Whether dining as a group in a restaurant or gathered in a ballroom, today’s meetings and conventions attendees crave a dynamic menu long on innovation and fresh ingredients.
The following three Florida chefs have turned up the heat by tapping into the latest cuisine trends, boasting global influences and the freshest local meats, seafood and vegetables.
Bon appetite!
Karl Stoehr: Playa Largo Resort & Spa
Executive Chef Karl Stoehr is originally from Pittsburgh and started his culinary career at the tender age of 20. Today, he oversees four restaurants—Sol, Las Olas, La Marea and Sand Bar—and banquet and conference cuisine at the Playa Largo Resort & Spa in Islamorada in Key Largo.
One of its restaurants, La Marea (“The Tide”), is known for its use of seasonal ingredients from local farmers, fisherman and its own seaside vegetable and herb garden. So committed to using local produce and fish in its signature dishes, the names of its purveyors are right on the menu: Keys Fisheries, Key Largo Fisheries, Paradise Farms and LNB Groves.
Chef Stoehr is seeing a number of different trends for the year, including using unique herbs and spices like turmeric, togarashi and Japanese 7 spice.
“Fermented items like sauerkraut or kimchi are still in and hot,” Stoehr added. “Yuzu and shisho are a few that we use here at Playa Largo. One exciting cuisine that has been up and coming for a while is Filipino cuisine. We use a fermented coconut tuber vinegar called pinakurat to pickle baby fennel for our pink shrimp bouillabaisse.”
Chef Stoehr said healthy eating is definitely a priority for his guests, with low-fat, no-fat requests, along with clean proteins and organic local vegetables and grains.
One of the biggest requests he gets is for his whole local mutton snapper and whole lechon (a pork dish from the Philippines).
Craft cocktails are quite the rage, said Stoehr, who added that one dessert he’s recently been preparing is a fun chia pudding with coconut milk and almond milk, macerated mango and toasted coconut.
“Another trend I am seeing is the ‘bowl’ trend, whether it’s a poke bowl or breakfast bowl,” he said. “This seems to be the new ‘it’ food—anything in a bowl.”
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La Marea’s Healthy Start Acai Breakfast Bowl has acai, Greek yogurt, local Keez Beez honey, banana and homemade granola.
The most creative thing they’ve done for groups is using items from each of its four restaurants to create a “Taste of Playa Largo,” for which the chef highlights signature items from each venue in an individual presentation.
“It gives a group that is here with us for a short time a chance to experience all we have to offer and entices them to join us at a later time at the outlet they enjoyed the most,” Stoehr said.
One popular request, he offered, is teambuilding cooking classes.
“Currently, I have an activity I do for groups that revolves around the Peruvian ceviche concept at my Las Olas outlet,” he said. “I have a lot of fun with this as I can speak about the ingredients that we use and walk through the creation of our signature ceviche. I then break the group out into teams and everyone has the ingredients to create their own. We then bring each team’s dish together and vote on the best plate based on presentation, flavor and use of ingredients. It is a great teambuilding opportunity that we offer here at the resort.”
The hotel prides itself on sourcing fish that is literally “off the boat” six days a week from Key Largo Fisheries, located three miles from the property.
“I work directly with the general manager, who is a native of New England and really knows his seafood,” Stoehr said. “He sends me photos of the fish I get as they are coming off the boats. It’s pretty awesome that we are spoiled with the product, as fresh as it is. We source local produce from farms out of central Florida and the Redlands through our purveyors as well. We do our best to stick to what is seasonal so we get the best flavors in the most natural form.”
Philippe Reynaud: Ocean Reef Club
Philippe Reynaud has been with the Ocean Reef Club since 2000 and today, overseas a dozen restaurants and lounges as senior culinary director. One of the hottest trends he’s seeing is Pacific Rim and Pacific Rim Asian fusion influences in food and drink, particularly from Hawaii, Thailand and Vietnam.
“Chefs will continue to develop bowls, exploring with ingredients from Pacific-Asian countries,” he said. “One of the signature dishes at Islander & Reef Cup Bar is the Vietnamese-inspired 1.5-pound lobster pho with pho broth, bean sprouts, cinnamon basil and noodles.
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Chef Reynaud is also seeing plant-based protein becoming more popular, and said chefs are working on developing their knowledge and skills to offer creative high-protein vegan selections on their menu, using legumes and other plant-based proteins that are being developed.
He’s also seeing plastic and other single-use items go by the wayside.
“Forget plastic straws, they will continue to disappear fast, and we’ll be seeing compostable or reusable metal-straws,” Reynaud said. “The market will continue producing compostable products to replace plastics.”
Meeting professionals continue to request vegan, gluten-free, ovo-lacto-free and nut-free, he said.
“Clearly, chefs honor those requests, therefore encouraging them to develop new dishes and offer various options,” he said. “Allergen-free menus will pop up more often and will become streamlined in some chains or certain restaurants, as well.”
For meeting groups, the chef has done everything from wild game dinners to theme dinners based on movies, and said its cooking school at Carysfort Kitchen, with hands-on classes, culinary events and specialty dinners for 10 to 100 guests, continues to be a big hit.
“Education, hands-on experience and being coached by famous chefs are always a big draw for groups,” he said.
Reynaud is also seeing more emphasis placed on food presentation using natural Earth dishes like cast iron, slate, stones, pebbles, bamboo, fallen exotic woods, steam mold shaped palm plates and corn-based “plastics.”
Thomas Buckley: Nobu Miami; Eden Roc Miami
Nobu Miami and Eden Roc Miami Executive Chef Thomas Buckley has won numerous awards at competitions for his cuisine. In fact, in his youth he supplemented his education by working during summer vacations for famed TV chef Keith Floyd.
When Buckley discovered Nobu in 1998 he felt a connection with chef Nobu Matsuhisa, who welcomed Buckley’s creative input. While the banquet menu Nobu is inspired by Japanese-fusion and American flavors, he said, guests can also handpick items to create a unique experience.
Some of its signature dishes are Lobster Shitake Salad with Spicy Lemon Dressing and Rock Shrimp Tempura with Creamy, Spicy Ponzu Sauce.
Today, Buckley said, meeting professionals are requesting local and unusual dishes with international flavors.
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“Simple dishes are popular as well as classics like avocado toast,” he said, but added that anything truly made with care and passion is definitely in.
Buckley said Nobu locally sources its ingredients as much as it can, from local purveyors Miami Smokers, Zak the Baker, Florida Beer Company and Collins Fish and Seafood.
“We’re lucky here in Florida because the growing season is long,” he said.
One of the experiences for groups that is still popular is the chef’s table.
“Bringing the customer as close to the source of the food is always a great thing,” Buckley said. “The interactions are always so different for both sides.”
Trending: Jessica Kendall, Dir. of Catering & Conference Services, Wyndham Grand Clearwater Beach
“With so many fad diets out there, planners are trying to take into consideration all of the new dietary restrictions for groups: gluten-free, keto, paleo, Whole30. So many groups are requesting more fruit and veggie options rather than the baked goods. We added a new menu item called ‘Dip It,’ which consists of hummus, guacamole, olives, grilled naan and crudite, to capture some of these dietary needs.
“Groups are still very interested in locally generated food; farm-to-table is still an interest to most groups. We have the ability to serve fresh seafood, so we try to capitalize on that and use the seasonal catches with our specialty menus that we offer to our group guests,” Jessica Kendall explains.
Here’s more from Florida.
