Chef Sound Off

What culinary trend do you wish would disappear?

Chef Nick DiCostanzo 

Owner of Mamma Francesca, New Rochelle

I’m not a fan of the fusion of cuisines, because each cuisine mixed in the fusion loses its point of origin. Whatever they may call the new cuisine, it is, to me, a cuisine without denomination, without identity. I believe classic cuisine is like a black suit: It’s never out of style.

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Chef Jean Le Bris 

Owner of Vox, North Salem

I think the term farm-to-table has been abused and should not be used lightly. Sometime it seems as if before the farm-to-table movement, fruits and vegetables didn’t come from the ground and that meat, poultry, fish were actually born on supermarket shelves! I am of course being sarcastic, but any restaurateur who takes their job seriously always tries to use the best ingredients, and, ultimately, the dish speaks for itself.

 

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Chef Sal Cucullo 

Owner of The 808 Bistro and 808 Social, Scarsdale 

The trend I am most sick of is, in essence, not even culinary-related. It’s the fact that social media has taken over mostly everything in life. It seems these days that taking better pictures, or having cunning phrases, all of a sudden makes a person qualified to be a chef or makes any specific dish taste better. Now if we can only taste the food through our phones.

 

Executive Chef Leo Pablo 

The Inn at Pound Ridge

When a beautiful plate of food hits a diner’s table, it can be a stunning, aromatic, well-plated, and romantic thing. But the scene behind closed doors is often quite different from what you’d imagine. For me, cooking is a pleasure, a test of patience, and, occasionally, a pain in the ass. For these reasons, I personally hate all food trends. The fact that they’re trends means they’ll eventually disappear. 

However, unless you have an allergy, I’m over gluten-free. We should go back to just eating what the chef picks daily from the farmers’ market and what he wants to cook that day—if you don’t have allergies of course!