panisse alum, and Kate Arding, a widely respected cheese expert, the Hudson-based shop is well-known in the region for its meticulously sourced products and prepared foods. Now, after seven years in business, they are growing: This July, they will reopen in a completely renovated 8,000-square-foot space two blocks from their original shop. The new location will feature an expanded pastry program, a larger pantry section, and fresh pasta.

Talbott and Arding built their business around the way they like to feed themselves, offering high-quality complements — cheese, pastries, dairy, olives — to home-cooked mains, as well as full takeaway meals. Talbott sees their expansion as an opportunity to become “that go-to spot for superb quality, like the Hudson Valley’s Dean & DeLuca,” she says.

Their goal, she explains, is to supply everything their customers need for a perfect picnic, or a beautiful at-home meal. “We continually cook the food we want to eat at home,” Talbott says. “We’re restaurant-quality, but not restaurant-fussy.” Yet what that means has changed as the demographics of the region have shifted radically since COVID took hold; Hudson was recently dubbed the No. 1 city in the nation for net migration since the pandemic began. “A lot of people are living here year-round now. They’re working here, their kids are in school, and they want to entertain at home,” Talbott says. “They go to the farmers market for produce, and they come to us for cheese, charcuterie, and sometimes the more complicated entrees they don’t want to cook themselves.”

The Hudson Valley is awash in incredible products, thanks to the region’s many farms and makers. But one thing Talbott and Arding found lacking was a consistent supply of high-quality breads. So, they started making their own.

Focaccia was a natural place to begin “because it’s easy and very quick,” Talbott says. “No knead. Just mix, proof, and bake.” She drew inspiration from Caroline Fidanza, proprietor of the much-beloved — and much-missed — Williamsburg sandwich shop Saltie, whose focaccia Talbott adored. “We started using their recipe, barely changing it,” she explains. The Talbott & Arding team scaled the recipe for thickness, resulting in a thinner bread ideal for grilled cheese (now a Talbott & Arding signature offering), and also the perfect vehicle for simple, seasonal pizzas.

Talbott considers the recipe virtually foolproof. “It gets really crunchy,” she notes, adding that it’s crucial to allow enough rising time for the dough to fully double in size, and that the proofed dough needs to be docked evenly before baking in order to achieve medium-sized, rather than enormous, bubbles. It’s perfect eaten fresh, Talbott says — but also “delicious re-toasted the following day.”

Focaccia Pizza with Green Garlic, Zucchini, Ricotta Salata, and Arugula Salad Recipe

Makes: One 18-by-13-inch pizza (8-10 slices)

Ingredients:

For the dough:

3 ¾ cups (570 grams) all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon (16 grams) kosher salt
1 teaspoon (3.5 grams) active dry yeast
1 ¾ cups (402.5 grams) warm water

For the pizza toppings:

6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon flaky sea salt
4 slender stalks of green garlic, sliced into thin rounds (if unavailable, substitute green onions)
2 small zucchini, sliced into thin rounds (1½ cups)
1 teaspoon Aleppo chile flakes
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
Zest of 1 lemon
8 ounces ricotta salata, coarsely grated

For the arugula salad:

2 cups loosely packed arugula
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
Pinch of salt

Instructions:

Make the dough:

Step 1: In a large bowl, thoroughly combine the flour, salt, and yeast. Pour in the warm water (about 110 degrees) and use your hands to mix and fold the dough until all the flour is incorporated. The dough will be sticky.

Step 2: Transfer the dough to a plastic container and store covered in the fridge for at least 8 hours and up to two days.

Make the pizza:

Step 1: When you are ready to make your pizza, remove the dough from the refrigerator. Temper it for about an hour at room temperature.

Step 2: Use the olive oil to generously coat an 18-by-13-inch baking sheet. Transfer the focaccia dough to the pan and fold it over on itself. Let the dough rise in a warm place for 1½ to 2 hours, or until doubled in size. (Your rising time will vary depending on climate and humidity.)

Step 3: Preheat the oven to 450 degrees and turn on the convection fan if you have one. If you have a baking stone or baking peel, place it in the center of the oven rack.

Step 4: Coat your palms using the olive oil that pools in the sides of the pan, and gently press, stretching and flattening the dough to the edges. Use your fingertips to gently dimple the dough. Sprinkle the flaky sea salt and ½ teaspoon Aleppo pepper across it, then top with the green garlic and zucchini slices, and finish by sprinkling the remaining ½ teaspoon Aleppo pepper.

Step 5: Bake for 15 to 18 minutes or until the crust is golden-brown.

Step 6: Using a large metal spatula, transfer the focaccia pizza from the baking sheet to a cooling rack. Top with grated Parmesan cheese, lemon zest, and ricotta salata.

Make the arugula salad:

Step 1: Toss the arugula with the lemon juice, olive oil, and salt to taste.

Step 2: Cut the focaccia pizza into 8 to 10 slices and garnish each slice with a handful of the arugula salad.

Sara B. Franklin is a writer and professor of food studies at NYU. She lives with her twins, rambunctious dogs, and a flock of chickens in Kingston, New York.
Mona Talbott is the executive chef and co-owner of Talbott & Arding in Hudson, New York.
Louiie Victa is a chef, recipe developer, food photographer, and stylist living in Las Vegas.
Recipe tested by Louiie Victa

The James Beard Awards Will Be Fully Back in 2022

June 29, 2021 Admin 0 Comments

The James Beard Foundation is doing “an audit of policies and procedures in order to ensure a more transparent and equitable process for the future”

After taking a two-year break from award-giving, the James Beard Foundation announced that “the next evolution” of the James Beard Awards will take place in 2022. The 2022 James Beard Awards will reflect policy and procedure changes in light of an audit that began in August 2020 and will be completed this summer. Per the announcement, the Awards audit focuses on “a code of ethics, composition of committees and judges, criteria for winners, and developing policies and procedures for unforeseen events,” all with the aim to “ensure a more transparent and equitable process for the future.”

