Shop Talk

Seasons 52 chef says fat does not equal flavor

Does food have to be full of fat, sugar and salt to taste good?

Clifford Pleau, executive chef for Darden Restaurants’ Season 52 chain, where every menu item is 475 calories or less, doesn’t think so.

“I haven’t touched butter in 10 years. You don’t need it,” said Pleau, uttering words that would make the late, great, butter-loving Julia Child roll over in her grave.

“I know there’s a slogan that says fat is flavor. Scientifically that’s not necessarily true.”

Pleau says fat is a flavor “transitioner”. For example, the fat in short ribs can enhance the flavors of a rich, bold wine by taking it to different parts of your mouth. On the other hand, he said, a mouthful of butter or olive oil would desensitize the palate.

There are no deep fat fryers in the kitchens at Seasons 52, which recently opened its first restaurant in Southern California and plans to have 20 around the country by this time next year. Fat isn’t ladled into cooking pans, as it is in many restaurants, it’s spritzed by spray bottle- wielding kitchen staff.   

So how does Pleau make the kind of food that one restaurant consultant called “craveable” and “indulgent” without leaning on the industry’s unhealthy habit of layering on sugar, fat and salt?

Check Out Line: Restaurants offer earnings to digest

Check out the latest earnings on the menu from restaurant chains. 

Panera Bread and P.F. Chang’s China Bistro have served up higher earnings, although Panera was slightly above expectations and P.F. Chang’s slightly below.

Panera, which sells bread, salads and sandwiches, said revenue rose but predicted lower-than-expected earnings for the current quarter.

P.F. Chang’s, which runs its namesake chain as well as Pei Wei, said higher menu prices helped boost the chain’s profits but analysts pointed to heavier promotions for the missed expectations. However, demand was better than Wall Street had expected at the Bistro restaurants and the company reaffirmed its outlook for the full-year profit.

Also in the basket:

Jones Apparel profit beat Street on strong sales

CVS reports lower earnings and cuts outlook

Diners say Olive Garden, Papa John’s are tops

Papa John’s and Olive Garden got top marks in their respective restaurant categories in the University of Michigan’s 2010 American Customer Satisfaction Index, while McDonald’s and Chili’s Grill & Bar were laggards.

Papa John’s took the lead in the limited-service category from Domino’s Pizza. Notably, this year’s win for Papa John’s came as Domino’s was getting a sales bump from its reformulated pizza recipe and crowing about how its new pies were beating rivals in taste tests. 

Papa John’s earned an ACSI score of 80 (out of 100), up from 75  last year. Little Caesar, Pizza Hut and Starbucks each made gains versus 2009 and were close behind with scores of 78. Domino’s score of 77 was flat from a year ago. 

McDonald’s, which has outperformed most other quick-service restaurants, was the only major fast-food company to post a decline. Its score fell to 67 from 70 last year. 

“Price was behind much of the improvement, but new products also contributed,” said Claes Fornell, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business.

Pizza Hut offered any pizza for $10, while Papa John’s combined similar pricing promotions with what customers perceive as high quality products.  

“As increasingly frugal consumers have made price more salient, McDonald’s has acquired more customers. These newcomers seem less satisfied, and were it not for the economy some of them would rather eat somewhere else,” Fornell said.

Restaurants fight recession with wine

Wine sales at restaurants and bars are falling as diners trade down to less expensive options or skip wine altogether to save a buck.  But some restaurants are cooking up contrarian strategies to squeeze sales from the vine.

California Pizza Kitchen took its wine list more upscale and wine sales followed.

The pizza chain launched the new wine list on Oct. 5. It includes Cakebread Cellars Chardonnay, La Crema Pinot Noir and Stags’ Leap Merlot for around $10 a glass.

“This is us going back to our roots. When we first opened CPK, (in 1985) part of the concept was we that we would have familiar wines at unfamiliar prices,” said Rick Rosenfield, CPK’s co-chief executive officer.

Morton’s steakhouse, on the other hand, is working the downturn in fine wine prices to its advantage.

It is hitting auctions as luxury restaurants clear cellars and striking exclusive relationships with wineries like Charles Krug, Gundlach Bundschu and Liverano when they have unsold premium wine.

Its limited-time Krug 1881,  which sells for around $13 a glass, is the restaurant’s top-selling Cabernet, said Tylor Field, Morton’s vice president of wine and spirits.

Attack of the snack tax

A worsening obesity epidemic and lingering recession have state and local governments scrambling for new streams of revenue — including taxes on soda and other sugary beverages.

That’s potentially bad news for the nation’s food and beverage industries, which are on the defensive as the battle rages behind the scenes.

If you watch TV, you’ve probably seen this ad from American Against Food Taxes, which is backed by the likes of McDonald’s and PepsiCo.

Nearly three dozen states already charge tax on sugary beverages. But, in most cases the tax is not high enough to curb consumption, said Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center For Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University and author of “Food Fight.”

The Rudd Center’s Web site offers a calculator that shows the revenue a city or state could potentially generate with snack taxes — which are being eyed as funding for everything from public works projects to U.S. healthcare reform.

(Reuters photo)

Check Out Line: For Unilever, P.F. Chang’s in a box

Check Out Unilever’s agreement with P.F. Chang’s.

Europe-based Unilever, one of the world’s largest consumer products companies, said on Monday that it has inked an exclusive licensing deal with Asian-themed restaurant chain P.F. Chang’s China Bistro to come up with a line of frozen entrees.

Unilever is already known to have products like Knorr soup and the Bertolli range of Italian frozen meals in its portfolio.

