Are Seasonal Menus a Good Idea?

Seasonal menus are, as their name suggests, temporary and only last the season. Some restaurants have menus that change regularly with different seasons of fruits and vegetables. Many ingredients’ harvests don’t line up perfectly with the four seasons, so others will have seasonal menu items. To keep things simple, many other restaurants, ourselves included, try to reign in our menu changes to the four different seasons.

This offers us different seasonal ingredients that we can use in our recipes, but also ones we have to replace. By changing the menu, we’re remaining consistent in a way that should make things easier on our kitchen, our suppliers, and our regular guests.

But why have a seasonal menu at all? If we avoided seasonal ingredients and had a consistent menu, we’d only change something when necessary, and then our menu might get stale and boring. It might be easier, but it can also be unfulfilling. So are seasonal menus a good idea? The kitchen at Kevin’s Bar and Restaurant thinks so.

The Benefits of Seasonal Menus

Using seasonal menus in our restaurant has led to several benefits we wouldn’t have if we didn’t have seasonal menus. These benefits have led to varied menus, employee satisfaction, and the best food for our guests. These benefits include:

Recipe experimentation: Who would want to cook the same thing, every day for the rest of their lives? There will always be some menu items we never remove because they’re available year-round and everyone loves them, but to help our chefs satisfy their curiosity, they need to be able to change it up. Seasonal menus set some challenges with the seasonal ingredients, and a schedule for the rest of the restaurant team to prepare for.

Emphasize the freshness of ingredients: If the ingredients are shipped in from around the world, they’re likely not seasonal ingredients and are available all the time. They’re also not always the freshest ingredients. Seasonal ingredients come right from local farms and food suppliers so we can get them as soon as possible. This means we support our local businesses, we have the freshest ingredients around, and the best-tasting menu.

Exclusive menu items: If we had the same menu all year round, we would have to avoid seasonal ingredients and couldn’t have some exclusive menu items. Even if we made some changes or added some seasonal menu items, that’s a lot of the same food all year-round, with the same ingredients available all the time. There’s not a lot of variety in making food this way.

Check Out Our New Fall Menu!

But why are we talking about seasonal menus in the first place? Because we just announced our new menu for the fall with some returning classics, menu mainstays, and some new seasonal menu items.

Appetizers

For the fall, we have seven menu items perfect for whetting your appetite before the main meal. Some are perfect for sharing with the table, and others are good if you want your appetizers for yourself.

Goat Cheese Wontons with sweet and spicy soy sauce.

Grilled Octopus with roasted beets, kale salad, pickled red onion, and creme fraiche.

Passionfruit Poached Shrimp Cocktail with preserved lemon cocktail sauce.

Calamari fried and served with sweet chili aioli.

Cheese Board containing NY Old Chatham Creamery three milk gouda and chevre, black waxed cheddar, manchego, Piave, drunken goat, grapes, dried figs, cranberries, mini toasts, and sour cherry preserve.

Fall Vegetables with brussels sprouts, butternut squash, beets, kale, and tempura battered with spiced honey.

Oysters with orange cranberry and apple cider mignonette and preserved lemon cocktail sauce.

Soup & Salad

If you want something that tastes different from all the other entrées and appetizers as a side or an appetizer, we have soups and salads you can order.

Butternut Squash Bisque served with toasted pumpkin seeds.

All the Onion Soup with red cipollini, yellow, and pearl onions, leeks, and shallots with sourdough croutons, cooper sharp and smoked gouda cheese.

House Salad mixed with greens, heirloom cherry tomatoes, carrots, persian cucumber, pickled red onion, and matchstick potatoes with cashew dill dressing.

Caesar Salad with romaine hearts, croutons, and Grana Padano.

Apple Cranberry Kale Salad has kale, apples, dried cranberries, pecans, goat cheese, apple cider, and orange vinaigrette.

Entrées

Our entrées have several new seasonal menu items across seafood, poultry, vegan meals, steak, and more.

Shrimp and Scallop Sambuca with pappardelle pasta and sambuca blush sauce.

Halibut with crispy brussels sprouts, roasted fingerling potatoes, and butternut squash puree.

Ginger and Soy Glazed Salmon with basmati rice and seasonal vegetables.

Vegan Orecchiette with Beyond sausage, red pepper, mushrooms, pearl onion, kale, and garlic olive oil.

Veal Schnitzel with mushroom stroganoff sauce, herb spaetzle, and seasonal vegetables.

Bone-In Pork Chop in an apple hot honey glaze, bacon, potato puree, and seasonal vegetables.

Lemon and Herb Roasted Chicken is an airline chicken breast with potato puree, chicken jus, and seasonal vegetables.

Long Island Duck is a maple caramel duck breast, with confit leg and fingerling potatoes, and seasonal vegetables.

8 oz Center Cut Filet Mignon is a demi-glace veal, potato puree, and seasonal vegetables.

18 oz Bone-In Ribeye comes with white truffle butter, potato puree, and seasonal vegetables.

Steak Frites, which consists of dry-rubbed coulotte steak, french fries, steak sauce, and seasonal vegetables.

Make a Reservation to Try Our New Seasonal Menu Items

The team in our kitchen worked hard on this new menu. If it was going to be the restaurant’s regularly serving menu for the next few months, we knew it had to be great. We aimed to cover our bases, provide an appetizing choice for people of all diets, and serve unique dishes.

If you want to know how well our kitchen team did, make a reservation to come taste our new menu yourself today.