What Exotic Ingredients Are Chefs Reaching For?
By Melissa McCart

When it comes to fine dining, it’s not all about local and farm-fresh, as much as we might like to believe it. Truffles don’t grow in our backyards. Tropical fish aren’t a line cast away. To compensate, chefs often find they have to scour the globe to find a fancy fruit, a rare spice, or an exotic cephalopod. In an effort to wow our palates, these three toques tap sources as prized as their local farmers to bring us authentic ingredients from elsewhere.

Chef: Bertrand Chemel, 2941

Ingredient: Greek or South African octopus.

Why it’s so unusual: “It has this gelatin between the meat and the skin, which makes the meat very tender,” says Chemel. When it’s available, which isn’t often, customers fawn over the dish made with the delicacy, which chef Chemel says there’s no magic to making.

What he uses it for: Poached octopus: “We poke tentacles with a needle and slowly poach it in water with red-pepper flakes, bay leaf, and thyme.”

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