Now the company is diving into the Asian food arena, saying “the opportunity is significant.”

As for P.F. Chang’s, this could be a blessing at the right time, as the company struggles with consumer who are eating less at sit-down restaurants, and a looming federal minimum wage increase.

“This represents a fantastic growth opportunity for our company and allows our brand to reach more people more often,” said Rich Federico, chairman and co-chief executive of P.F. Chang’s China Bistro.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed and there is no word on when the new products will be ready.

Best deals for restaurant meals

When it comes to getting the most bang for a buck at sit-down restaurants, Olive Garden, Cracker Barrel, Golden Corral, Applebee’s and Chili’s get top marks, according to 5,000 diners recently polled online by BrandIndex.

Brands with the worst perceived value were Ground Round, Benihana, Bahama Breeze, Landry’s Seafood House and Hooter’s.

Sit-down restaurants have been discounting heavily as consumers cook more meals at home and “trade down” to lower-priced fast-food chains to save money amid a long recession that has sent U.S. unemployment to a 26-year high.

BrandIndex is owned by market research company YouGov.

Here is the full list of results:

(A score can range from 100 to -100 and is compiled by subtracting negative feedback from positive. A zero score means equal positive and negative feedback.)

CASUAL DINING — VALUE SCORES (July 10, 2009)

House-made WHAT?

“Sparkling or still?”   Remember when that question, asked with a certain downward gaze, would make you feel like a tactless tightwad for requesting tap? Did you try to lessen the shame with a smile and a clever nickname, like “I’ll have ‘New York’s Finest’”?   Restaurants and hotels across the country are blurring the lines between these choices, as they stop serving bottled water due to a perception that it is environmentally unfriendly. Critics object to the waste left behind by the plastic and glass bottles, as well as the fuel and other natural resources used to manufacture and ship the bottles all over the world.   “In the world of trying to live in a more green, sustainable environment, I think water is the most obvious, simple thing that we can do,” said Joseph Bastianich, a business partner of Mario Batali and co-owner of restaurants including Babbo, Lupa, Esca and Del Posto.   Bastianich told Reuters he is in the process of phasing out water across all his restaurants, following in the footsteps of other environmentally-conscious restaurants like Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California.   In its place, Bastianich is installing filters made by Natura Water, which purify a restaurant’s tap water and allow users to get still, sparkling or room temperature tap water. The restaurants can adjust the amount of carbonation, allowing them to tout the water as made in-house.   The Natura system, which comes with reusable water bottles for serving, can be rented for about $400 a month.    Company founder Marco De Plano, whose customers also include L.A.’s  Ciudad, San Francisco’s Foreign Cinema and certain Four Seasons hotels, said that with prices of high-end bottled water bubbling as high as $10, high-traffic locations can recoup their losses quickly.   “When we started this a year ago, everybody was talking about the green aspect,” De Plano said.    Bastianich says a liter of Natura water costs him about 50 cents and sells for about $4. That profit margin is slimmer than before, when he would pay about 80 cents for a liter of premium bottled mineral water and sell it for up to $9.    “We think the loss of margin is an investment that’s very worthwhile making,” Bastianich said. 

The sacrifice to margins would lessen as sales of house-made water increase.

As the backlash against bottled water heats up across the country a host of local governments have cut bottled water out of their budgets.  Virginia, Illinois and New York are among the states that have banned buying bottled water with state funds.

(Photos: Reuters\Eric Thayer)

Check Out Line: Global downturn – burger division

Check out the slumping global economy for burgers.   Burger King said it had an unexpected slowdown in traffic in March, which cut into the margins at the company’s restaurants.   The biggest culprits were Germany, the company’s second-largest market, and Mexico, the only market in Latin America where the company owns restaurants.   Burger King is attacking the traffic decline with “value” menus. In Germany, it is offering “King Deals,” which are “value-priced” combo meals. It has also relaunched the 99 euro value menu and is also opening more during breakfast.   In Mexico, the company is promoting its “Come Como Rey” (Eat Like a King) value menu. Apparently in Mexico, kings eat Whopper Jr.’s. (Or is that Whoppers Jr.?)   The company said it is seeing some improvement in April.    Also in the basket:   Wal-Mart CEO doesn’t see quick end to the recession   Consumers prices fall as energy demand slumps    Apparel firms partner with Yankee stadium (WWD, subscription required)

(Photo: Reuters)

Check Out Line: Supermarket food vs. restaurant fare

Check Out Americans’ dwindling faith in supermarket food.

A higher percentage of people doubted the safety of supermarket food in 2008 compared to 2004, even as a larger, but steadier, number continue to have qualms about what they eat at restaurants, according to a study by market research firm NPD Group.

The study’s results come as U.S. consumers cut back on restaurant visits and head to stores to buy items toward cooking more meals at homes to save money.

As supermarkets offer more prepared meals to cater to such cash-strapped consumers, they also face more questions about how the food was handled until it was served up, said Harry Balzer, chief industry analyst at NPD.

In 2008, 63 percent of Americans felt that supermarket foods were safe — same as 2007, but a 5 percent drop from 2004.  In contrast, while only 48 percent of those surveyed in 2008 agreed that restaurant fare was safe, that was only 1 percent below 2004.

“I believe that consumers’ slipping confidence in the safety of supermarket food is less about food safety and more about supermarkets expanding food service operations and offering more prepared, ready-to-eat foods,” Balzer said.

Consumers’ top worries – Salmonella and E. Coli. Eighty percent of the roughly 13,000 adults surveyed put those two as their top safety concerns in 2008.