The James Beard Foundation essentially canceled its 2020 awards citing pandemic-related hardships in the American restaurant industry. The cancellation happened in a sort of slow-motion train wreck of crises: After revealing the list of finalists in May then committing to a virtual ceremony later that year, the Foundation announced in August 2020 that it would not be giving out awards in 2020 or 2021. The following day, Eater reported that the Foundation had quietly added a note to its list of 2020 nominees: Several had withdrawn their names. Within a week of the cancellation announcement, the New York Times reported that it wasn’t just the pandemic that had prompted the Foundation to cancel the virtual event. Two additional factors were at play: 1) the Foundation had learned that there were to be no Black winners and 2) as workers spent the summer exposing abusive conditions at restaurants around the country, the Foundation could not figure out how to account for all the accusations being leveled at current nominees. Some members of the JBFA voting committees told the Times and Eater that ultimately, decision-making surrounding the 2020 awards lacked transparency at best, or attempted to change the outcomes — compromising the integrity of the awards — at worst.

Instead, the Beard Foundation scrapped its usual awards and hosted an online ceremony via Twitter in September 2020, which honored the nominees (the ones whose names remained on the list), the America’s Classics winners, and previously announced winners in categories like Leadership and Lifetime Achievement. A planned 2021 ceremony will not be the James Beard Awards as they’re traditionally known, but seemingly something similar to 2020’s version: “a celebration of the independent restaurant community, honoring those who have made a significant impact on the industry and in their communities during this crisis.” More details on the 2021 event to come in the following weeks; as of now, the Foundation is only noting that there will be both virtual and in-person elements.

Disclosure: Some Vox Media staff members are part of the voting body for the James Beard Awards.

TUNE IN NOW: How Delivery Has Completely Transformed Food

June 29, 2021 Admin 0 Comments

A few massive companies, including Grubhub and Uber Eats, have transformed the restaurant industry and how we eat

These Restaurants Were Approved for Federal Aid. White Restaurateurs Just Hijacked It.

June 29, 2021 Admin 0 Comments

Over 2,900 businesses owned by women, people of color, and veterans haven’t gotten the sorely needed money the SBA promised them following lawsuits filed by MAGA-aligned groups on behalf of white restaurant owners

When Ruth Gresser heard about the Restaurant Revitalization Fund’s grants for restaurants that had been affected by the pandemic, she made sure to get her paperwork in order as quickly as possible. “We were prepared,” she said. “On May 3, we submitted an application at 10 minutes after noon, and the portal opened at noon.” Gresser, the owner of the Washington, D.C.-based Pizzeria Paradiso chain, applied for a grant and was relieved when her application was approved a few weeks later.

Gresser had big plans for the grant money: She was going to pay back rent, and set some funds aside for maintenance costs. Most importantly, she was going to use it to hire more staff.

“Last March, my staff of 170 went down to 20 people. Over the year-plus of the pandemic, we have grown back to around 70, but in order to operate my restaurants at 100 percent — I have four locations, and we started the pandemic with five — I would have to hire a lot of people,” Gresser said. She declined to share how much total funding she had been awarded, but said it would have been enough to restart full operations at all four remaining Pizzeria Paradiso locations and get them “through the next year or so of recovery.”

The money never came. Gresser is one of more than 2,900 restaurant owners across the country who may no longer receive grant money they had been promised by the Small Business Administration, thanks to a couple of lawsuits claiming that the funds — which gave priority to women, people of color, and other small-business owners who usually lack access to capital or have been historically marginalized — were discriminatory ... against white men.

From the beginning, it was clear that there wouldn’t be enough funds to go around. Congress set aside $28.6 billion for the Restaurant Revitalization Fund as part of the 2021 American Rescue Plan, which passed in March. The bill required the Small Business Administration to prioritize applications filed by businesses that are at least 51 percent owned by women, veterans, and people considered “socially or economically disadvantaged” — meaning people of color and people whose net worths fall below a certain net worth — for 21 days. After the three-week period passed, the SBA could begin processing applications and distributing funds to all other businesses.

On May 18, just over two weeks after the application portal opened, the SBA announced that it had received 303,000 applications thus far — 57 percent of which had been filed by “women, veterans, and socially and economically disadvantaged business owners” — adding up to more than $69 billion in requests. By that point, the agency had approved “nearly 38,000 applicants ... for more than $6 billion,” the release read. These initial recipients were all in the priority category.

Three days after that press release was published, a pair of restaurant owners sued the SBA, claiming the prioritization of businesses owned by people from socially and economically disadvantaged groups was discriminatory against white men. And on May 28, a federal judge in Texas issued an injunction preventing the SBA from distributing outstanding funds to applicants in the priority category who had been approved for their grants but hadn’t gotten the money yet. Gresser was among them. The injunction meant that the SBA could, however, start distributing money to non-priority applicants.

The right-wing advocacy group America First Legal — founded by former Trump advisor Stephen Miller and Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows — filed the lawsuit on behalf of white restaurant owners in Texas and Pennsylvania. The owners of the Penn Hotel Sports & Raw Bar in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and the owners of the Lost Cajun in Keller, Texas, are “being subjected to unconstitutional race and sex discrimination by the ‘priorities’ that the statute commands for minority- and women-owned businesses,” the lawsuit alleges. The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, another conservative advocacy group, filed a separate lawsuit on behalf of the owner of Jake’s Bar and Grill, a restaurant in Harriman, Tennessee.

