Freshly made ravioli from Cascade
American Bistro at the Hyatt Regency
Grand Cypress
How hotels bring farm-fresh goods to local tables
by RONA GINDIN
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edibleorlando.com fall 2012
Even the most locavore-loco among us decries Central Florida’s lack of
produce from area farms, artisan foods from nearby culinary craftsman and meats from
regional ranches. Some of us bop from event to crunchy event, picking up, say, tomatoes
at a farmers’ market, homemade granola at a specialty shop and chef-smoked bacon at a
harvest festival.
Imagine what hotel chefs go through
to get local goods. Whether they’re feeding well-heeled travelers who prefer
pesticide-free regional bounty in restaurants or via massive catering operations, the top culinarians put out hundreds or thousands of meals every day.
They’re fighting for the same Zellwood
corn and Heart of Christmas lettuce
leaves as the rest of us.
Their efforts are as diverse as their
menus. Some hotel chefs ignore the entire trend, saving themselves the added pressure of arduous procurement
predicaments. Others highlight star
area ingredients in only a signature
dish or two. And then there are the
fork-to-table fanatics, tracking down
farmers, creating co-ops and generally restructuring traditional purchasing structures so they can infuse their
menus with a majority of impressively
sourced foodstuffs.
Here we showcase some of Central
Florida’s lodging leaders, highlighting
one dish apiece that celebrates nature’s
best, à la Sunshine State.
Gaylord Palms Resort
RESTAURANT Old Hickory Steakhouse
CHEF Paul Player
THE CONCEPT A classic American steakhouse with a modern twist featuring
all-natural Black Angus beef, handcrafted cheeses and an extensive wine list
A FLORIDA CELEBRATION Baked blackback flounder with roasted Zellwood
corn and a citrus (local when in season)
beurre blanc
With 1,406 rooms, six restaurants
and an extensive catering operation,
the Gaylord Palms Resort churns
through massive amounts of all food-
stuffs,
from tomatoes to
fish fillets.
Executive
Chef Paul
P l ay e r
tried for
years
to
use locally
raised produce when
possible
but found
CHEF PAUL PLAYER
procurement
a
perpetual challenge. “For the local guy
to make money, they pretty much need
me to buy their entire stock or it’s not
worth it for them,” he recalls.
Today Player receives loads of local bounty thanks to Osceola County
Grown, which aims to connect farmers
to restaurants. The goal is for one supplier to, say, buy from five farms and
deliver the goods to 10 restaurants. This
will work because the local farmers will
sell in bulk and the chefs will get the
county-raised greens.
Player’s main supplier, Red’s Market
[FreshPoint], works with area farmers.
“I tell them which farms I want them
to buy from. They get my ingredients
from there when the produce is available, then fill in with out-of-town goods
when supplies are short,” he says.
As for fish, 90 percent of Gaylord’s
finny friends are from local waters, or
at least are sustainable. “Our purveyor
has a list that’s correlated with National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s watch list,” he explains.
www.gaylordpalms.com
Wyndham Grand Orlando Resort
at Bonnet Creek
RESTAURANT deep blu seafood grille
CHEF Cory York
THE CONCEPT Seafood restaurant
dedicated to using local, sustainable
and organic and otherwise sustainably grown and harvested ingredients
whenever possible
A FLORIDA CELEBRATION Space Coast
mahi-mahi with Florida rock shrimp
(in season), Gulf grouper, Cape Canaveral calamari, Waterkist Farms tomatoes and Healthy Living Farms fennel
and leeks
For Cory D. York, serving locally harvested and sustainable seafood is a “culinary code of ethics.” Insisting “It’s so
important in this day and age that we
follow our beliefs,” the chef de cuisine of
deep blu seafood grille is nearly fanatical about offering finfish and shellfish
caught with respect for nature. With
the help of Orlando supplier Gary’s
Seafood Specialties, York’s menu might
feature swordfish and mahi-mahi from
the Atlantic Ocean and littleneck clams
from the Gulf of Mexico.
