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NEW YORK — The "bacon and eggs" appetizer at Picholine, one of the hardest tables to get on Manhattan's upper east side, couldn't be further from diner fare.
The "bacon" is smoked tuna belly, while the meticulously poached egg is served on soft polenta smothered in truffle butter.
"It's a joke," chef-proprietor Terrance Brennan says of the appetizer's name. "It's supposed to be tongue-in-cheek."
The price is not diner either: The appetizer is part of a two-course menu that costs $65 (U.S.).
The starter has become one of his most popular dishes, thanks largely to the legions of Manhattan diners currently enamoured of eggs. The city's high-end restaurants are giving eggs major play on their dinner menus, transforming the humble breakfast staple into a luxury good.
Creamy slow-poached eggs are among the most fashionable, dropped onto grilled asparagus and miso butter by chef David Chang at Momofuku Ssam Bar, or paired with a chorizo emulsion and powdered black olives by chef Wylie Dufresne at WD-50.
The most decadent version is L'Oeuf de Poule, served with a scoop of osetra caviar for $98 at the eponymous L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon at the Four Seasons Hotel.
"Eggs are so completely satisfying," says Dan Barber, chef and co-owner of Blue Hill restaurant. "There's a richness and fattiness that carries other flavours."
Upscale egg-centred entrées don't appear to have hit Canadian menus in a big way yet.
In New York, diners can credit the egg trend in part to the movement to use fresh, local products. As chefs started looking at what was being produced by farmers using traditional methods upstate and in New England, they found eggs in ready supply.
According to Mr. Barber, tasting a farm-fresh egg from a chicken raised on a pasture instead of a cage can be a "life-changing experience."
The chickens usually eat grass instead of corn, which yields fatty, orange yolks with a depth of flavour bearing little resemblance to the commercial versions available in supermarkets, he says.
"You can have eaten eggs all your life and never known what they are supposed to taste like."
Mr. Barber sources his eggs from farms in Westchester County. Gathered at dawn, they arrive before dinner service at his Greenwich Village eatery, just as Mr. Barber is creating the menu, which changes every night.
On a recent Friday, he served egg crusted in pulverized hazelnut and parmesan cheese, and quickly fried. The night before he coated poached eggs with lardo, cured meat from the layer of fat directly under the pig's skin.
"I love to cook with eggs," Mr. Barber says.
Bill Telepan was among the first to feature farm-fresh eggs at his Upper West Side restaurant Telepan. Before the restaurant opened last year, he spent a lot of time shopping at farmers' markets and cooking eggs at home. He quickly developed a love for eggs from farms in the Berkshires.
While shopping at a farmers' market in Chelsea, Mr. Telepan says, "I said to myself, 'Hey, why not put eggs on the menu?' " He now goes through 180 dozen eggs a week, but admits he is surprised at the attention the restaurant has received because of the dishes.
He has updated the traditional "egg in a hole," creating an appetizer with a farm-fresh poached egg sitting in a garlic toast, layered with wild spinach and hen of the woods mushrooms. A decadent take on pasta carbonara pairs a slow-poached egg with homemade spinach pappardelle, pork sausage and summer beans. Piercing the yolk yields a rich sauce that tastes more like butter than egg.
To deliver the perfect poached egg, many chefs use a high-tech tool called an immersion circulator, a piece of equipment that circulates water at precise temperatures for long periods of time.
Mr. Brennan of Picholine uses a circulator to poach his eggs at 63 C for 120 minutes; Mr. Dufresne of WD-50 keeps the water one degree cooler. The process, pioneered by Spanish chefs interested in the chemistry of cooking, gels the white of the egg while the yolk remains semi-solid, Mr. Brennan says.
The resulting egg maintains its shape - as if it had been hard-boiled - but the yolk runs when pierced by a fork.
Large quantities are cooked with the circulator a day before, shocked with ice water after poaching and left overnight.
When a diner places an order, they are warmed in hot water for 10 to 15 minutes and cracked open, says Jon Bignelli, a chef at WD-50.
"It doesn't run," Mr. Bignelli says. "It creams out" in a thick smear across the plate.
Mr. Brennan's favourite egg dish is still the simple bacon-and-egg sandwich he makes every morning for his son's breakfast, with runny scrambled eggs and crispy bacon.
"Eggs are really amazing, when you think of all they can do."
