Most restaurants in the Bay area follow a simple formula for stocking their coolers. Every few days they call a number and leave a recorded order for their produce needs. It might be with a local produce wholesaler, or even more likely with one of the major wholesale restaurant suppliers like Sysco. The order will be checked over when it arrives the next day, but the provenance of the produce is often much less important to the average chef than price or quality.
The focus on local produce and menus that are driven by the bounty of the season is still a novel idea in Tampa Bay restaurants, even though its far from a new phenomenon in the US. Alice Waters, and many other lesser-known chefs, showed how to do it back in the 1970s, and chefs around the world have relied on local farms for centuries. For Ferrell Alvarez, executive chef at Cafe Dufrain, its become a guiding principle.
This article appears in Apr 14-20, 2011.
