Shooting Truffle Eugene: When the Ingredients Cost More than Your Camera

Capturing an Ambitious Tasting Experience at Restaurant Eugene

A great pleasure of working with Restaurant Eugene as a photographer is witnessing the creativity and skill deployed so consistently in the kitchen. The full depth of those qualities was on display recently when Executive Chef Chris Edwards presented Truffle Eugene, an ambitious week-long menu featuring black Perigord and white Alba truffles. There was a tasting menu that involved seven courses, each jam-packed with both types of truffles. There were also several a la carte menu items featuring truffles, and truffles could be added to many dishes for a surcharge.  I had the opportunity to photograph the raw ingredients and the full tasting menu, which was spectacular.

What’s the big deal with truffles?

You might think, “truffles served in a fine dining restaurant – not exactly news.” But how often do you see fresh, whole truffles used in restaurants around Atlanta? Both black and white truffles are incredibly perishable, and their short shelf-life makes them risky to buy in raw, bulk form. And truffles aren’t margin-makers; they’re expensive when the restaurants buy them, too.

For this special week, Restaurant Eugene bought fresh truffles in peak season by the pound – a big financial commitment for a restaurant that isn’t set up to turn hundreds of covers a night. Fine dining restaurants are typically low-margin operations thanks to their investment in high-quality ingredients and talent. This was a bit of a risk for the restaurant, which made the menu that much more exciting and seemed to bring out the best in the kitchen.

A little risk brings inspiration and reward

On Wednesday night, the first night of service each week at Restaurant Eugene, I visited before opening to take photos of the menu prep and raw ingredients. In this case, the raw ingredients included a bowl of fungi that were worth more than the camera I was using to photograph them. Truffles are not easy to capture in their full glory through photography because they make so much of an impression through smell. I attended the restaurant’s Wednesday night lineup as Chef Edwards gave his overview of the menu. Part of service included a presentation of the bowl of truffles, which was sitting on the table in the middle of the dining room. With the top off the bowl, the smell slowly worked its way around the room into my psyche. It was impossible not to just stare at the bowl.

I needed to get photos of that truffle bowl and was given free reign in the dining room before service. The lighting in Restaurant Eugene’s kitchen is a puzzle no matter what you’re shooting, but it was basically impossible to make the lumpy, irregular truffles look good back there. So, I got to move the little guys all over the place, the whole time imagining myself tripping and breaking everything in the immaculate dining room, then frantically trying to clean up a pile of shattered glass, rice, broken eggs and a thousand dollars worth of truffles before service started. Luckily, that didn’t happen and I got these photos:

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The next night

On Thursday night, I returned to get photos of some of the dishes featuring truffles, and I got lucky again: a table ordered the full seven-course tasting menu not long after I arrived. It was a long dinner, but it felt like a privilege to see every course executed with such precision and plated with legitimate artistry. See all seven courses in the slideshow below:

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And if you’re wondering, yes, I did get to eat a piece of a white truffle.