Chef Santo Bruno

Zucchini and tomatoes

Zucchini is a vegetable that goes with everything. I love that it can be used in soup, salad, pasta and more. You can roast pieces of zucchini or bread them to fry. I also like zucchini with marinara sauce (just add to your sauce and cook for 10 minutes before the sauce is … More

Chef Santo Bruno

Brooklyn bagels

You may wonder why I decided to write about bagels this month. Well, here in New York, pizza shops are rapidly tapping into the breakfast market. Street vendors are starting to sell pizza at night, so why shouldn’t you offer breakfast? In these changing times, pizza sales sometimes need a boost. Especially for … More

Archives

Tips From The Cheese Dude: Lesson 5

In this fifth and final installment of Tips From The Cheese Dude, Mark Todd (aka "The Cheese Dude") answers the question, "What's the most cost effective way to sample a variety of cheeses?"     … More

Chef Santo Bruno

Ricotta spinach cannelloni

Cannelloni incorporates oversized rigatoni pasta that Sicilians enjoy because you can stuff them with many different ingredients. One of my favorite cannelloni recipes is one using eggplant, ricotta cheese and ground veal. The one here is stuffed with spinach and ricotta, and you can use your imagination to come up with additional … More

Food & Ingredients

Winning menus

What if your top-line revenue remained flat and your bottom-line profit grew by 3% to 5%? How do successful independents and chains grow so rapidly? The answer: through menu engineering.  Menu engineering is a sophisticated study that observes how restaurant patrons make item selections, and then designs or engineers the menu to encourage consumers to select certain items over … More

Chef Santo Bruno

Caponata

One of the most popular salads in Sicilian cuisine is caponata (eggplant salad). While eggplant is the main ingredient, the salad likely takes its name from one of the secondary ingredients—capers. You’ll find eggplant in many Sicilian dishes, and it’s used in many ways, including in both sweet and savory meals. I like to make caponata … More