Pop-up dinners are a big culinary trend and we’ve found one where every dish is made or infused with coffee. In tonight’s Style File, 7s Belkys Nerey shows us how some young chefs are getting coffee creative.
WSVN — It’s no secret coffee helps keep the 305 buzzing.
Carole Delucian: “I love coffee. I begin every day with coffee.”
But java isn’t just for drinking anymore some creative chefs are now cooking with coffee.
Jeremy Gamble: “Coffee is one of my true passions.”
Jeremy Gamble and a group of young chefs from Johnson and Wales University in North Miami used to spend hours at nearby Alaska Coffee Roasting Company.
Karen Tuvia: “We have coffees from everywhere. We have a fluid bed air roaster. We can pinpoint an exact temperature so we’re profile roasters, so we really roast to bring out all the different flavors of that coffee and not over roast.”
Jeremy Gamble: “I was here twice a day. I would come over here with my friends and we would study.”
During that time, the 20-year-old cook and the owner of Alaska Coffee brewed up an idea: Host pop-up dinners serving dishes infused with coffee.
Jeremy Gamble: “I want to highlight the coffees. I want to put them into savory and sweet applications. We can fuse into oils, into butter, into chocolates, into rubs.”
Triny Escobar: “I didn’t think you could infuse coffee in so many ways into your meal.”
Every other Tuesday night, the young chefs take over the cafe and create a dinner menu based on the regions where the coffee of choice is grown.
Triny Escobar: “You might come in and have Mexican inspired, and then the next time it will be South American inspired.”
You’ll begin with a first course like a white asparagus parsnip soup with of course, a shot of coffee.
Jeremy: “We’re infusing the Sumatran coffee, which is low in bitterness, low in acidity. It gives it more richness.”
Triny Escobar: “I was actually glad it was incorporated in such a way, that you can taste the coffee but it melded with all the different textures.”
A meat dish like a pork tenderloin with a coffee rub.
Jeremy Gamble: “This is Mexican Pluma. I toasted off the beans and I added chipotle and coriander, and then I ground it up like coffee and rubbed it on the outside, and it creates this crust on the outside.”
Triny Escobar: “The pork was so tender and juicy it had almost a smoky taste.”
And once again coffee will somehow be worked in to the sweet finale of dessert.
Jeremy Gamble: “Our take on a pumpkin pie. Thyme-infused ganache with Yirgacheffe coffee. The coffee adds sort of a mocha element to it.”
Caffeine-freaks don’t sweat, you’ll actually get some coffee to drink too.
“I can’t imagine how many ways coffee can be put into food. From the butter 52:53 to the sauce that went into the soup.”
Carole Delucian: “I don’t know if I can go to sleep tonight.”
This is one coffee high you won’t want to come down from.
Again, the pop-up dinners are every other Tuesday night at Alaska Coffee Roasting Company in North Miami. The four-course dinner costs $60 and you will need reservations.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
POP-UP DINNERS:Every other Tuesday night
ALASKA COFFEE ROASTING COMPANY
13130 Biscayne Blvd North Miami, FL 33181
(786) 332-4254