Neither Janice and Jason Smith, the owners of the Lost Cajun, nor Eric Nyman, the owner of the Penn Hotel Sports & Raw Bar, qualify as socially or economically disadvantaged. (It’s unclear what percentage of the Lost Cajun is owned by Janice Smith; if the restaurant were at least 51 percent woman-owned, it could have applied as a priority candidate.) Nyman applied for around $640,400 in funding on May 3, the day applications opened. The Smiths applied for roughly $187,700 on May 5. Thus, the lawsuit alleges, it’s possible that “the entire $28.6 billion that Congress allocated to the Restaurant Revitalization Fund will be depleted” before Nyman and the Smiths “can even be considered for relief under the program.” (Each restaurant’s grant funding is calculated based on income and expenses from previous years.)

As the New York Times reported, the Lost Cajun, the Penn Hotel Sports & Raw Bar, and Jake’s Bar and Grill all received grant funding despite being non-priority applicants. They received their awards on June 1, after the Texas judge issued the injunction preventing the SBA from distributing outstanding funds to businesses in the priority category. And although the America First Legal lawsuit claims that the SBA’s prioritization period is a form of “race or sex discrimination,” the government’s definition of “socially and economically disadvantaged groups” isn’t limited to race or gender.

Bob Freeman, the owner of the historic Buena Vista Cafe in San Francisco, applied for a priority grant as a veteran. His grant was approved on May 28 — the same day the Texas injunction was issued — though he declined to say how much the total funding would have been. On June 12, Freeman received an email saying he would no longer be receiving the funds.

“The SBA is not able to pay 2,965 priority applicants — including yourself — who were previously approved and notified of their approval. SBA will not pay these claims because the legal conclusions in these court rulings would preclude payment,” the email read. “SBA’s leadership is frustrated with this outcome and remains committed to doing everything we can to support disadvantaged businesses getting the help they need to recover from this historic pandemic.”

“We could’ve been in the other group, except for the fact that both my [business] partner and I are veterans. He was an Army officer, I was a Navy officer,” Freeman said. “I spent three years, four months, 29 days, and some-odd hours in the Navy, and I’m getting penalized for it.”

But it’s unclear whether applying as a non-priority candidate would have been beneficial. The SBA has awarded grants to more than 100,000 restaurants so far. Of those, around 72,000 were in the priority category, according to the New York Times. Priority applicants have gotten roughly $18 billion of the $27.5 billion the SBA has distributed — meaning it’s entirely possible that the fund would have been depleted before the priority period ended. In an emailed statement, an SBA spokesperson said many restaurants in both categories would not be able to receive grants due to budget constraints.

Greg León, the owner of Amilinda in Milwaukee (who also spoke to the Times), was hoping to use the funds to expand the restaurant’s hours, expand the restaurant’s bar, upgrade its ventilation system, and — most importantly — hire more employees and give raises to existing staff.

“Although all the restrictions in Milwaukee have been lifted, we’re still operating at 50 percent because we need to bring in more staff,” León told Eater. “To bring in more guests, we need more staff, but we can’t afford to bring in more staff without making more money. So we’re caught in this vicious circle.”

On June 22, León received an email from the SBA referencing his status as a priority applicant. “[D]ue to recent court rulings, the SBA will not be able to distribute” his grant, the email read. But the Texas judge’s injunction requires the SBA to keep processing applications and distributing grants to those not in the priority category. Given the total number of applicants in both categories and the relatively small size of the fund, there’s no way everyone who qualifies for a grant will get one. “If Congress provides SBA with additional money for the Restaurant Revitalization Fund,” León’s notice read, “SBA will be able to process in the order received and fund applications as approved until the additional money is exhausted.”

Whether or not León and the more than 2,950 others whose grants were rescinded get funding is ultimately up to Congress. A bipartisan bill introduced earlier this month would add $60 billion to the fund; if lawmakers agree on a bill that provides adequate funds for the restaurants who qualified for grants but never got their money, the lawsuits will be moot. But if Congress doesn’t pass a second round of funding, restaurant owners in the priority category whose grants were approved but never distributed will only get funding if the Revitalization Fund somehow doesn’t run out of money — which it’s already about to.

In an emailed statement, the SBA said it would “continue to work around the clock to get the nation’s restaurants, venues, and other small businesses back on track.” Per the Counter, the agency is also urging Congress to infuse the Restaurant Revitalization Fund with more money.

Gresser, the D.C. pizzeria owner, is hoping that a second round of funding will mean there’s finally enough money to go around. “This program has been hampered from the beginning because it did not address the true size of the need that it was created to rectify. Instead, the law established a false scarcity by funding this program at [one-third] of the recognized, anticipated need,” she said. “Of course Congress could resolve this by passing the replenishment bill. My individual story is important but the bigger story is that given the way the program was funded, the full scope of the economic impact of the pandemic continues to go unaddressed.”

Like other restaurant owners across the country, León has had trouble hiring more staff as everyone scrambles to reopen at once. He planned on using some of the $285,000 he had been awarded to raise wages at the restaurant to make hiring more competitive. Now that he has been denied the funds, León said, it will have a trickle-down effect on the whole community.

“This isn’t money that’s going in my pocket,” he said. “This is money that’s going into the business. And not only is it going into my business, but it’s going to all the local farmers we work with, the fishmongers, the butchers, and the growers. The less sales I make, that’s less tax revenue that the city and county and state make. If I hire more people, that’s more payroll taxes, that’s more Medicare and Social Security we’re paying into.”

Gaby del Valle is a freelance reporter who primarily covers immigration and labor.

The Absolutely Essential Restaurants Across North and South Carolina

June 29, 2021 Admin 0 Comments

From Raleigh to Charleston, from Myrtle Beach to Chapel Hill

Inside the Fight To Become the Dominant Delivery App

June 29, 2021 Admin 0 Comments

Back in 2019, GrubHub CEO Matt Maloney was coming to grips with a new reality. “We believe online diners are becoming more promiscuous,” he wrote to shareholders after a particularly mediocre quarter.

