Boston-area chefs bare all (their supplier info)
An alert reader pointed me to the local rag stuff@night’s latest issue, which has a number of food-related items. Of greatest personal interest is the article detailing some local chefs’ food sources. Meat and fish sources are all over the place, but some interesting trends emerged from the 10 interviewees:
- Russo’s is the overwhelming favorite for produce
- Iggy’s dominates in the bread category
- a few of the restaurants have more or less exclusive relationships with local farms for their produce
- Christina’s gets the most nods for spices, Eva’s Garden for herbs, Formaggio Kitchen for cheeses
Special props to Tim Wiechmann of T.W. Food for his particularly local stance on meat, fish, and everything else. Having said that, the overall level of local food sourcing was impressive. The profiled restaurants are relatively high end, so it’d be interesting to see how more affordable places measure up.
[...] fit for this blog. Of course, if the local franchisee wants to talk about their supplier info like local Boston chefs have done, that might be [...]
I read an article recently in another Boston magazine that also interviewed a bunch of chefs asking about where they get their produce. I was surprised by the consistency of their commitment to local. Then i went to Russo’s and inspected their offerings. In December, when there was still plenty of winter storage produce available, they had no local apples, no local pears. In fact the only local anything I could find was parsnips from Quebec. Also their produce was VERY commercial, shiny, plump, waxed etc. Nothing “alternative ag” going on there.
I can understand that people are enamored of that place, given that it seems to have a delirious abundance of crispy looking produce, much fresher than what you see in the grocery store. However, it’s very very commercial stuff. I’m sure its totally permeated with ag preservatives.
We asked if they had anything organic, and the answer was a very hostile “no”. If chefs are claiming that Russo’s means local or sustainable produce they are delusional.
We found the whole scene very ugly and alienating, actually. We couldn’t bring ourselves to carry a single thing out of there.
I can understand that they feel the need to import vegetables from outside the region, but why no organic whatsoever? It’s not that hard to get.
The other big source mentioned in the mag I read, which I can’t remember the name of right now, has been very hostile to certain visiting journalists trying to ascertain the provenance of their produce. Currently some BU students are doing their own investigation, since their dining services claims that this vendor is providing “local” produce.
I understand that it’s a big deal for a resto to buy from a local distributor rather than the big national ones, but it doesn’t mean the FOOD is local.