Latest news with #Indienne
Business Insider
02-06-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
A Michelin-starred chef shares the menu-building strategies he uses to navigate rising food costs
Behind the plush seats and pastel-pink interior of Chicago's first Michelin-starred Indian restaurant — and one of the rare Indian fine-dining tasting menus in the US — was a risk. While restaurants continued to shutter or pivot in 2022 because of COVID-19, Indienne opened its doors. "That was, I think, the biggest risk I've taken," said Sujan Sarkar, Indienne's chef and co-owner, who has more than 22 years of experience opening and managing restaurants around the world. Sarkar told Business Insider that throughout the pandemic, the restaurant's vision — to spread a new Indian-food movement backed by high-end, flavorful dishes — stayed the same. "It can be profitable," he said. "We can build a successful business if we are consistent." But today's turbulent market, while different from the pandemic's, presents fresh challenges. The Economic Research Service's Food Price Outlook predicts that food costs will increase by 3.5% in 2025, and supply chains show no sign of easing up anytime soon. As inflation continues to grip the US and tariff negotiations remain in flux, causing companies to hike their prices, restaurant owners are preparing to face the brunt of the economic pressures. And while the industry has been battle-tested in the past, fine-dining leaders are perhaps at a crossroads: Shut down, pivot, or stay the course? For Sarkar, it's all about sticking to what's worked in the past. "We have to be sensible about everything, because the diners who are coming to dine in our restaurant are coming for something that we are known for," Sarkar said. "We are seeing that people are really appreciating what we do, and that's why the business is also sustainable, even though the cost is rising." BI spoke with Sarkar about his plans for navigating economic pressures and how fine dining could adapt to stay ahead. Sujan Sarkar: We run four different tasting menus. We have nonvegetatian, vegetarian, vegan, and pescatarian. With the vegan menu, my cost is lower than the nonvegetarian menu because of no protein. Our vegetarian and vegan menus do not include caviar, scallops, or lamb. When diners choose these menus, the price is only a $10 or $15 difference from the nonvegetarian menu. But when they opt for this, my profitability goes up because the food costs are lower. We also always offer a supplement course that people can add to their tasting for $15 to $24 extra. I don't do last-minute makeshift dishes. So if you read a menu before you come, it's much easier for you and for me as a business. When we have the planning in place, we can control the cost. If my restaurant is full, I can manage because I know how much business we'll do, and my forecasting is much easier. I also have four other restaurants in the city. We share a lot of resources, and that also helps us cut costs. How does simplicity and seasonality play into how adaptable you've been as a restaurant? An example is how we work with farmers to get baby corn. I purchase a guaranteed minimum quantity of baby corn every week so I can get better pricing and farmers can have secure revenue. It's local and seasonal, which keeps my costs down and also gives the farmers business. We don't grow a lot of vegetables here in the winter, so I have to rely on people from California who can get them. But I can't only give them business in the winter — there isn't a written contract, but there's an understanding that I will give them yearlong business. So they are also doing things for us, like sourcing baby vegetables, micro herbs, and edible flowers. That way, the menu can be consistent, and we can set its cost. Restaurants are going from highly priced menus to something affordable. We did just the opposite. We used to do a tasting and an à la carte menu when we started, but now we are only a tasting restaurant. We are not creating a lower-priced menu to attract more diners. But almost a month ago, I opened a new restaurant called Nadu, where you can get food that is only à la carte. We just took a different route at Indienne, but the people going appreciate that more because they know exactly what they're coming and paying for. We're getting an overwhelming response. It's still Indian food, but a much simpler version. Still, everything is cooked in-house, everything is flavorful, but now it's as close to our traditional Indian dishes as possible. What advice would you give to emerging chefs or restaurateurs trying to build something ambitious in a time when margins may be tighter than ever? I've waited almost 21 years to open Indienne. I could have opened before — I opened restaurants in so many different countries and all over America — but you have to be sure about what you're doing. It's not only about you when you open a restaurant. There are a lot of people who are going to trust you. If you fail, they fail as well. You may be good at cooking, but that's only 30% of any restaurant. You have to learn so many other things. Your people-management skills, your accounting skills, your interpersonal skills, your PR — everything comes into play. The restaurant business is very volatile, and the profit margin is getting limited every day. It's not easy, but just wait for the right time and get the right people by your side: investors, teammates, your mentor — everyone.