Grubhub had spent years as the market leader in restaurant delivery. But by fall 2019, it was no longer on top. Earlier that year, DoorDash overtook GrubHub in sales for the first time ever. And competitive pressure was closing in from all sides.

Uber had gone public just months before and was flush with cash, which was good news for Uber Eats, its delivery service. And these competitors were doing everything they could to win our delivery dollars and investor funding.

The fight for consumers — promiscuous or not — was on.

In this episode of Land of the Giants: Delivery Wars, our podcast collaboration with Recode, we track the rise of the biggest third-party apps and how they’ve become giants in the industry, from the point of view of the people who built them — investors, executives, founders — and what motivated the key decisions that changed how delivery works and changed how we eat.

Listen to episode two to hear more about how these brands got started, the investors that supercharged them, and the lengths they went to in order to reach the scale they needed to dominate the industry.

Subscribe to Land of the Giants: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneIn

18 Restaurant Openings To Watch This Week

June 29, 2021 Admin 0 Comments

From the Editor: Everything you missed in food news last week

This post originally appeared on June 26, 2021 in Amanda Kludt’s newsletter “From the Editor,” a roundup of the most vital news and stories in the food world each week. Read the archives and subscribe now.

Just as June has been a busy month for reopening and reuniting across America, it’s been a busy month at Eater for major features and projects. So before we get into the news and openings below, I want to draw your attention to some special pieces we’ve published this month:

— First, our return to travel. We’ve been publishing updated guides and maps in our local Eater cities throughout the pandemic, but we took some time this spring to update over 100 maps across North America. Now you’ll have updated guidance for you wherever you’re going this summer.

— Over in the Pacific Northwest, we published a whole slew of stories exploring coffee culture in the region, offering guides, features, interviews, and more.

— A little further south in California, Bill Esparza has a four-part exploration of the state’s barbacoa trail. Based on 15 years of dining around the state and two months of intensive research, his feature explores stylistic differences in the region and uncovers an artist who executes “what might be the clearest, most comprehensive expression of ancestral barbacoa in the United States.”

— Finally, we just launched a podcast this week with our friends over at technology site Recode. It’s a food delivery-focused mini-series of their hit podcast Land of the Giants. Over four episodes, we track the impact of third-party apps like DoorDash, UberEats, and Grubhub have on consumers, restaurant owners, the industry as a whole, and delivery drivers. Stick around for episode four, where I co-host and get to talk about my current obsession, virtual chain concepts. We’ll also host a panel with characters from the series today at 1 pm EST.

Openings

As one would expect given the state of vaccinations and reopenings in the U.S. (plus pent up demand), it’s been a big month for openings:

— In Vegas, we have the long-awaited Resorts World, the first brand new resort to open on the strip since the Cosmopolitan in 2010. It’s also a resort that’s notably eschewing in-room dining in the hotel and instead telling guests to order from the 40 restaurants downstairs via Grubhub. Meanwhile, the Wynn just opened a lavish “supper club” and LA import Delilah.

— Los Angeles finally gets to try the latest restaurant from République’s Margarita and Walter Manzke, a french spot called Bicyclette Bistro.

— New York got a Bushwick location of cultishly loved natural wine bar Ten Belles, a fun bar in Williamsburg called Thief, a massive steakhouse in a big waterfront FiDi development from Andrew Carmellini called Carne Mare, a nostalgic Upper West Side diner Old John’s, and the newest addition to Roosevelt Island’s first hotel, Anything At All.

— Major Food Group’s glam rooftop restaurant Contessa and “New American meets new Korean” restaurant Cloud & Spirits opened in Boston and Cambridge, respectively.

— Elsewhere, we’ve got a new location of New York’s Lure in Chicago, a location of London’s Sexy Fish in Miami, and a location of NY/DC bakery Mah-Ze-Dahr in Virginia; two attempts at Chinese-Latin fusions opened in Philly and Miami; D.C. power dining spot the Oval Room flipped to a French-themed La Bise; Greenville has a new destination spot in Camp; and the very exciting revival of the historic Empress of China banquet hall, Empress By Boon, opened in San Francisco.

News & More

— The restaurant revitalization fund stopped prioritizing disadvantaged groups after two lawsuits (filed by white men who actually did get the funding) claimed the SBA was being discriminatory.

— Edouardo Jordan’s entire staff at Salare and JuneBaby quit after the Seattle Times published an exposé detailing multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against the chef.

— New York joined Pennsylvania in pulling back on to-go wine and alcohol sales for restaurants with pretty much zero notice. Restaurateurs found themselves suddenly sitting on thousands of dollars of inventory they couldn’t possibly sell in time.

— You could watch the documentary about Wolfgang Puck but you’d be better off spending a fraction of the time watching this beautiful profile of a tuna and seafood dealer in New Jersey.

— Charcuterie board businesses are a thing in Detroit.

— Houston’s getting a new, inclusive, progressive food festival this summer.

— Nancy Silverton is expanding to London just as Daniel Boulud retreats. (Also her ex, the influential chef Mark Peel, died this month after a bout with cancer.)

— Sonic and Dunkin’ launched their weirdly fruity and colorful takes on boba drinks.

Seattle’s Extreme Heat Wave Proves Too Hot for Restaurants to Handle

June 28, 2021 Admin 0 Comments

From cake shops to large pizza chains to high-end restaurants and a few bars, a good portion of the Seattle dining scene decided to pause service this weekend altogether, or reduce hours because of the oppressive heatwave

As Refrigerators Break and Air Conditioners Falter, Portland Restaurants Fight Rising Temperatures to Stay Open

June 28, 2021 Admin 0 Comments

Will Permanent Fee Caps Actually Rein in Delivery Apps?

