David Burke has been working in kitchens since graduating from the Culinary Institute of America in 1982, and he’s still going strong, currently running 10 restaurants up and down the East Coast, including his latest, SeaHawk Prime by David Burke at Nautilus 220, a luxury residential tower on the Intracoastal Waterway of West Palm Beach, Florida. It’s his first restaurant in the state. 

Burke also operates Park Ave Kitchen and David Burke Tavern in New York City, three Red Horse restaurants in New York and New Jersey, Red Salt Room in Garden City, New York, named for the Himalayan salt he popularized, and half a dozen other restaurants. 

The chef has been setting trends for decades — he invented cake pops and clothesline bacon, among other items — and although he’s an accomplished entrepreneur, he said menu development is what he does best. That’s what he discusses in this interview, as well as his observations on the latest trends and strategies for pricing in ways that are profitable while also attractive to customers.

To earn her own way through theater school in Philadelphia, Tai Ricci bussed tables at one of Stephen Starr’s restaurants. With her naturally outgoing personality and drive, she moved up the ranks to become a high-earning server and realized the restaurant business was her true calling.

That calling took her to LA and eventually San Francisco, landing at one of Michael Mina’s restaurants and meeting up with Ryan Cole and Chef Jason Halverson. Over lunch one day, the three came up with a plan to open their first restaurant. Twelve years later, the partners lead Hi Neighbor Hospitality Group in the San Francisco area and operate five diverse independent restaurants that have become neighborhood favorites.

Ricci oversees events and people operations for the group, developing a vibrant team culture that fosters growth and creates a workplace where the next generation of hospitality professionals can thrive. But she also has a keen sense of what diners are seeking in restaurants today, and the group’s concepts including Trestle, MAMA Oakland and The Vault Steakhouse deliver on that with their menus, ambience and service.

Listen as Ricci shares how her love for hospitality has shaped Hi Neighbor’s restaurants into dining destinations admired by guests and team members alike. 

Te’Sean Glass is chef de cuisine of True Laurel, a cocktail bar in San Francisco’s Mission District where he takes a farm-to-table approach to dishes such as chicken katsu topped with Caesar salad and patty melts. 

Originally from St. Augustine, Florida, Glass grew up in a family of enthusiastic family cooks, but he had a dream early on of running his own restaurant. His first job in a professional kitchen was as a teenager working for Meals on Wheels, where he learned about preparing high-volume food on a budget made for off-premises dining—lessons that would be useful at pretty much any restaurant. From there he worked at The Ice Plant, a bar in St. Augustine, and went on to culinary school at Johnson & Wales University in Miami. 

His ambition eventually landed him in San Francisco, where he started working in fine-dining restaurants including Saison and Ernest. In the podcast, Glass discusses his journey from St. Augustine to San Francisco and offers advice for young chefs about following their dreams. 

Our guest on this week's Menu Talk is Isabel Coss, executive chef at Pascual, a contemporary Mexican restaurant in Washington, D.C.

A native of Mexico City, Chef Coss actually studied ballet—not cooking—as a way to get into arts school and become a filmmaker. But once there, she realized she was more passionate about cooking than film, and enrolled in culinary school.

She quickly landed an externship at Pujol, the Michelin-starred Mexico City restaurant on the list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants. She worked at the pastry station, honing her bread baking skills. In 2011, she brought those skills to New York City where she was hired as a pastry chef at Empellón, Chef Alex Stupak’s renowned Mexican Restaurant, followed by a position at Enrique Olvera’s Cosme, another award-winning Mexican restaurant.

Isabel Coss in front of Pascual. | Photo by Alex Lau.

In 2020, Chef Coss moved to Washington, D.C., and overhauled the pastry program at Lutèce, a notable French bistro in Georgetown. She now heads the kitchen at Pascual, developing menus for both the sweet and savory sides. The centerpiece of Pascual is a hearth oven where the chef crafts the restaurant’s specialties. 

Coss’s culinary skills have landed her on lists like Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs in America and as a semifinalist for a James Beard Best Chef Mid-Atlantic award. Listen as she describes her love affair with masa, what she’s cooking and baking now and what’s next in her culinary journey.

Nelson German was born and raised in the Dominican-American community of Washington Heights in New York City, but he mostly cooked classic fine-dining food until recently.

After working at New York City venues such as Joseph’s Citarella, the Gramercy Park Hotel, Absinthe Wine Bar and Jerry’s Café, he moved to San Francisco in 2010, and debuted his first restaurant there, AlaMar, in 2014, serving a wide variety of seafood.

After he expanded his presence on the culinary scene by appearing on Season 18 of "Top Chef" in 2021, he began to explore his own personal culinary roots and reopened the restaurant as a Dominican venue. That followed his brief launch in 2020 of Sobre Mesa, which reopened after lockdown and explores Latin cuisines as well as influences from West Africa, which German explored after researching his family’s own Cameroonian heritage.