Since you “can’t always find wild halibut,” as an example, and sometimes need
farmed fish, York seeks out “sustainable aquacultural” sources. “You know
they provide proper feed, not ground
up pieces of dog food or the same fish,”
he explains. Accompanying greens are
provided by Mr. Greenjeans’ Produce,
which delivers its goods with details on
the local farms from which they come
“just so I know,” York explains.
York has been on a quest to learn all
he can about top-quality seafood for
seven years, and a recent visit to Spain
confirmed to him that the American
fall 2012 edibleorlando.com
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CENTRAL FLORIDA HOTELS
standard of “trucking things in, buying
them for as little as we can get them and
selling them as cheaply as we can” isn’t
acceptable. “In Spain, farm to fork is not
a marketing tool. It’s a way of life.”
www.deepbluorlando.com
Hilton Orlando Bonnet Creek
RESTAURANT La Luce® by Donna Scala
CHEF Donna Scala
THE CONCEPT Authentic modern Italian
country cooking with fresh ingredients
A FLORIDA CELEBRATION Roasted
Tanglewood Farms half chicken with
grilled Zellwood corn polenta finished
with red pepper butter
At her longtime California restaurant, Bistro Don Giovanni, Donna Scala
receives fish live and basil daily. Imagine
her challenge, then, when opening a restaurant in Orlando where that kind of
food culture doesn’t exist. “Here, even
if the basil is local and fresh, it’s still a
couple of days old,” says Francis Metais,
Food and Beverage Director for the Hilton Orlando Bonnet Creek, the local restaurant’s home.
Procurement is serious business for
Orlando’s La Luce, and the chefs incorporate local products wherever they
can. Examples are eggs from Ocoee’s
Lake Meadow Naturals, honey from
Winter Park Honey, and, lately, some
“tiny” strawberries that were so good
“we just cut them in half, macerated
them in lemon for an hour and put a
bit of crumble on top,” Metais reports.
A summer salad of locally raised butter
lettuce was prepared with grilled sliced
local peaches.
“It’s a constant battle to find good
products,” Metais concedes. “But it’s
worth it. Guests will say, ‘Wow! How
come this salad is so good?’ The reason
is that the ingredients are good.”
www.laluceorlando.com
The Peabody Orlando
RESTAURANT Napa at The Peabody
CHEF Jared Gross
THE CONCEPT Wine Country–themed,
primarily organic and farm-to-fork restaurant incorporating local flavors
A FLORIDA CELEBRATION Cioppino, a
seafood stew of mussels and Florida
calamari, lump crab, rock shrimp, mahi-mahi, local fennel and leeks, spicy
Waterkist Farms tomato broth, paprika
rouille and house-made focaccia crostini garnish
www.peabodyorlando.com
Hilton Orlando
RESTAURANT Spencer’s for Steaks and
Chops
CHEF Kevin Spencer
THE CONCEPT Classic steakhouse featuring Prime dry-aged beef and contemporary twists
A FLORIDA CELEBRATION Grass-fed nat-
Grass-fed filet mignon at
Spencers for Steaks and Chops
at the Hilton Orlando
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edibleorlando.com fall 2012
CENTRAL FLORIDA HOTELS
Party Hearty
Hotels get most of their foods from huge
distributors, middlemen who haul goods from canned tuna
to quinoa to kitchens’ back doors. The distributors stock raw
items, too, from carrots to shrimp. Yet some Orlando-area
catering chefs prefer to purchase certain ingredients from
local farmers.
There’s a bit of Goliath-David in these relationships, yet
they seem to work well. Simply, the catering chefs want greens
and such grown in a natural way and delivered shortly after
harvesting, traveling only a few miles. The farmers like having
regular customers who place large orders.
Essentially, the entire practice comes down to personal
connections between the catering chefs and the folks who tend
the plants or feed the pigs or harvest the catch from Florida
waters. “I met a lot of farmers at Slow Food Orlando functions
and now we use what’s here, what’s local, what’s fresh,” says
Nando Belmonte, executive chef of Loews Royal Pacific Resort,
who also snips herbs for cocktails from an on-premise garden.
