The Terrain Cafe's Transitional Summer-to-Fall Menu

We recently stopped by Styer’s to get a taste of what they’ve been cooking up for the season and are excited to share a few of our favorite dishes with you here. While the new fall menu doesn’t drop until October 8th, we’re loving these plates to seamlessly transition us through the seasons. We chatted with our culinary director, Steve Linneman, to get the scoop on what’s on the menu now, how the culinary team collaborates on the menus, and what new fall dish caused a rivalry among our chefs!

“Seasonality is one of the most important pillars of our culinary ethos at Terrain Cafe so we tend to start with the ingredients we know will be at their best in the season’s harvest, like the tomato and herbs in this Quinoa Tabbouleh or the Cape May Scallops and Charred Chimichurri. With five locations and five different chefs with five different styles of cooking, I think it’s important that we make our menu development process a collaborative one so that each chef has an opportunity to express their creativity and have a hand in the menus that they’ll be cooking day-to-day. I typically pinpoint some seasonal ingredients, suggest cooking methods, and task each of them to create around four to five dishes that are wholly theirs. After that, we work together to taste and develop the dishes before we host a tasting to decide what goes on the menu.”

He shares that “I’m always most excited by the changing seasons to see what new ways we can interpret that season’s bounty into creative dishes that wow our guests, like using simple macerated peaches on our Brioche French Toast. This summer we really wanted to create bright, fresh dishes that felt seasonally appropriate, light, and delicious! I think we’re continuing to break out of the box with our menu creations and we can’t wait for everyone to see what we’ve cooked up this fall.”

“And speaking of fall,” Steve says, “our new chicken dish is one that caused a little rivalry among the chefs! Chef Joe Frost in Devon and Chef Kevin Ettenson in Bethesda were both featuring chicken dish specials on their menus in the lead up to the summer menu change and both were phenomenal. We had both of them create their dishes side-by-side to battle it out over to see whose would make it on the final menu. We made it all the way to the final tasting before we could decide and Kevin’s ultimately won – and he won’t let Joe live it down!”

Feeling hungry? Check out our full list of cafe locations and make a reservation!