June 28, 2021 Admin 0 Comments

San Francisco’s forever-ceiling on what delivery apps charge restaurants is the first in the country. It might not be the last — but it also might not work.

Last week, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve a permanent cap on the delivery fees third-party apps like DoorDash and Grubhub are allowed to charge restaurants for each order. It is the first permanent cap on delivery fees in the country, potentially heralding a lasting shift in the way that delivery apps charge restaurants — and consumers — as the industry emerges from the pandemic.

Complaints about exorbitant delivery commissions — as high as 30 percent in some instances — were not uncommon before the pandemic began, but they reached a pinnacle last year as many restaurants were forced to drastically alter their business models to include large-scale takeout and delivery operations. As cities and states across the country went into lockdown and began imposing onsite dining restrictions, many restaurants were suddenly reliant on third-party delivery apps for the bulk of their business. Restaurants operate on razor-thin margins in the best of times, so losing as much as 30 percent of profits on every sale was never going to work long-term for the majority of restaurants.

Faced with the annihilation of the restaurant industry, major metropolitan areas — beginning with San Francisco, and extending to Chicago, New York City, Portland, and Seattle, as well as many others — began passing temporary limits on what the apps could charge for delivery, with some cities setting a cap as low as 10 percent. Many of those temporary caps are set to expire in the coming weeks and months, prompting city and state legislatures to question whether or not to extend them, or make them permanent, as the restaurant industry continues to struggle.

The question comes at a pivotal moment. Delivery companies like Grubhub, Postmates, and Uber Eats had their most successful year to date, raking in record revenues, and yet none of them are profitable. (Only DoorDash managed to step out of the red last year, and it only did so for one quarter.) Meanwhile, as restaurants resume onsite dining as cities and states continue to open back up, many are still burdened by the debt they accumulated over the past year. Some have gotten relief from the government, but others are still pleading. And caught in the middle are consumers, who are shouldering more of the costs.

Katy Connors is the advisory board chair with the Independent Restaurant Alliance of Oregon, a nonprofit formed last year to advocate for small restaurants and their workers. She was part of the coalition that convinced lawmakers in Portland, Oregon, to approve a 10 percent cap on delivery fees last July. As Portland’s temporary restrictions approach their expiration date, she thinks the recent vote in San Francisco creates a path forward for cities in the rest of the country to enact similar legislation. “Permanent regulation is going to be absolutely necessary moving forward, because these companies are not regulated by anything,” says Connors.

Connors, who recently managed two popular fast-casual restaurants in Portland, recognizes that as consumer behavior shifts toward convenience — and as restaurant business models shift to keep up — it will be difficult (if not impossible) for restaurants to survive without establishing a presence on delivery platforms. But just as restaurants need the apps, so too do the apps need restaurants (for now). And as things currently stand, the relationship between restaurants and apps feels less like a collaboration and more like a hostage situation. “The way that the structure is inherently set up by these companies is sort of exploitative,” Connors says. “It’s not a partnership when it’s an exploitative relationship. [The apps] are preying on the fact that these restaurants have no other options, and that, at least during the pandemic, the diners had no other options.”

In April 2020, San Francisco Mayor London Breed passed an emergency order that put a ceiling on the total fee that third-party delivery apps could charge restaurants — including delivery commissions, credit card fees, and service fees — at 15 percent. It was the first of its kind in the nation, and set off a chain reaction of similar legislation in other progressive cities across the country. The San Francisco order was set to expire in August, but the Board of Supervisors vote makes it permanent. A pending amendment to the legislation does include a major concession to the delivery apps: permission to charge restaurants higher fees for “marketing” and “additional services.” If the amendment passes, restaurants in San Francisco could opt into higher commission fees (up from 15 percent to 25 or 30 percent) in exchange for better visibility in the app. “The delivery companies were living on 15 percent, full stop,” says Laurie Thomas, the executive director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association. “Now they have the ability to add marketing [to the bill], so it’s kind of a give.”

Amid the throes of the pandemic and the growing threat of fee caps across the country, and in response to growing resentment from restaurant owners and diners alike, DoorDash, still the largest delivery platform in the country, responded by introducing this exact pricing model, which it calls “partnership plans.” Under the new, tiered commission structure, restaurants can choose between three products — DoorDash Basic, DoorDash Plus, and DoorDash Premier, for 15 percent, 25 percent, or 30 percent commission fees, respectively. With each tier, delivery radiuses increase, the algorithm bumps a restaurant’s chicken wings or jalapeno poppers further up the rankings, and the restaurant gets access to the app’s high-value customers, who tend to order the most food. DoorDash has explicitly positioned the tiered system as a marketing service, a move that’s in line with the proposed amendment in San Francisco.

The new program is supposed to be more transparent than its previous model. Conveniently, it also allows delivery companies to potentially bypass fee caps. Grubhub also offers a tiered commission structure, while Uber Eats offers restaurants a variety of promotional and marketing tools, such as the ability to pay for sponsored listings. At the end of the day, restaurants with more financial resources are more likely to win the delivery app game.

However, Thomas, who owns two restaurants in the Bay Area, says she’s in favor of the amendment. “Some restaurants may want to pay more for ads and promotions, and for the ability to offer discounts to customers, so why limit their ability? What we don’t want is a situation where someone doesn’t understand the contract, or worse, can’t easily get out of a contract if they misunderstand, or feels forced to sign a contract because they need X but not Y ... As long as it’s clear and not a blackmail situation, why not allow them to have marketing capabilities?”

Fee caps have likely helped some restaurants retain a bigger piece of the delivery pie, but as the platforms struggle to reach profitability — Grubhub CEO Matt Maloney recently described delivery as a “crummy business” — there remains enormous pressure to maximize revenue. If they’re limited in what they can charge restaurants, the obvious alternative source is their other customer: the consumer. Following the implementation of caps in various cities, DoorDash began charging diners what it called a “regulatory response fee.” The fees, which were introduced to offset losses in commissions, range from $1 to $2.50 per order. Uber Eats also raised prices on consumers in response to temporary caps, adding similar $2 fees in more than a dozen markets, including Boston, Chicago, Oregon, and Washington.