He gets fish from Wild Ocean Seafood out of Titusville, pork
from Palmetto Creek Farms in Avon Park and lettuce from
Heart of Christmas Farms in east Orange County. “Heart of
Christmas grows the lettuces we want for us. We order it. They
clip it, cut it and bring it out to us. It’s that fresh.”
The catering team at the Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande
Lakes has a similar relationship with King Farm out of Bradenton. “They plant whatever vegetables I want to serve,” says
Executive Chef Sean Woods. “Lately I’ve been asking for heirloom tomatoes, corn, beans such as black- and pink-eyed peas,
fennel, cucumbers and peaches.”
At the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin, Hammock
Hollow Herb Farm has a lot of power. “Every year, I get a list of
what owner Charley Andrews is going to grow, and we plan our
catering menus accordingly,” says Executive Chef Robert Ciborowski. “We know that November through late February we’ll
receive a ton of lettuces from baby romaine to red and green
oak leaf. Then we’ll get into the root vegetables like round baby
turnips and broccoli rabe, and then later in spring we’ll see
beans and dandelion greens and chard.”
Challenges are inherent in sourcing from one small guy, of
course. “Sometimes due to weather factors my suppliers won’t
have something,” Belmonte says. “I might get a call saying, ‘It
was too hot and I lost my tomatoes’ or ‘It has been raining a lot
and the fruit is bruised.’” One solution, he says, is to shop backward. “I ask what’s available and plan my menus from there.”
Ciborowski agrees, noting that one week he might receive
63 boxes of a product, 12 the next if there’s a freeze. “When
that happens, we simply source what we need with another
farmer,” he explains.
At the Ritz-Carlton, Woods is careful to word banquet
menus in general terms. “We get our pork from Palmetto Creek
Farms and it’s always available, but I may only be able to get a
certain quantity of some cuts,” he says. “So, I’ll write ‘Palmetto
Creek Farms pork’ on the menu but not specify if it’s loin or
center cut or belly.” He does the same thing with fish. That
takes trust from meeting planners, but Woods has that trust
from the ones who plan events at the hotel regularly. “We’ll sit
down in our Chefs Table room and talk about how, say, the fish
market is volatile and I may need to switch the type of fish two
days before if I can’t get their requested within 48 hours of being caught,” Woods says.
Local farmers can have higher prices than mega-farms,
especially those with small-scale operations that use natural
techniques rather than pesticides, antibiotics or hormones,
depending on the product. The chefs agree that the issue isn’t
significant for fruits and vegetables, especially since the quality
is higher. “If I start with good ingredients, we don’t have to do
a lot to make it taste good,” Ciborowski says. “Plus, we know
these guys aren’t doing anything to harm the environment or
the people who will eat their goods.”
Also, small farms have little in the way of packaging and marketing costs, which compensates for higher production expenses.
“The big guys spend money to print their names on bags, to seal
boxes, to market themselves, etc.,” Ciborowski points out.
Locally raised produce often has a long shelf life, the chefs
agree. “I get the product 24 to 48 hours after it’s picked,”
Woods says, “so the shelf life is literally weeks long.” Produce
from South America, by contrast, “is picked, packed, shipped—
possibly boat and trucked here, so it could be a week old before
it even gets to the United States.”
Center-of-the-plate proteins can have a significantly higher
price point, Ciborowski notes. “If someone wants a complete
organic dinner with sustainable proteins in the center of the
plate, that’s where cost is affected.”
At the Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes, being able to
offer such products is key to getting and keeping group business.
“Some clients request that we source from local farmers because
their companies have green initiatives,” Woods reports.
Ciborowski agrees with those initiatives. “Eat organic and eat
local as much as you can,” he says. “It helps small business owners such as farmers, you’re not putting anything into your body
that can harm you and, ultimately, the food just tastes better.”
