As Food Costs Rise, Chefs Turn to Trash for $160 Tasting Menus
Scraps have never been more valuable, as restaurants use tech and ingenuity to keep edible food out of the bin.
Mushroom grits at HAGS in New York City. Chef Telly Justice calls discarded food a failure of imagination.
Photographer: Mill/Melanie Landsman
One morning last fall at the restaurant HAGS in New York’s East Village, chef and co-owner Telly Justice was busy at the stove, toasting mushroom powder made from stems and trimmings. She then whisked in grits and a simmering broth, itself made from discarded summer squash scraps.
Justice spooned the cooked grits over a mousse featuring leftover truffle bits, then topped the plate with chestnut and maitake mushrooms grown nearby with help from the restaurant’s compost. Nearly every component of the dish incorporated ingredients that might otherwise have been tossed — though customers would hardly know it from the price of the multicourse menu, which can run up to $160 for an “omnivore” version that includes wagyu short rib and scallops courses.