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Truffles, Crab and Caviar: Preparing for New Year’s at the Warehouse of Expensive Eats
There is an industrial stretch of 37th Street in Long Island City, Queens, just off Queens Boulevard where you can walk and suddenly be hit with the most incongruous of odors: the pungent, earthy smell of truffles…
How a Texas Teen-Ager Became New York City’s Premier Truffle Dealer
On a bare side street in Long Island City, Queens, beside Oh Bok Steel Shelving & Electric Supply, the Regalis luxury-food company keeps its goods. Upon entering the warehouse through a small red door, a visitor is immediately greeted by an intoxicating and pungent scent: the unmistakable, and nearly indescribable, odor of truffles…
Inside NYC’s $200K-Per-Week Black Truffle Trade: Meet the man supplying Gotham's best restaurants with the elusive delicacy.
MANY MICHELIN-STARRED MENUS, from Daniel Boulud’s caramelized veal sweetbreads with Australian black truffle shavings to David Bouley’s Dungeness crab with black truffle dashi, feature truffles as a staple. Each of those chefs (and dishes) relies on one man to furnish the edible gold: Ian Purkayastha, the 23-year-old owner and founder of Regalis Foods...
** Purkayastha’s company supplies about 80 percent of the Michelin-endorsed restaurants in Manhattan
A Window Into the Life of a Truffle Dealer
Meet Ian Purkayastha, who, at just 25 years old, supplies rare and unusual ingredients to NYC's Michelin-starred restaurants. Ian Purkayastha first tasted truffles when he was just 15 years old. He spotted them on the menu when he was out to dinner with a friend whose parents had agreed to pick up the tab, and it was love at first bite…
Inside NYC’s $200K-Per-Week Black Truffle Trade: Meet the man supplying Gotham's best restaurants with the elusive delicacy.
Ah, the coveted truffle. It’s one of the great luxury ingredients in gastronomy. That’s because these little nuggets of fungus growing underground on the roots of trees are one of the few foodstuffs we as humans haven’t figured out how to factory farm into total ubiquity. That also means we haven’t genetically modified them to be shelf-stable, so once they’re harvested, the clock is truly ticking to get from ground to gourmand. That’s where Ian Purkayastha comes in…