The Butter Renaissance by Meryle Evans

“Butter Is Experiencing A Renaissance Like Never Before” – Forbes Magazine

Butter, a quintessential ingredient in the pastry kitchen, is now finding new favor at the table, enhancing bread service and creating a buzz in restaurants and cafes across the country. In an article on butter trends in March, Forbes noted that “butter has undergone a remarkable transformation, becoming a canvas for culinary experimentation and innovation,” ranging from “artisanal, plant-based and cultured creations to innovative flavor infusions..” New York Magazine’s Grub Street also weighed in, observing “a growing national interest across all sorts of dining establishments. Butter is no longer a supporting player. It has become a star, and it isn’t going to move out of the spotlight soon.”

That spotlight shines on a colorful array of tableside showpieces, many of them conceived before last year’s dairy industry inspired TikTok butter board craze. At Stanton Social in Las Vegas, butter is smoked under a cloche and presented to guests with a flourish, while Quality Bistro in Manhattan rolls a lavish butter course around the dining room on a cart, Across town at plant-based Eleven Madison Park, seasonal flavored butters paired with a laminated roll comprise a separate course on the tasting menu; at Ever in Chicago whimsical butter ribbons and rosettes accompany four or five different rolls selected to match specific courses.

With many diverse options for sourcing their butter, chefs generally select rich cultured – 82-85% butterfat European style, both imported and domestic, salted or unsalted, and available in myriad compound flavors. At French bistro Libertine in Manhattan, a 14-inch-tall mound of wood-churned lightly-salted butter from Rodolphe Le Meunier’s coddled Normandy cows sits prominently in the middle of the open kitchen, ready to be scooped and sent out to diners. Bordier butter, also imported from France, lists over a dozen flavors including yuzu, buckwheat, and raspberry.

Domestically, European style butters abound. In Vermont, small batch Ploughgate Creamery’s compound butters include maple and seaweed. Nordic Creamery in Wisconsin is a frequent prize winner at the World Dairy Exposition with its compound butters: Cinnamon Sugar; Garlic and Basil; and Pepper. New York-based Aux Delices Des Bois, long a leading purveyor of truffle butter, has introduced new flavors such as Red Wine & Shallot, and Lemon Herb Garlic to their line.

Chefs have also pivoted from restaurant kitchens to butter-centric enterprises. After cooking for Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Michael Tashman left fine dining to found Los Angeles based Churn Foods in 2020, selling a selection of grass-fed, hormone-free European style compound butter with flavors such as miso and bruschetta. Epicurean Connection’s Sheana Davis. a prominent chef, caterer, retailer, cheese maker and indefatigable butter proselytizer in Sonoma for decades, teaches classes and trains culinary professionals to make butter. She also develops compound butter recipes for restaurants and wineries nationwide. Davis organizes demonstrations of butter pairings with food, wine and even popcorn, using favorite compound butters such as pinot noir cherry and lemon pepper. Last year, with her daughter Karena as co-author, Davis self-published Buttermonger, a complete guide to making fresh, cultured and compound butters, with recipes for 40 sweet, savory and novelty butters. Now in its second printing, Buttermonger will appear in a new edition this fall.

Many chefs, however, prefer to purchase butter from local dairies and create unique flavor profiles that complement their culinary style. Curtis Duffy, acclaimed chef/co-owner of two Michelin star Ever, points out. “We don’t use a lot of fat and butter in our cooking process; my most substantial use of butter is that you put it on the bread, so we wanted to make it interesting, not so mainstream. Their Grassland Dairy Products butter is either put through a specially designed press and transformed into super thin sheets that resemble gift box ribbons, or piped into green rosettes flavored with an herb puree changed seasonally. “Right now, we are using chervil, tarragon, chives, dill, parsley and mint,’ says Duffy. “In the fall, we’ll reach for warmer, earthier flavors – sage, marjoram, and thyme.”

At Ever, the dramatic butter duo remains on the table during several courses, matched with different breads. “We make four or five breads in house every day,” Duffy explains, “and the bread service for us is like a wine pairing; every bread is made to go with a specific course and the profile of the bread matches whatever dishes we do.” Recent selections include: a Madeleine made with candied Buddha hand, a soft pretzel with black sea salt, and a milk bun with curry.

At Quality Bistro where chef Craig Koketsu makes his own butter with Battenkill Valley Creamery cream, the extravagant tableside butter service is a pre-dinner course. “We were inspired by Restaurant Allard in Paris, which has a huge mound of butter under a glass dome in their dining room,” says Koketsu. “We wanted our guests to experience the awe and delight of seeing a large vat of homemade butter roll up to the table and we complemented the butter with all the things we love to eat with it.” A server scoops a mound of butter onto a marble slab and sprinkles it with fleur de sel, black pepper, piment d’Espelette and minced shallots. Along with freshly grilled country bread from Pain d’Avignon bakery, the garnishes include a selection of crudities, vegetable spreads, cornichons and ham. “It has always been a popular dish,” Koketsu continues, “but it has really taken off on social media, particularly Instagram, so we’ve seen an even greater jump in popularity in the last year or so, as people really enjoy capturing it and sharing on their feed.”

Smoked butter is also turning heads. At Stanton Social, a cloche is placed on top of the butter and filled with smoke. The smoke infuses the butter, which only takes about 30 to 60 seconds, The cloche is removed when it reaches the guest and a small cloud of smoke is released, but the smoke also adheres to the butter in that short time. Colorful mini-crudities and Kalamata-olive demi baguette accompany the butter. MaMou in New Orleans offers a different version: a crystal dish of whipped, smoked Plugras coated with piment d’Espelette, served with a pretzel batard.

For plant-based establishments, there are bountiful butter spread options available, but at Daniel Humm’s three Michelin star Eleven Madison Park, seasonal butters are made in house by the restaurant’s fermentation sous chef Brock Middleton. Served as the third of a ten-course tasting menu, they incorporate a unique ingredient from the menu into the butter.” Middleton elaborates: “The foundation of the butter is made with a blend of coconut and sunflower oil mixed with a seasonal base. For our onion butter in the winter, this is mainly cultured onion juice with nutritional yeast and pureed alums. For sunflower butter in summer, it is a gelled, cultured sunflower milk. In the spring, it’s a mushroom stock and morel puree. Each butter is also finished with a pumpkin or sunflower seed glaze.”  The butter is served, Middleton says, “with our laminated bread roll, which is crafted by our pastry team. It is soft and doughy on the inside and flaky on the outside with a rich, buttery flavor. It’s delicious and rich with familiar flavors and textures, and it shows guests just how satisfying plant-based food can be. Many diners are surprised that it’s made without dairy, but is still so decadent and flavorful.”

Plant based or dairy, butter has a boundless adaptability that is amplified by its visual appeal. “Who knew butter could be so beautiful,” Ksenia Larina writes in the online bridal magazine TheWed. In an article headlined “Butter: One of 2024’s Biggest Set Design Trends,” she predicts that butter is going to be a huge wedding trend this year: “one of the most photogenic products when properly served: Butter in molds, butter figures, butter with bows or whole mountains of butter – it is marvelous in any way.”

(This article appeared in the Summer 2024 issue of Pastry Arts Magazine)