Matching menu to the season offers better flavors, textures for the price

In Las Vegas as across the country, chefs are thinking more about using local products whenever possible. But they're also thinking more about seasonal menus -- something some of them have been doing for years.

For the most part, the concept is pretty simple; it's what's in season at the time. Matthew Silverman, executive chef at Vintner Grill, said generally it's pretty easy to figure that out; you can look around the grocery store and see what's in ample supply and also at reduced prices, because prices drop with a jump in supply.

But price isn't the main reason chefs like to use foods that are in season. More importantly, Silverman said, flavors and textures are better.

"It just makes sense to use the freshest and the best ingredients that you possibly can," agreed Michael Goodman, executive chef at the Four Seasons. "It makes no sense to use peaches in February. You can get (out-of-season products) from other places in the world, but they're not as good quality when they sit on a truck, boat and an airplane, and travel forever. You want to use the product as soon as possible, as soon as it's been harvested."

Sometimes, however, even if a product is in season within a relatively close proximity, it may not be available locally, because of Las Vegas' shortage of growers and other food producers. And that, chefs say, is when relationships with suppliers become extremely important.

Alex Stratta, executive chef of Alex at Wynn Las Vegas, still buys from many of the Arizona growers he started dealing with more than a decade ago, when he was a chef in Phoenix.

Silverman said he buys all of his Dungeness crab and salmon from a friend who has three fishing boats in Seattle.

"Going out into the growing fields and going out on the fishing boats and seeing where this stuff comes from, I think, is very important," Silverman said.

"You have to try whenever possible to get out there and see where your stuff is coming from," Goodman echoed.

"It's all about relationships," Silverman said, "-- calling up those people and having them send it to you and having that confidence that it'll be the best."

But another aspect of seasonality is that certain foods just "feel right" at certain times of the year. Andre Rochat, chef/owner of Andre's French Restaurant, Andre's at the Monte Carlo and Alize at the Palms, who has long used seasonal menus, just switched to his fall/winter version, which brings on the squash, root vegetables, venison, pheasant and heavier sauces.

Nicola Tannenbaum, an anthropologist at Lehigh University, said hard squashes and root crops became associated with fall and winter before refrigeration was widespread because they stored well.

"What you could eat through the winter is stuff that keeps through the winter," she said. "People talked about eating dandelion greens when they came in, because it was so nice to get something green. People talked about how nice it was to have an orange in your stocking in the winter."

"In a weird way," she said, the current movement "is harking back to times that people didn't think were all that great. It's kind of an interesting, retro movement -- valuing ways people might have gotten tired of eating."

Contact reporter Heidi Knapp Rinella at hrinella@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0474.