Getting away from the daily grind: Chefs perk up menus with coffee-flavored fare

Bonnie Brewer Cavanaugh

Coffee is not just for breakfast anymore. The common coffee bean in all its variations is climbing the social dining ladder to headline at the dinner table.

At Manhattan's Aquavit, executive chef Marcus Samuelsson long has used coffee to infuse a smoky flavor into everything from sauces to entrees to desserts.

"It's a flavor you can use for a lot of things because it gives depth," Samuelsson says. "It's almost a burnt flavor."

His coffee-infused barbecue sauce is slathered over veal and pork ribs or used in honey-chicken dishes, and his espresso-spiked mustard sauce is an accompaniment to gravlax.

"Sometimes we use coffee to cure salmon, along with brown sugar," he says. The chef also uses it on duck, game, fish, shellfish and even in parfaits.

While Aquavit's clientele doesn't notice the coffee infusion, the chef is certain that they would notice it if it weren't there. "It's not like, 'Wow, there must be coffee in here.' It adds depth to the flavor; without it, it definitely tastes different."

Coffee long has been used to pep up Southern kitchen staples like red-eye gravy, generously poured over biscuits and grits. At Kiefer's in Atlanta, chef-owner Kit Kiefer uses coffee to enhance both the red-eye gravy and the glaze used in his bourbon-glazed pork tenderloin with three-cheese grits cakes. For the gravy it's stale coffee; for the glaze, a strong mix of instant-coffee granules.

"I use coffee in a lot of things," says Kiefer, who teaches at the Art Institute of Atlanta's School of Culinary Arts. "I use it traditionally in the red-eye gravy, but we do a lot of different glazes with it. We do what we call a Jamaican mocha glaze for duck breast. For that we use very, very strong coffee."

Noting the use of instant coffee, Kiefer says: "Sometimes I think there are a lot of different opportunities if the chefs are willing to get experimental. You make a very strong coffee concentrate and use it as you would a beef base or a stock base. In other words, you make a coffee base."

Kiefer's first cookbook, "Buckle Up for Hot & Spicy," to be published next spring, will include "stories and anecdotes and lots of recipes" featuring his coffee infusions.

"A lot of the dishes are ... typical ... but with a twist," he says. "You can take a traditional dish like bananas Foster and add a little coffee to it, and you have mocha bananas Foster."

Kiefer also notes that the variations between light and dark roasts and the diverse forms in which coffee is available -- such as instant powder, drip brew and coarsely ground -- make it a versatile flavoring. It can lend a soft, smoky flavor to one dish and a sweet flavor to another.

"It's one ingredient, but it gives you a multitude of choices," he says. "It's not like saffron which, if you use it, tastes only like saffron."

Kiefer often experiments with different strengths and concentrations.

"For example, in red-eye gravy you use very old, stale coffee that's been sitting around for six hours, but that wouldn't be the coffee you'd want to use in a glaze," he explains. "If you did a grilled salmon with a mocha glaze, you'd want to use a pretty pronounced coffee."

Pastry chefs have been using coffee extracts in liquid and paste form for a long time, says chef-instructor Robert Jorin, team leader for the baking and pastry program at The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in St. Helena, Calif. His chefs there also use a French coffee, which is reduced to flavor butter cream or whipped cream.

"There are a lot of coffee-flavored products, especially in Austrian and German pastry origins," Jorin says. "We used to make eclairs. Instead of chocolate eclairs, we made a mocha eclair. In Europe the term 'mocha' refers to coffee, not coffee and chocolate. It was flavored with a coffee extract, and instead of a chocolate glaze, it was a coffee-flavored glaze."

Coffee ice creams and espresso granitas also are prepared at The CIA, he notes. "And, of course, coffee flavors tiramisu," he adds.

But coffee-dessert lovers needn't head to The CIA for a tiramisu fix; many already are flocking to Brew Moon Inc.'s six locations for a taste of the Boston-based chain's tiramisu cheesecake.

The dish includes espresso and coffee liquor with ground chocolate and ladyfingers. It has become Brew Moon's most popular dessert, outselling other specialty items "by a pretty decent margin," says Donald Chapelle, vice president of culinary operations. "This little cheesecake is knocking their pants off.

"Tiramisu is really nothing new, it's been around a while, and cheesecake is a middle-of-the-road dessert that you can find in any diner anywhere in the world," Chapelle explains. "But the combination of the two is really great."

He believes coffee will be the flavoring of the future: "It's just like beer. Coffee tends to pay off or complement something, so something can contradict it or counteract it."

Similarly, the Kafya Martini was created to satisfy coffee aficionados who covet a drop of coffee before dinner but also crave a cocktail. Julie Reiner, bar manager at Manhattan's C3 restaurant and lounge, serves up a dozen or so coffee-infused quaffs. The coffee Martini is made with a splash of Tia Maria and is topped off with a cinnamon-stick garnish. It is her most popular new combo. "It's one of those things that take a little encouragement to try, but if you like coffee, it's a great drink," Reiner insists.

The new Martini is outpacing even the voguish Cosmopolitan in popularity, she says.

Aquavit's Samuelsson, winner of the Rising Star Chef Award at the James Beard Foundation Awards last May, has been flavoring his dishes with a dash of coffee for so long that he scoffs at the idea of its use becoming faddish. "I am not a trendy guy," he explains. "There is no way to be able to hang with all the different trends; you'll always be behind. The thing is to lead rather than follow."

Samuelsson credits mass-market coffee purveyor Starbucks with creating a national interest in coffee flavors. Jorin agrees. Finding a good espresso or cappuccino 10 years ago was difficult, he says.

"Coffee was always big, but [Starbucks] made good coffee popular. So they have to be credited with making it mainstream," Jorin continues. "Pastry chefs always used to make coffee-flavored things, but now it's like the customer is asking for them. It's marketing, too. If you call something a cappuccino torte, it's going to sell much better than a coffee torte."

Kiefer says: "I have been using coffee for a long time in recipes. I think a lot of chefs probably have. You just don't talk about it much. But now that it's part of society in general -- you have a Starbucks on every corner -- it's become kind of cool."

Starbucks does not yet offer coffee-flavored treats at all its stores. However, its cookbook, "Passion for Coffee," features a few coffee-infused dishes, including coffee creme brulee with coarsely ground espresso beans and a garnish of edible gold-leaf stars.

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