How Chefs Make Toast Interesting
Toast at home can be a simple affair, but at restaurants from Puerto Rico to New York, chefs are taking it in new directions
Toast hadn’t yet become a major component of my diet when I read a piece about how cooked bread had become the latest artisanal food trend in Pacific Standard back in 2014. But soon, it would be everywhere, and I’d wonder how a vegan ever went out for breakfast before the ubiquity of avocado toast. With well-made sourdough bread becoming ever more popular, the ease with which toast became a staple at cafés and at home is a testament to, of course, its mutability.
Nowhere have I encountered more varied, seasonal, and tasty toasts as at Café Regina in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where owner Kali Solack turns slices of sourdough from the nearby El Horno de Pane into a canvas for distinctive flavors and textures. There is, of course, a gloriously seasoned, creamy avocado toast with crushed red pepper and an olive oil drizzle; a banana and almond butter with crispy puffed amaranth that’s brought to life with lemon zest; and a recent new addition: housemade hummus, tahini, buckwheat for crunch, herb oil, and roasted carrots with their greens.
For Solack, focusing on toast at her café made sense for a few reasons. “Cafe Regina started as such a…