Last year, as most of the restaurant industry shifted to delivery-only, the major apps unsurprisingly had record years. DoorDash saw revenues grow to $2.8 billion in 2020, up from $885 million in 2019; Grubhub’s revenue grew by a relatively modest but still impressive 39 percent, to $1.8 billion; and Uber Eats saw revenues more than double over the course of the year, pulling in $1.3 billion in the last quarter of 2020 alone. Despite staggering revenue growth, delivery apps are struggling to turn a profit: DoorDash lost $461 million, GrubHub $156 million, and Uber Eats a stunning $873 million.

It would seem that, at some point, these companies are going to have to make money if they want to continue operating. And the only way for them to do that is to generate more money per delivery. (DoorDash, according to a Deutsche Bank analysis cited by the Wall Street Journal, ultimately pockets just 2.5 percent of each order.) And someone is going to have to pay for it, whether it’s restaurants or consumers. But the question remains: If delivery companies couldn’t figure out how to make money during a pandemic that forced everyone to use their apps in record numbers, will they ever figure it out?

When reached for comment, a representative for DoorDash said that delivery caps are having unintended and harmful consequences, and that DoorDash will continue to offer its tiered fee structure in markets with temporary caps. Grant Klinzman, a spokesperson for Grubhub, told Eater via email that fee caps are “arbitrary price controls and exactly the wrong thing to do when restaurants need more support, visibility, and order volume than ever,” and says that a permanent cap would result in long-term damage to restaurants, diners, delivery workers, and local economies. “Fee caps limit how restaurants, and especially small and independent establishments, can effectively market themselves to drive demand, therefore severely limiting how many customers and orders we can bring to these restaurants.”

Thomas doesn’t think there’s any way to make everyone — the restaurants, the apps, the drivers, and the consumers — happy, but thinks San Francisco’s approach is a solid step toward equity. Still, not everyone is convinced that a tiered (and self-proclaimed “transparent”) approach is the right way forward. “Just because they’re coming up with these new transparent fee structures does not necessarily mean that it’s going to benefit the restaurant,” Connors says. “Restaurants deal with very, very, very slim profit margins during regular times, and these are obviously unprecedented times.”

For the time being, it remains unclear if other cities and states will extend delivery commission caps, or make them permanent, though San Francisco also led the way with its initial ceiling on fees. Given the desire and ability of the apps to end-run oversight — their entire model was built on regulatory arbitrage, and they collectively spent more than $200 million just last year to keep gig workers classified as contractors, keeping them barred from employee rights including health insurance and collective bargaining — it might not matter much if the caps are extended at all. In Chicago, where a temporary fee reduction expired in April, Alderman Scott Waguespack says it may not be possible to erect a truly permanent cap. “Any permanent law may bring a lawsuit by apps who aren’t following the laws anyway,” he says, alluding to the fact that the apps restructured their fees in order to get around the city’s caps (something they also did in New York City). “They decided to disregard the legal and legislative intent of the caps.”

Massachusetts’s expired on June 15, and restaurant owners have been left wondering if the state legislature will act to extend the ordinance on a temporary or permanent basis. Bob Luz, the president and CEO of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, believes that the state should have extended the fee cap, but says that the fact that it wasn’t extended “doesn’t bode well” for restaurants in the state. “Not many people were calling Porto or Davio’s to have a high-end meal delivered before the pandemic,” he says. “But that behavior has exploded, and it looks like it’s here to stay. And now restaurants and delivery apps need to figure out a business relationship that works for both parties.”

Pellet Ice Is Extremely Overrated

June 28, 2021 Admin 0 Comments

It’s the worst kind of ice, so why is it everywhere?

Editor’s note: The following is the — frankly, wrong — take from one Eater writer. There was internal disagreement on the staff, but we decided to publish to promote dialogue and open communication.

Every once in a while, a food opinion will proliferate so fast and quietly that one day you look around and it’s everywhere. Suddenly, everyone is making oatmeal like oats are going extinct, or putting matcha in everything, or acting like they always knew what chile crisp was even though they are white. Regardless of how one may personally feel about each flavor (for me, chile crisp is great, while oatmeal is the devil), it’s disorienting every time. When did everyone start talking about this? How did this opinion crystalize? And why did nobody consult me?

This is how I feel about pellet ice.

Over the past few years, and especially within the past year, a fanaticism has grown around pellet ice, also known as nugget ice or “Sonic ice,” as it’s the main kind of ice used by Sonic Drive-In. Pellet ice is pinky-nail sized ice made from pressed ice flakes; it absorbs beverages quickly and melts faster. It looks like little tater tots floating in your drink. And this, I guess, is what people want.

It turns out that the pellet ice craze didn’t come on like an unexpected comet, as I imagined it, but in fact has been incubating — like an alien virus — for years. In 2016, Food52 published a recipe for Sonic ice, with author Amanda Sims saying it was one of the main reasons she ever went to Sonic. In 2018, food writer and former Eater editor Paula Forbes wrote about the public devotion to pellet ice, with fans (including actor Matthew McConaughey) seeking out specialty ice-makers to have it at home. Forbes called it “the best ice,” interviewing one bartender who extolled its “porous and chewable” nature. On The Kitchn, Hali Bey Ramdene wrote that it’s the “best thing” on Sonic’s menu, and Sonic even began selling 10-lb bags of ice because of demand. Even GE advertises its Opal Nugget Ice Maker, which it began making in 2015, with the slogan “The Good Ice.”

