If you’ve been craving pig ear, rabbit legs, veal brain, or white pesto, New York’s newest food festival may be for you.
The Forgotten Foods Festival kicked off its inaugural day on Friday, March 28 and will run through Sunday, April 6, offering rare and exclusive dishes at fourteen restaurants across Manhattan.
Curated by local restaurant group Chef Driven Hospitality, The Forgotten Foods Festival allows chefs from France, the Mediterranean, Middle East and North America to showcase beloved heritage dishes, plus ingredients and technique from their travels and culinary training, in ways that the average diner may not always experience on conventional menus. It’s nostalgic, historic and a playful way to add some retro dishes to menus.
And with so many Manhattan eateries now offering what seems like copy and pasted menus in different fonts (you know you’ve seen that caesar salad, cheeseburger, dirty martini combo everywhere) , some radical change can be a fun way to experience curiosity in restaurants again.
“Our chefs and their teams have reached into their memories for dishes from their past that truly spoke to them, each infused with the spirit of the restaurant’s cuisine. We are excited for our guests to experience this nostalgic journey through food and drink,” said Leir Oren, Partner at Chef Driven Hospitality.
Participating restaurants include Barbounia in Flatiron, where chef Chef Amitzur Mor will be serving foods from the multi-ethnic cuisines of his upbringing in Israel. “We had
neighbors from all over the world, all with their own special foods. My menu reflects what I saw and ate at their homes and in small eateries,” Mor said. On his Forgotten Foods Festival menu: Yemenite Beef Soup (oxtail, calf’s feet, marrow bones, potatoes, hawayej and hilbeh condiment), North African “Moch Mcharmel” (Spicy Veal Brain Stew), and the Persian dessert Faloodeh Shirazi (rice angel hair noodles, rose water, sour cherry, pistachio ice cream).
At Marseille, Chef Xavier Monge will be offering a Bouche A La Reine (fricassee of sweetbreads and rooster crest) to start, followed by Wild Hare A La Royale (whole hare braised in Burgundy red wine, baby carrots, asparagus, pearl onions, mirror foie gras liaison).
For Alsacian comfort food, swing by Cafe D’Alsace, where Chef Philippe Roussel’s Alsace Pot-au-Feu includes beef shank, bone marrow, beef tongue, cheek, short rib, vegetables, Dijon mustard and horseradish and a 18th century inspired Tripes à la Mode de Caen combines braised beef tripe with carrots, leeks, apples, and Calvados, served with steamed potatoes. For dessert, a nostalgic Ile Flotant (Floating Island) dessert of delicate poached meringue with creme anglaise.
Additional restaurants participating in the Forgotten Foods Festival include Nice Matin, Nizza, L’Express, French Roast, Playa Betty’s, Dagon, and Five Napkin Burger.
To drink, Chef Driven Hospitality Beverage Director Aviram Turgeman curated a lineup of lesser-seen wines and cocktails to complement each restaurant’s menu, including pours of the predecessor to rosé, Blush White Zinfandel, and a 1990’s inspired Apple Martini made with gin infused with New York apples, Massenez and Berentzen Liqueurs, vanilla, lime, and green apple purée.