Every week, Restaurant SmartBrief editors scour the Internet for the breaking news and best-practices stories that restaurant owners and managers need to make their businesses smarter. However, every week, hundreds of fascinating food, beverage and restaurant stories don’t make the cut. Here are a few of my favorite stories from the past week that didn’t make the newsletter:
- Food & Wine magazine announced The People’s Best New Chef. Congrats to Jamie Bissonnette of Coppa in Boston and to all of the regional winners. Read a recent interview with Midwest finalist Josh Galliano.
- Food photography was a hot topic this week. One photographer recalled his quest to find the secret In-and-Out Burger menu items and documented it in a Holiday Inn Express. A couple of blog posts detailed how to snap the perfect picture by controlling shadow contrast and quality of light and other best practices. We found more mouthwatering pictures here.
- The 36th Annual Culinary Arts Competition started this week, with 27 military chefs competing for the title of Armed Forces Chef of the Year.
- Word on the street is that The New York Times is going to roll out TimesLimited, a daily-deal kind of site. The feature already is in position on Twitter.
- And a chef in Geneva, Ill., built a kitchen out of 2,000 pounds of donated chocolate and sugar. Stove, sink and dishes included.
Which food story made you smile this week? Tell us in the comments.