Then in April of this year, he opened Meski in partnership with Ethiopian-American entrepreneur Guma Fassil and NBA legend Draymond Green. Meski’s own background has brought even more variety to the cuisine at his restaurant, which is German’s first in San Francisco.

German discussed his culinary journey and shared how his cuisine has evolved over the years.

With an early focus on cold coffee, energy drinks and a flavor-forward menu, Dutch Bros has established itself as a leader in the increasingly competitive beverage segment. CMO Tana Davila joins the Menu Talk podcast to share how the brand combines menu innovation and hospitality to create a culture that connects with guests. 

Customization continues to be a key trend valued by consumers, and Dutch Bros has long been at the forefront of that trend. The menu offers a large selection of coffees, lemonades, matcha, smoothies, shakes and the chain’s signature Rebel energy drinks, all of which can be customized. Davila describes how limited-time seasonal items are also a big draw, including summer’s colorful and refreshing mocktail-inspired drinks and the current line of holiday beverages. And an expanded food program is in test, designed to drive beverage sales and frequency throughout the day. 

As CMO, Davila also prioritizes the hospitality side. She shares how Dutch Bros’ unique service culture is a differentiator and why community engagement is built into its mission. The Dutch Rewards Program also fosters a strong customer connection, she points out.

Listen as Davila talks about Dutch Bros’ push into the CPG space, how menu innovation is shaping up for the future and the plans for growth as the chain moves East from its West Coast roots. 

Menu Talk: The sommelier also oversees neighboring restaurant Cafe Yaya

Shake Shack takes pride in being the first in its category to launch on-trend menu items, according to Nancy Combs, SVP of culinary and calendar innovation at the fast casual.

Although Shake Shack was founded in New York City by Danny Meyer and his Union Square Hospitality Group in 2001 and still has headquarters in the Big Apple, the chain recently built a second headquarters in Atlanta. Combs is based down South, where she oversees a state-of-the-art test kitchen that opened earlier this year. 

Guest insights drive menu development, she said, which is focused on Shake Shack’s core menu of burgers, shakes, fries, chicken sandwiches and hot dogs. But the team of chefs is always thinking outside the box, like the new onion rings launched in September as part of a larger French onion soup-inspired menu rollout. And in the Spring, the chain was one of the first to jump on the Dubai chocolate trend with the debut of its Dubai Chocolate Shake.

Combs said at the end of the day, everything she and the culinary team introduce is something they would be proud to eat themselves. Listen as she shares Shake Shack’s menu strategy, how innovation differentiates the brand in a crowded segment and what’s next on the calendar. 

This episode of Menu Talk is brought to you by TABASCO®. With spice, garlic and subtle heat, TABASCO® Salsa Picante is rated superior to leading Mexican-style hot sauces.

David Utterback wanted to be a punk rocker, and like many aspiring musicians he started working in restaurants to make money. He was quickly hired at Blue Sushi Sake grill, which was the coolest restaurant in Omaha, Nebraska, at the time, because, with a Japanese mother, he looked the part. 

But it turns out that he also liked working in restaurants, and was good at it, so he stayed with that company, Flagship Restaurant Group, opening sushi restaurants across the country before he decided to try his own hand at entrepreneurship. 

He funded his first restaurant, Yoshitomo, in 2017 with a bunch of credit cards that had promotional 0% interest rates. 

He couldn’t afford proper kitchen equipment, like a stove and a range, let alone a hood, so he developed a menu based on what he could do with a toaster oven and a blowtorch.

The gamble paid off, the restaurant was a hit, and he paid off those credit cards.

And now he also operates Koji, a slightly larger and more casual restaurant, also in Omaha, with a dedicated grill program using Japanese binchotan charcoal.

Utterback talks about his operations and hints at more restaurants to come.

This episode of Menu Talk is brought to you by TABASCO®. With spice, garlic and subtle heat, TABASCO® Salsa Picante is rated superior to leading Mexican-style hot sauces.

Zaxbys has been in the chicken finger business since 1990, six years before Raising Cain’s and decades earlier than Wendy’s. But with the competition getting fiercer with every new chicken tender or wing to hit the market, the fast casual had to build more awareness about its DNA. Enter Patrick Schwing, chief marketing & strategy officer for the Atlanta-based fast casual and this week’s guest on Menu Talk.“We wanted our sauce equity to be more prominent, and we made that very visible by restructuring the menu,” said Schwing. “Famous fingers and sauces is our core, so that is the focus.”Limited-time offers have also become a bigger part of Zaxbys' menu strategy. Tacos, a surf ‘n turf box and a Zappetizer Trio are a few standouts.Schwing is also leading the charge to expand digital menu boards systemwide and partner with pop culture figures for marketing campaigns. Rapper Omar Epps was recently enlisted as the “Sauce Boss” to promote the chain’s limited-time Sauce Boss Box combo meal. Listen as Schwing talks about how Zaxbys is differentiating itself in the crowded chicken space through upgrades in menu, operations, marketing, service and more.