Earlier this year, Helen Rosner, also a former Eater editor, further elaborated on the widespread love for pellet ice in the New Yorker. She describes how its flakes evoke a “well-laminated pastry,” and the sound of it softly stirred in a drink is, unlike the harsh clunking of cubed ice, is “like someone shaking an afuche-cabasa in the apartment next door.” No one has ever described ice so lovingly, and when she said “the good ice is pellet ice, and to know it is to need it,” I wanted to believe her.

But I cannot.

I remain completely baffled as to how pellet ice has gotten this reputation, given the actual experience of having it served to me in drinks. Those who love it argue that, thermodynamically, pellet ice melts slower than cubed ice. But, all apologies to Planck, every time I order a cocktail served over pellet ice, it arrives tasting immediately watered down. Pellet ice fills a glass in a way that makes me suspicious, like there’s too little drink in there for what I paid for — one sip and already I’m almost done. Every drink through the straw seems like half air, which never allows me to taste the actual liquid I wanted to drink without tasteless filler. This is an objectively awful experience, and I have been quietly seething every time I come across some post about how they will search far and wide to fill their drinks with bite-sized freezer burn. Like, just get a slushee!!! Am I so out of touch? No, it is the pellet ice fanatics who must be wrong.

In my search for an explanation, I reread the essays and Instagram posts. I read the tweets telling me how wrong I am. The common denominator seems to be that for the fans, pellet ice is not for keeping one’s drink cold (hm), but for chomping. Rosner says it has a “yielding texture perfect for chewing.” Forbes writes that “the goal is to have some ice left over once you’ve finished your drink for, um, snacking.” In selling folks on its at-home ice maker, GE says traditional cube ice “is made from hard frozen cubes which are hard to chew and don’t retain flavors.” Ramdene even admits that “it melts quickly, and it really takes up a ton of space in the glass, but I just love the experience of taking a sip of a drink and having a bunch of itty-bitty glaciers to crunch on.” Here I was, thinking the purpose of ice was to optimize the drinking experience; I judged pellet ice by those metrics, and assuming everyone else was too. How wrong of me. You all are just trying to eat ice with a spoon.

People seem to struggle with accepting that someone else feels differently — especially about food — than they do. I’m aware of this in myself and in others. The idea of crunching down on a piece of ice seems deeply uncomfortable to me, and I could not fathom a world in which the desire to chew ice was someone’s primary motivation in making a bev. But as I write, I’m eating my morning cottage cheese, a meal my spouse can’t even watch me eat because they think it’s so disgusting. It’s good to be reminded that your point of view is yours alone, and that humans have the capacity to live in so many ways.

That being said, pellet ice sucks.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Coconut Milk

June 28, 2021 Admin 0 Comments

What it is, what it isn’t, and why you should never use the light stuff in your cooking

I couldn’t tell you when, exactly, the bookmark bar I use to digitally dog-ear recipes I want to cook became overrun with coconut milk. Every week I scan through the list of titles, planning my meals and grocery runs accordingly. And every week, it seems, I find myself picking up a can or two of coconut milk, not just for curries and soups but also in the service of culturally free-flowing dishes like Hetty McKinnon’s Turmeric and Coconut-Braised Cabbage With Chickpeas, Kay Chun’s Coconut-Miso Salmon Curry, or Sara Deseran’s Coconut Horchata.

As it turns out, I’m not the only person buying up countless cans: Sales of coconut milk are skyrocketing in North America, driven in part by what researchers describe as a growing demand for healthy, plant-based beverages, an increase in lactose and dairy allergies, and consumer interest in so-called “exotic” flavors such as those used in Asian cuisine, including coconut. (Never mind the fact that coconut milk is widely used not only in South and Southeast Asia but also across the Caribbean, Latin America, and East and West Africa. But hey, leave it to the forecasters to generalize.)

With coconut milk sales expected to increase, and presumably more coconut-milk-using recipes expected to land in my bookmarks, I found myself wondering about this so-called-exotic ingredient. What is coconut milk, really? Where does it come from? And will someone please help me explain the difference between coconut milk, light coconut milk, coconut cream, and cream of coconut? Armed with a million questions, I set out to learn more.

Coconut milk: What is it?

First things first: Coconut milk is the liquid extracted from the meat of a mature coconut. Sounds simple enough, but sometimes people confuse the liquid splashing around inside a coconut shell with coconut milk. This is not so: That liquid is coconut water, a delicious coconut byproduct in its own right, but not the same as coconut milk.

How is coconut milk made?

The extraction process is straightforward: Crack open a coconut, use a sharp tool to scrape the white meat into shredded bits, add a little hot water to soften it, and squeeze, almost as if you were…milking the coconut. This can be done by hand: The Thai chef and cookbook author Pailin Chongchitnant has a great video showing the old-fashioned extraction technique in Thailand, which involves the use of a special bench with a scraper known as a “rabbit.” Modern industrial methods follow a similar technique, but at scale.

In parts of the world where coconuts abound, you might be lucky enough to get your hands on ultra-fresh “raw” coconut milk. But most commercial coconut milk is processed before packaging to make it easier to export. That can involve adding stabilizers or sweeteners (more on that in a minute) and, if the milk is being canned, homogenization and heat treatment. Or if it’s going into a carton, it will go through ultra-high-temperature processing.

What kinds of coconuts are we talking about here?

Most of the coconut milk you find in stores is made from mature coconuts (the brown, hairy kind), because the older fruit has more fat and a deeper coconut flavor. Young coconuts— the whitish or pale-green ones you might see with a straw sticking out of the top at a tropical resort — are generally better for providing light, sweet coconut water.

Okay, so what’s in a can of coconut milk?

