Chef Fest, Photo Credit: Chef Fest
As we say farewell to summer, we can give up the barbecue, ice cream, berries, avocados and watermelon only because of the fall’s coming bounty of acorn and butternut squash, apples, beets, pumpkins and figs.
To find out what we should eat and drink this season, we checked in with some of the world’s best toques at Four Seasons Resort Hualalai’s Chef Fest. The sixth annual event drew prominent chefs (including The Mind of a Chef’s Edward Lee and Pok Pok’s Andy Ricker) and foodies to the Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star Hawaii hotel for exclusive dinners, cooking classes and other culinary experiences.
Read on to find out how to make chef and restaurateur Neal Fraser’s Manhattan-like cocktail with pomegranate and walnut notes, where to sip an Italian hazelnut-chocolate liqueur in Orlando and where to find the ultimate gourmet pumpkin spice doughnut.
Neal Fraser, Photo Credit: Neal Fraser
NEAL FRASER
Chef/owner, Redbird and Fritzi Coop in Los Angeles
What fall food trends are you seeing?
I always love wild game in the fall. My favorite new ingredient is honeynut squash. Designed by Cornell University, it’s a small beautiful butternut squash that you can serve cut in half, roasted with honey, cracked cumin seeds and roasted benne seeds.
What are you excited to make this season?
Grilled Broken Arrow venison, squash flan, roasted baby Brussels sprouts, huckleberries.
Drink: Ivan the Terrible [Rittenhouse rye, Pama liqueur, Don Ciccio & Figli Nocino, Lustau PX sherry, Angostura bitters, Fee Brothers black walnut bitters with an orange twist] on the Silk Road Cocktail Collection at Redbird. I love bourbon. The recipe is on our website.
What’s your guilty-pleasure fall comfort food or drink?
I love bone marrow roasted in a wood oven with freshly grilled bread. And some 25-year-old Dalmore Scotch.
Thomas Bellec, Photo Credit: Thomas Bellec
THOMAS BELLEC
Executive chef, Four Seasons Resort Hualalai in Hawaii
What fall food trends are you seeing?
Get your mason jars ready, as it’s all about the pickling. Pickled fruits and vegetables are getting back on popularity, and there are so many variations to create.
I personally love pickling the Hawaiian mango. I served them in a simple salad or with a nice local goat cheese.
Which dishes are you excited to make this season?
I am very excited to be able to cook with some amazing sustainable abalone raised here in the Big Island.
Growing up on the Atlantic coast of Brittany, it was my job as the apprentice to tenderize the abalone between two granite rocks for the service. And I guess I lived it so much that now I am craving for more, but those ones are so tender, you just need to cook them. We will be serving them with some braised fennel and leek fondue and a Pernod butter.
What’s your guilty-pleasure fall comfort food or drink?
My guilty fall comfort food is a nice aged cheddar grilled cheese with an apple and Pommery mustard sauce.
Andy Ricker, Photo Credit: Andy Ricker
ANDY RICKER
Chef/owner, Pok Pok in New York City
What fall food trends are you seeing?
I see quail showing up on a lot of menus.
Which drinks are you excited to make this season?
I’m looking forward to fresh pomegranates so we can run our pomegranate caipirinha cocktail special.
What’s your guilty-pleasure fall comfort food or drink?
I don’t mix guilt and pleasure!
Fabrizio Schenardi, Photo Credit: Fabrizio Schenardi
FABRIZIO SCHENARDI
Executive chef, Four-Star Four Seasons Resort Orlando at Walt Disney World Resort
What fall food trends are you seeing?
I love chestnuts and wild boar during the fall! I see a trend of recipes having a Persian influence, with Persian ingredients.
Also, alternative pasta is becoming very popular, and many chefs and consumers are willing to use and eat smoked flour, farro, corn and rice in traditional recipes.
Which dishes and drinks are you excited to make this season?
I can’t wait to start offering Bicerin (Gianduja liqueur from Torino), which has a hazelnut-chocolate flavor, with torcettini, a soft, bread-like cookie that is buttery and almost caramelized.
For food: Rotisserie duck with honey orange caramelized Cortland apples, carnaroli rice budino and delicate squash.
What’s your guilty-pleasure fall comfort food or drink?
During the fall I love to eat cotechino (Italian pork sausage) and polenta taragna with fontina cheese and dry porcini mushroom sauce, and water it down with a good bottle of Barbera d’Asti Bricco della Bigotta.
Christof Syre, Photo Credit: Christof Syre
CHRISTOF SYRÉ
Executive chef, Four-Star Four Seasons Resort and Club Dallas at Las Colinas
What fall food trends are you seeing?
While pumpkins are always around in the fall, I see more and more varieties of pumpkin dishes making their way on menus this year. Piggybacking off of the massive Starbucks push for its pumpkin spiced latte and the trend of creative doughnuts, I look forward to making my own version of a spiced pumpkin doughnut, glazed with chipotle-agave syrup and topped with crumbled, smoked bacon.
Which dishes and drinks are you excited to make this season?
Being from Germany, I love sausages and beer. Every fall, I go hunting for wild game such as axis, blackbuck and whitetail. I am looking forward to make my orange-cranberry and cracked pepper game sausage with barbecue mustard and a cold Texas Shiner Oktoberfest.
What’s your guilty-pleasure fall comfort food or drink?
Call me old fashioned, definitely gluehwein. Since it is too damn hot here in Texas, I almost want to take it into my walking cooler to drink it.
Edward Lee, Photo Credit: Edward Lee
EDWARD LEE
Chef/owner, Succotash in D.C. and 610 Magnolia in Louisville
What fall food trends are you seeing?
Lots of fermented chilis and fermented honeys, braised offal, classic desserts.
Which dishes are you excited to make this season?
Chicken potpie.
What’s your guilty-pleasure fall comfort food or drink?
I have no guilt.