—Rona Gindin
fall 2012 edibleorlando.com
35
CENTRAL FLORIDA HOTELS
Left, A composed salad from Renaissance Orlando at Seaworld. Right, The Wave of American
Flavors at Disney's Contemporary Resort offers Atlantic yellowfin tuna on salad greens grown in
Fellsmere tossed with Ruskin tomatoes and served with eggs from Dade City.
ural filet mignon from White Oak Pastures in Georgia with Palmetto Creek
pork belly, confit potatoes, Frangelico
onions, English pea puree and trufflescented Lakeridge Winery cuvee noir
www.thehiltonorlando.com
Orlando World Center
Marriott
RESTAURANT Hawk’s Landing Steakhouse & Grille
CHEF James Routhier
THE CONCEPT Steakhouse with golf
course views featuring Harris Ranch
Prime dry-aged beef and local seafood
A FLORIDA CELEBRATION Lake Meadow
Naturals half chicken with roasted root
vegetables and natural jus
www.marriottworldcenter.com
Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress
RESTAURANT Cascade American Bistro
CHEF Kyle Anderson
THE CONCEPT Casual bistro featuring
a melting pot of American and international cuisines with an emphasis on
“Food thoughtfully sourced, carefully
served”
A FLORIDA CELEBRATION Florida rock
shrimp ravioli with Cape Canaveral
pink shrimp, Zellwood corn, local tomatoes and house-grown pea tendrils
www.grandcypress.hyatt.com
Loews Royal Pacific Resort
at Universal Orlando
RESTAURANT Islands Dining Room
CHEF Nando Belmonte
THE CONCEPT Pan-Asian cuisine with a
twist incorporating local flavors
A FLORIDA CELEBRATION Port Canaveral shrimp and papaya salad with Royal
Red shrimp, green papaya, 3 Boys Farms
hydroponic tomatoes, Heart of Christmas Farms organic baby greens and
garlic-lime vinaigrette
www.loewshotels.com/royal-pacificresort
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edibleorlando.com fall 2012
Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld
RESTAURANT Catering department
CHEF John Janucik
A FLORIDA CELEBRATION Compressed
local watermelon salad with Waterkist
Farms heirloom tomatoes, basil, B & W
Farms baby arugula, feta cheese and
cayenne vinaigrette
www.renaissanceseaworldorlando.com
JW Marriott Orlando
Grande Lakes
RESTAURANT Primo
CHEF Gilberto Ramirez
THE CONCEPT Contemporary Italian
cuisine emphasizing fresh ingredients
including produce directly from the hotel’s organic garden and local farms
A FLORIDA CELEBRATION Pan-seared
Florida snapper with Florida rock
shrimp and Florida orange nage
www.grandelakes.com
Disney’s Contemporary Resort
RESTAURANT The Wave … of American
Flavors
CHEF Frank Brough
THE CONCEPT Casual eatery blending
seasonal American and international
flavors, focusing on local and regional
sourcing
A FLORIDA CELEBRATION Atlantic
yellowfin tuna on salad greens grown
in Fellsmere and tossed with Ruskin
tomatoes and served with naturally
raised eggs from Dade City
disneyworld.disney.go.com/dining/thewave-restaurant
Walt Disney World Swan
and Dolphin Hotel
RESTAURANT Todd English’s bluezoo
CHEF Chris Windus
THE CONCEPT Coastal cuisine with international and New American culinary
influences in an ethereal underwater
Jeffrey Beers–designed space
A
FLORIDA
CELEBRATION
Dirty
South
Swordfish—barbecue-rubbed
swordfish from Florida’s east coast with
Key West Littleneck clams, Hammock
Hollow tomatoes, house-made smoked
tasso risotto from Pasture Prime Farms
pork and Cape Canaveral rock shrimp
www.swandolphinrestaurants.com/
bluezoo
Loews
Royal
Pacific
Resort
RESTAURANT
Emeril’s
Tchoup
Chop
CHEF Gregory Richie
THE
CONCEPT
CHEF GREGORY RICHIE
AsianPolynesian
fusion cuisine in an exotic setting
A FLORIDA CELEBRATION Panko-crisped
Palmetto Creek Farms pork cheek gallette with peaches and house-made
mustard-coriander vinaigrette