If you open a can of coconut milk without shaking it up first, you may notice a few different kinds of coconut stuff inside. “Within a single can, you can have two or three distinct layers of coconut, which is even more noticeable if the can is cold,” says Cheetie Kumar, chef and owner of Garland, an Indian-Asian-Southern restaurant in Raleigh, North Carolina. The top layer in a can of coconut milk is often a semisolid, creamy white mass, while beneath it there’s a thinner, more watery layer.

Much like the cream rising to the top of fresh cow’s milk, that thick top layer is coconut cream, the fattiest and most flavorful part of coconut milk. (You can recombine the components by shaking it like you would a vinaigrette.) If you were to cook coconut cream slowly so all the water evaporates, you’d wind up with coconut oil.

That said, the layers aren’t always so defined. Some brands use more stabilizers and emulsifiers to prevent separation, and most recipes don’t differentiate between using coconut cream and coconut milk. All of which leads us to our next point, about the sometimes confusing language on coconut milk labels.

So if all coconut milk already contains coconut cream, what’s the difference between cans labeled “coconut milk” and those called “coconut cream?”

Great question. A can of coconut cream contains only that rich, fatty top layer; it’s sometimes called for in dessert recipes. But the chefs I spoke to all recommend buying coconut milk and not cream, because you get more control and more options — if you need just the cream, you can scoop it off the top, or you can shake it up and have a more general-use coconut milk.

What about the stuff called “cream of coconut”?

The best known cream of coconut brand is Coco Lopez. Made in Puerto Rico, it’s a thick, heavily sweetened, highly processed coconut milk product meant for cocktails (i.e., pina coladas). While tasty, cream of coconut is not a substitute for coconut milk or cream!

Sophia Pappas

Okay, then what’s “light” coconut milk?

Light coconut milk is basically the watery part, with all or most of the creamy fat scraped off. It’s not a great choice if you’re trying to impart a rich coconut flavor into a dish. “Never buy light coconut milk for anything — I don’t care if you’re on a diet!” says Chongchitnant. “You might as well add water, because all the flavor in coconut milk is in its fat. So when you remove the fat, you remove the flavor.”

How about all those coconut beverages I see in the refrigerator section?

Nope, also not substitutes for coconut milk. Coconut beverages like this or this might have a vague trace of coconut milk, but usually all the fat has been removed, which is why they taste like water.

Should I buy sweetened or unsweetened coconut milk?

Although coconut milk contains a hint of natural sweetness, it’s best bought unsweetened. If you’re making a dessert or drink on the sweet side, you can always add your own sugar — but you can’t take sugar out of a product it’s already mixed into.

Right. So what should I look for when shopping for coconut milk?

“As few ingredients as possible,” says Natalia Pereira, chef and owner of the Brazilian restaurant Woodspoon in Los Angeles. The label should ideally list just coconut and water — no added sugars, no unpronounceable thickeners or stabilizers. (A passable third ingredient is a bit of guar gum, which helps with texture.)

Canned brands are more widely available in the U.S., though Chongchitnant prefers the kind sold in cartons, as it’s been processed at a higher temperature for less time, resulting in a better flavor. And while most brands sold here don’t specify the percentage of coconut to water, a quick glance at the fat and calorie count will give you an indication of how rich a given can is: The more calories, the less it’s watered down.

As for brands, Aroy-D and Chaokoh (both from Thailand) make high-quality cans and cartons. Thai Kitchen (which also offers an organic line) and the Whole Foods organic 365 brand are also good.

How should I store it?

After opening, store any unused coconut milk in a clean, clear container for about five days. Don’t leave it in the can or carton, which makes it harder to tell if something has gone off. It’s natural for separation to occur here; simply shake to re-emulsify.

It is possible to freeze coconut milk, but its texture will be grainy when it thaws. This might be fine if you’re cooking a dish like a curry with a lot of other flavors to mask it, but probably won’t work for more delicate desserts or light soups.

Better yet, if you’re left with a small amount of coconut milk kicking around after a recipe, try one of these: Whisk in a bit of sugar or honey, a few sprigs of lavender, and a pinch of salt to freeze into popsicles (per Pereira); add it to smoothies or coffee with a bit of sugar (per Chongchitnant); or stir it into rice, lentils, soups and stews (per Kumar). “Anywhere you might finish something with butter, milk, or cream, try coconut milk,” says Kumar.

What to cook with coconut milk

Coconut milk is incredibly versatile and can be used in both sweet and savory applications. In largely dairy-free Thai cuisine, explains Chongchitnant, it’s used to add creaminess and fat to countless dishes, from sauces and dressings to curries and stews to puddings and dessert soups. Brazilian native Pereira uses it to add richness to moqueca (a seafood stew), desserts like flan and ice cream, and blended drinks for body and texture. Kumar’s family is from northern India, where cow’s milk is more common than coconut, but she fell in love with its flavor as a professional chef in the American South, where she now uses it to cook everything from pilaf-style rice to slow-braised lamb or beef to sweet caramels. “Coconut milk can tolerate a lot of different spices and complexities of flavor, takes acid so well, and brings up the fruity nuances of everything it’s involved with,” she says. “I can’t really think of an application where I wouldn’t use it.”

Here are a few more recipe ideas to get you started:

Pailin Chongchitnant’s Coconut Rice Pudding with Longans

Pailin Chongchitnant’s Panang Curry

Natalia Periera’s Moqueca

Brazilian Kitchen Abroad’s Batida de Coco

Cheetie Kumar’s Shrimp & Green Beans with Coconut-Lentil Chili Crisp

Cheetie Kumar’s Gingery Carrots with Pistachios and Coconut-Buttermilk Sauce

Meera Sohda’s Sri Lankan Dal With Coconut and Lime Kale

Leslie Enston’s Sos Pwa Nwa and Mayi Moulen (Black Bean Sauce and Cornmeal)

Anna Watson Carl’s Coconut Pistachio Semifreddo