Forbes
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Dill Cocktails Take Center Stage At Bars Around The Country
The Seabass cocktail at Indienne features fresh dill and a dill dust garnish. As cocktails become more culinary in nature, and modern bars continue to overlap with kitchens, the bartender's arsenal keeps expanding. Ingredients usually reserved for Greek salads and roast chickens are now stocked alongside bottles of whiskey and gin. Add dill to the shopping list. The herb once relegated to savory cooking has begun popping up in cocktails, as more bartenders enlist its unique flavor to liven up recipes. 'To me, dill has a little bit of an eye-raising character to it,' says Logan Rodriguez, the head bartender at Smithereens, a seafood restaurant and bar in New York. 'I like to think of it as a flavor underdog, since I'd wager that the main flavor association in popular culture is with pickles and possibly tzatziki.' He says the herb's grassy, anisette brightness can cut through the flavor noise in cocktails like the Goblin, a Gimlet-esque recipe that draws loose inspiration from leche de tigre. Dill is merged with other savory ingredients, including tomatillo, serrano pepper and cilantro, to provide a counterpoint to coconut oil-washed gin and orange. At Little's Oyster Bar in Houston, mixologist Oliver Brooks features a dill cordial in his Dill Breaker cocktail. The cordial is made with fresh dill, citrus, sugar and water, and then blended and strained before it's eventually shaken with vodka, lemon juice and rich simple syrup. Brooks wanted to use vodka to let the dill shine, but he says that gin can also work nicely with dill. Smithereens uses dill's grassy, anisette brightness to cut through coconut-washed gin in the Goblin cocktail. 'The real limit is just how adventurous a drinker you are,' Brooks says. 'I think if you got it just right, rye whiskey would be truly groundbreaking, but it would be tough pairing. I also think some French rhum agricole or Mexican rum would make an interesting Daiquiri–style drink.' When experimenting with dill, Brooks thinks of complementary, non-spirited ingredients like citrus—specifically lemon and grapefruit—as well as cucumber, mint and parsley. 'Yogurt would also be great, either incorporated into a syrup or as some kind of spirit wash, which would lend a nice creaminess and would soften the dill a bit.' He can even imagine a summery Bloody Mary made with a light tomato base, and suggests consulting Scandinavian, Middle Eastern and Israeli cookbooks to get more inspiration for how to use dill in drinks. Isai Xolalpa, the director of beverage at W Philadelphia, also mentions Mediterranean cuisines as inspiration for introducing dill's distinctive, aromatic flavor into cocktail programs. 'Dill offers a refreshing and unexpected savory note, perfectly suited to contemporary palates looking for complexity beyond sweetness,' he says. Patrons of the W Philadelphia's Living Room bar can get a dose of dill in the Oaxacan Negroni, which Xolalpa makes with lemongrass-dill infused mezcal, red Italian bitters, sweet vermouth and super foam, a housemade egg white substitute. The drink is garnished with a trio of pickled onions for an extra kick of savoriness. W Philadelphia's Oaxacan Negroni features lemongrass-dill infused mezcal as its base. If you want to use dill in drinks at home or behind the bar, Xolalpa says that 'infusions work exceptionally well, capturing the dill's vibrant aroma, herbal complexity and subtle sweetness. When infused into spirits, dill highlights refreshing notes of anise and delivers intriguing layers of savory flavor.' Elsewhere, Michelin-starred Indienne in Chicago serves the Seabass, a dilly drink that repurposes kitchen waste. Head mixologist Akshar Chalwadi starts by infusing gin with steamed and blended smoked salmon and sea bass trimmings, a combo that is macerated for 24 hours and then strained. The cocktail also incorporates lacto-fermented cucumbers, which are steeped with dill for 24 hours and balanced with sugar, and the finished drink is garnished with dill dust. Dalida in San Francisco turns to nearby Presidio Park for inspiration. Bar director Evan Williams wanted to capture the flavors of the park in his beverage menu, so he incorporates a number of fresh herbs, herbal teas and herbaceous spirits. The Halfdan Was Here cocktail calls for dill aquavit, clarified granny smith apple juice, celery, tarragon, musk willow water and lime. In a bit of cocktail inception, it's topped with a vegan foam made from the same cocktail so drinkers can see how the texture changes the flavor. Halfdan Was Here is a park-inspired cocktail that starts with dill aquavit. Right, so it's not just dill-spiked Gin and Tonics and Tom Collins we're seeing on bar menus. Though, to be clear, both classics are great vehicles for dill. For decades, the herb has taken a backseat to other more common ingredients, and it's still not enjoying the ubiquity of something like mint. But bartenders are taking notice and harnessing dill's unique flavor. 'As we enter an era of mainstream experimentation in cocktail techniques, there's real novelty in branching out from herbaceous staples like mint, basil, rosemary and thyme and getting a little more culinary,' says Rodriguez.
