“About 16 years ago, I was invited to go to Turkey for the first

time and study with a couple of women there,” said James Beard

Award-winning chef Ana Sortun. “When I tasted and saw the food in

Turkey, it changed the course for everything. It’s become a real

passion and study of mine.”

The trip ultimately led to the opening of Oleana, a

Top 25 restaurant in Cambridge, Mass., now in its 15th year, a

clear indication of its long-standing success. “We cook

Mediterranean food, but with a huge focus on Eastern Mediterranean,

particularly Turkish.”

Known for its inventive cuisine, Oleana’s menu features dishes

like octopus and potatoes bravas with smoked aioli and Turkish

spices; Vermont quail kebob with Baharat spice, barberries, and

pistachio; and duck with spring dug parsnips, walnut tabouleh, and

smoked honey labne. But it seems Sortun is most excited right now

about lamb. And spices.

In this “Table

42” episode, brought to you by American Lamb,

Sortun takes us into the kitchen to prepare three dishes.

In this “Table 42” vignette, we join Cory Harwell, president at Simon Hospitality Group (SHG), to explore Carson Kitchen, a Foodable Top 25 restaurant in Las Vegas. Harwell is also co-founder of the group, which he started with the late Kerry Simon.

Harwell got his start in the industry at just 13 years old, and built his way up the ladder — from dishwashing to hosting to bartending to serving, and eventually opening and operating four restaurants under the SHG umbrella. 

In this episode, John Courtney, the culinary director at Carson Kitchen, makes wild boar sloppy joe, a prime example of how Harwell intends to showcase unique ingredients in familiar ways.

Miami has become a hotbed for gastropubs. But unlike any other we have seen, Finka Table & Tap, a Miami Top 25 Restaurant, is known for its fusion of Korean, Cuban, and Peruvian cuisine. And also for its unusual location.

In this “Table 42” vignette, Andrade makes Korean fried chicken for us, which was brined for 24 hours beforehand. First, it’s tossed in cornstarch and then fried at 350-degrees. While waiting, a KFC sauce is made of sesame oil, fresh minced garlic, kimchi flakes, soy sauce, sweet chili sauce, mustard and ketchup, and gochujang, a Korean red pepper paste. Once out of the fryer, douse the chicken all up in that sauce, and top with sesame seeds.

Chef Richard Hales has certainly made a name for himself. He’s at the helm of Miami-based Sakaya Kitchen as well as Midtown Chinese, also known as Blackbrick, a Foodable Top 25 restaurant that was named one of Bon Appetit’s “America’s Best New Restaurants” in 2014.

Part Italian, part Irish, and part Pacific Islander (Filipino), Hales’ background has played a huge role in his inspiration and influence in the culinary world. “My grandmother is Filipino,” he says. “So I grew up eating the flavors of Filipino food — vinegars, soy, chiles, the balanced flavor that you find typically in Asian food.”

Growing up in an American household, Hales was privy to both Asian cuisine and continental American cuisine. “Just combining those two cuisines growing up, it really shows in my food where it becomes playful, where I do American dishes that I grew up with and then I use an Asian, Korean, Chinese, Filipino pantry to create the dish.”

Seen for many months on top of the Foodable Top 25 Restaurants for Dallas, Lucia is not your typical Texan joint, whatever that means. But neither is its chef and co-owner, David Uyger, who started up the Italian restaurant with his wife five years ago.

In this “Table 42” vignette, Uyger takes us into the kitchen at Lucia, where he shows us how to make tagliatelle with mushrooms, boar pancetta, sage, and garlic. The pasta is made of egg yolks and pasta flour and prepared ahead of time so it can rest and hydrate all of the flour. From there, rice flour is added (“to keep from sticking to itself”), and the pasta is laminated. To make the dish, render some of the pancetta until color can be seen, then add mushrooms, turn heat to low, add garlic and then sage, and cook pasta in a rolling boil with salted water. A bit of lemon should be added for good measure before draining the pasta a little bit, and then add Parmigiano Reggiano.

Secluded on Brickell Key, a man-made island connected to Miami proper, you’ll find the Mandarin Oriental, a five-star luxury hotel with a sparkling view of the cityscape. Though the venue is outfitted with roughly 300 rooms and suites, its three dining options — La Mar by Gaston Acurio, Azul, and MO Bar+Lounge — are frequented by both locals and travelers alike.

In this “Table 42” vignette, we explore Azul, a Miami Top 25 Restaurant, with Chef de Cuisine Benjamin Murray. He describes the restaurant’s cuisine style as modern American with a heavy Asian-Japanese influence.

Foodable Top 25 restaurant Work & Class, located in Denver’s River North (RiNo) neighborhood on Larimer Street, is packaged differently than most concepts we’ve seen on “Table 42” thus far. For one, the Latin-American casual restaurant is adamant about “good food, no fuss,” and includes no bells and whistles. Its to-the-point nature is one of the first things you’ll notice on its website: “quality food, no fuss, no reservations, open at 4 p.m., closed Mondays.”

Just like the attributes of its pasta, Seattle’s Cascina Spinasse is where luxury and comfort converge. And like the ethos of most restaurants in the Pacific Northwest, making the most of local, seasonal ingredients is a no-brainer.

“We have a lot of farms and dairies here, and we try to use as much of that produce and the fish and all of our game,” says Stuart Lane, Spinasse’s executive chef. “That is probably one of the biggest similarities of this scene — everyone’s trying to be as local and as farm-driven as possible. It’s so common that it’s almost overlooked; it’s a no-brainer that we all do that.”

Spinasse is a nearly 8-year-old restaurant that specializes in traditional Northern Italian cuisine. And Chef Lane seems to be a perfect fit, given his background.

Let’s take things back to Brooklyn in the ‘90s for a second. The timestamp evokes visions of a raw, gritty borough filled with pockets of poverty. It represents rawness in all of its forms: an authentic, eclectic arts culture, a melting pot of diversity, and a time when Brooklyn was still the little sister on the block compared to “the” city, Manhattan. But during this time, before the cool, gentrified borough that we know BK as today, few people saw what Brooklyn was capable of, and embraced it early on. Michelin Starred chef Polo Dobkin is one of those people. And judging by the success of his restaurant Meadowsweet, which was awarded a Michelin Star in both 2015 and 2016, it was the right move.

In Arabic, Mamnoon translates to “thankful” or “grateful.” In Seattle, it’s an establishment in Melrose Square that explores the intersection of Lebanese, Syrian, and Persian cuisines, an ode to the heritage of co-owners Racha and Wassef Haroun.

“We’re in the middle of a really vibrant community,” says Jason Stratton,Mamnoon’s chef and general manager. “People come here for lunch everyday, and it’s really an expression of that we’re so grateful to be here, to be representing this ancient cuisine, thankful for our guests, thankful for each other, and thankful for the opportunity to really showcase a lesser known cuisine in this part of the world.”