Menu Innovation

7-Eleven has hired Pizza Hut veteran Kelly Buckley to assemble a foodservice team that can go tong-to-tong with quick-service restaurant chains. In the meantime, she’s eying such possible menu additions as beer-infused brats, more salads, beef mini-tacos and two empanadas. Those are some of the revelations that emerged from the convenience-store giant’s 7-Eleven University, held this week in Dallas. The event brings together 1,000 operations and merchandising employees of the c-store chain’s franchisor.

Long a staple of Southern kitchens, fritters have been around in both savory and sweet versions. Corn, seafood, sweet potatoes and apples are the best-known of these deep-fried morsels. But chefs are now shaking up tradition, and fritters crafted from more unusual ingredients—like chickpeas, sunchokes and quinoa—are showing up on menus.

Casual-dining pioneer T.G.I. Friday’s has invested in elevating its menu ingredients. On the protein side, two recent upgrades include Norwegian salmon and Black Angus Rib-Eye—both of which are featured in LTOs this winter.

The annual “What’s Hot” survey of 1,800 chefs by the National Restaurant Association pegged gluten-free/food allergy-conscious items as No. 7 on the top 10 trends list this year. That’s up a notch from its 2011 position. Technomic’s recent “Restrictive Diets Market Intelligence Report” notes that menu items billed as “gluten-free” experienced significant growth between 2010 and 2011, increasing by 61 percent.

The rib eye is one of the most popular steakhouse cuts and most fans like it served up simple—well seasoned and broiled or grilled. At the nine-location Smith & Wollensky, the menu offers a prime, dry-aged 28-oz. rib eye steak just that way. But executive chef Matt King wanted to do something more for customers looking for a bit of adventure and variety. The deconstruction process A rib eye has two clearly defined muscles. King starts out by removing the outer cap muscle and the bone, leaving the well-marbled 9-ounce eye.