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  • From: "MAsteveINE" <MAsteveINE AT 207me.com>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Market-farming] Selling to Chafs.
  • Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2010 07:49:34 -0500

FWIW since it is reading season: This kid started out dealing truffles from his boarding
 
school dorm.
 
MAsteveINE
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

ABSTRACT: LETTER FROM LAS VEGAS about Brett Ottolenghi. Ottolenghi is the proprietor of Artisanal Foods, which supplies top Las Vegas chefs with foie gras, truffles, caviar, saffron, vinegars, cinnamon, oils, salts, and ham. He often says that he is on a first-name basis with three-hundred and seventy chefs in Las Vegas. To the chefs, he is “the truffle kid”—for his first product—or Hamleg, owing to his tendency to walk through casino lobbies carrying the hairy, hoof-on hindquarters of a pig. He specializes in the small run, the vaguely regulated, the hard to come by, and the near-banned. Ottolenghi prides himself on the fulfillment of outrageous and obscure demands. He has sought purple mustard at the bidding of the chefs at Michael Mina at the Bellagio, and found beautiful huitlacoche—“corn smut”—on a thirteen-acre farm in Florida. At Chinese New Year, he furnished the buffet at the Bellagio with four hundred pounds of fatted duck breast on less than twenty-four hours’ notice. Writer travels with Ottolenghi to the town of La Alberca in Spain, home to the only Spanish producer of Ibérico ham approved by the U.S.D.A. for sale in the United States. Iberico meat is unctuous and its most luxurious variety, bellota, melts at room temperature. The hams cure for three years. Retail shops charge a hundred and thirty dollars a pound for it. Ottolenghi comes from mushroom people. His parents, Arturo and Hannah, seed the logs in their back yard in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, with shiitakes; morels and chanterelles grow wild. On a family trip to San Francisco when Brett was twelve, he ordered a pasta dish with truffle oil on it. This led to a conversation about the high price of truffles in the United States. At the time, there was only one importer, Urbani. Brett decided to see if he could compete. Brett and his father started the Truffle Market, an online venture selling truffles, that they imported from Italy, in 1998. Tells about the growth of the business after it was mentioned in Newsweek. For a time, Ottolenghi ran the business from his boarding-school dorm room. He moved to Las Vegas in 2004. Gives brief history of dining in Las Vegas. Until Wofgang Puck opened a branch of Spago there in 1992, the three main categories of restaurants had been: coffee shop, steak house, and buffet. In the late nineties, Steve Wynn recruited celebrity chefs for the Bellagio. Soon every casino had a roster of star chefs. Discusses the logistics of having high-quality fresh ingredients shipped to Las Vegas. Mentions the cutthroat and at times corrupt nature of the food business in the city. Writer accompanies Ottolenghi and foie gras maker Helena Gonzalez as they call on Drew Terp, the executive chef at Bar Masa and Shaboo.






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