Baton Rouge gets hip to modernist cuisine

Every summer, Ruffino’s Executive Chef Peter Sclafani travels to Chalmette to select what he believes are the area’s most flavorful Creole tomatoes. A farm-to-table advocate, Sclafani buys the scarlet fruit from the same family farm each season, incorporating them into Ruffino’s La Caprese and other summer salads. But this year, the tricolor classic of tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and basil was elevated further—the result of Sclafani’s interest in another major culinary trend: modernist cuisine. He didn’t douse the salad with the requisite extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. He topped it instead with homemade balsamic caviar, created with a natural gelling agent called agar. Topped with micro basil and served with impossibly soft burrata cheese, the dish was an impressive reinterpretation of its classic forebear. But it looked so much like real caviar that several patrons, including some who didn’t like caviar at all, remained unconvinced. Ruffino’s servers were used to the exchange. It wasn’t the first time Sclafani had dabbled in modernist cuisine. Click here to read more about this local chef’s forays into molecular gastronomy.—Maggie Heyn Richardson