July 13, 2004

Multilateral Menus

“America is no longer the melting pot, but it might be the world’s cooking class,” says Clark Wolf, a New York-based restaurant consultant. “This is where people come today to explore, to promote, to spend, to establish. We offer a laboratory and a broad, interested audience. Soccer moms do try new things.”

Even the heartland is embracing this movement, Wolf says. “It’s shocking when you go to Dallas and see a sushi bar every 3 feet. They giggle about it themselves. But if Dallas has sushi bars and Atlanta has groovy Mediterranean hybrids and Denver has Zengo, we’re really getting there.”

“There is a whole world of spices out there we have yet to embrace,” says Wolf. “There are 20,000 edibles on Earth, an we eat only about 150 varieties. So we have plenty of greens yet to chop.”