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How local chefs get playful with fall beets

  • By Maggie Heyn Richardson

One of fall’s favorite vegetables, beets are a beloved ingredient among chefs and home cooks for their sweet and earthy flavor, toothsome texture and stunning hue. They’re in season now in south Louisiana through late spring and are worth working into your weekly repertoire. Take inspiration from the creative ways local chefs are using beets on their fall and year-round menus.

AS A ROASTED SIDE DISH

Zorba’s Greek Bistro
Chef Polina Economides’s popular roasted vegetable side dish is a thyme-studded gathering of sweet potatoes, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and beets. Each type of vegetable is roasted separately to reach the right tenderness. “Beets are a beautiful addition to the dish,” says Economides, who reopened Zorba’s with her husband Dinos in 2013 after returning to Baton Rouge from their native Cyprus. Zorba’s originally operated here from 1984 to 2000. “When we reopened the restaurant, I wanted to put more fresh vegetables on the menu,” Economides adds. She loves working with beets, and pickles them in-house as toppers for Zorba’s salads. zorbasbistro.com

AS A VIBRANT DRESSING OR SMALL PLATE

Cocha
Cocha’s recently released fall menu features a couple of beet-inspired dishes, including a vegan quinoa salad with mixed greens, fried shallots, smoked carrots and a vibrant beet vinaigrette. Owner Saskia Spanhoff says the new menu also features a turmeric-spiced root vegetable small plate with roasted beets, sweet potatoes, parsnips and carrots. The veggies are set off by two punchy counterpoints, kaffir lime yogurt and mint chutney. cochabr.com

AS A GARNISH FOR PHO

Ava Street Café
Chef-owner Ethan Huynh is fond of using beets as a garnish on most of the menu items at his Vietnamese eatery, Ava Street Café. He uses an instrument called a turning slicer to create slivers. “We garnish with beets because of the color,” he says. “It makes our dishes pop.” avastreetcafe.com

AS THE STAR OF THE SALAD

Beausoleil Restaurant & Bar
A bedrock appetizer on Chef Nathan Gresham’s Beausoleil dinner menu is Roasted Beets, a seemingly simple salad that places the humble root vegetable front and center. Gresham tosses chunks of roasted beets with walnuts, fried capers and a walnut vinaigrette. A squishy dollop of burrata delivers an element of creaminess. beausoleilrestaurant.com

AS A TEAM PLAYER

Bin 77
The Chef’s Garden Beet Salad at Bin 77 excels as a tidy composed plate with lots going on. Beets are simply roasted with olive oil, salt and pepper, and are arranged with candied apples, carrot shavings, thin slices of radish, drizzles of raw honey and fresh dill. Things get really interesting when the kitchen adds a smear of truffled egg yolk and a pan-fried crottin de chevre. bin77.com

This article was originally published in the November 2017 issue of 225 magazine.


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