Food stylists Julie Hettinger, left, and Laura Cordera work with renowned foodphotographer Ignacio Urquiza of Mexico City.Photo by Shelby Hodge
Roni Atnipp, from left, Heather Simpson, Patty Dominguez and Mary Tere Perusquiaare forces behind the Spanish/English cookbook.Photo by Shelby Hodge
The pork roast is cooked in a cloak of rock salt before being shredded for aphotograph.Photo by Shelby Hodge
Ignacio Urquiza photographed more than 80 dishes in 10 days of intense shooting.Photo by Shelby Hodge
The cookbook stalwarts gather in Mary Tere Perusquia's kitchen between shoots.Photo by Shelby Hodge
A Houston seafood restaurant has added some extra luxury to its martini offerings. Truluck's Ocean's Finest Seafood & Crab, the Galleria-area restaurant known for its steak and crustaceans, recently added two different $100 martinis to its menu, as well as a significantly less expensive way to zhuzh up its cocktails with caviar-stuffed olives.
Dave Mattern, Truluck’s partner and beverage director, tells CultureMap that he wanted to build an experience around the trend of martinis garnished with caviar-stuffed olives that he’d seen on social media. He began tinkering with two cocktails, a vodka martini made with Belvedere 10 and a gin martini made with Nolet’s Reserve, which retails for around $700 a bottle.
“When someone orders a martini, we hand-stuff four olives with caviar, and then we put them in a cute, little porcelain bathtub. Then we wheel the cart to the table and stir a vodka martini. We have a bottle of Belvedere 10 that lights up. It makes for a really nice experience,” Mattern says.
Similarly, the gin martini is presented with blackberry, a lemon twist, and other garnishes that highlight the different botanicals used in distilling the spirit.
Each martini is served with four caviar-stuffed olives.Courtesy of Truluck's
Truluck’s goes all out for its hand-stuffed caviar olives, too. The restaurant uses extra-large Spanish olives that, in Mattern’s words, “soak up a lot of caviar.” So much that Truluck’s uses a full ounce of caviar for every six olives.
“You get a burst of caviar when you bite into the olive,” he says.
Each of the $100 martinis comes with four caviar-stuffed olives. Diners can add an olive or two at an à la carte price of $10 for one olive. “It’s almost a little appetizer when you think about it,” Mattern says about the four olives that come with each martini.
Currently, the offering is only available at Truluck’s location on Westheimer. Since Mattern is the company’s beverage director, he’s hearing from colleagues at other locations who want to add it to their menus.
“I’m trying to figure out how to take it to every location so we do it right and use the freshest of caviar,” he says. “When you waste caviar, an angel cries in heaven. We have to make sure we’re using it all.”
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