How Chefs Translate Fine Dining for 700,000 Fans at the U.S. Open

The U.S. Open has become more than just a tennis tournament. It has evolved into one of New York's most exciting culinary showcases. As Alex Guarnaschelli, the only woman in this year's chef lineup, puts it: "I liken it to a squirrel filling the tree for winter with acorns. It's 90% practice and preparation for one moment in time." For elite chefs serving more than 700,000 fans, that preparation means reimagining stadium food while maintaining restaurant-quality standards.

When Simon Kim decided to serve chicken nuggets with caviar at the U.S. Open, he knew it would turn heads. But for the chef behind Cote, it was the perfect metaphor for tennis itself: "Tennis is like a country club sport, but it's available to everybody," he explains. "So that high-low of serving chicken nuggets that's very available to everybody, topped with some of the best caviar in the world, creates this one-of-a-kind experience."

The rave reviews around Kim's viral dish, “The Golden Nugget”—chicken nuggets served with Petrossian caviar, creme fraiche, chives and daikon radishes—epitomize what's happening at the U.S. Open, where elite chefs are reimagining stadium food.

The Art of Scaling Excellence

Kwame Onwuachi's Favorite: Oxtail and Crab Rangoons

For Kwame Onwuachi, the chef and creator behind Tatiana in New York City and Dōgon in Washington D.C., the challenge isn't about watering down his food for a stadium setting. It's about maintaining his standards at a massive scale. His standout dish is his oxtail and crab rangoons, which he described as “slow-braised oxtail, Dungeness crab and cream cheese in a rangoon with oxtail stew on the bottom of the plate."

The key to Onwuachi's approach is refusing to compromise. "We don't try to dumb it down just because we're out here,” he said, adding that he sends in recipes and trains the staff that’s working the U.S. Open. “You don't have a chance to tell people your story or explain the nuances of the dish,” he added, so you have to make sure it represents you properly.

Simon Kim's Philosophy: High-Low Perfection

Kim's chicken nuggets are thoughtfully executed. "It was a very important mission of ours to make it not just a gimmick," he explains. "When we make our chicken nuggets, we get pasture-raised birds from a small farm in Pennsylvania,” he added in an effort to share information about his sourcing.

The chicken nugget batter is naturally gluten-free because it’s made with rice flour, and the intention behind the ingredients is extended to the oil, too. The chicken is fried in cultured oil made by fermenting sugarcane from Brazil.

"If you don't do that, then just get a fried chicken and just top it off with a sexy, expensive ingredient. I feel like that's really gimmicky,” Kim says. “We didn't want to do that.”

The production process is meticulous. Every single chicken nugget is made by hand at the restaurant and then frozen and sent to the stadium.

When Stadium Meets Restaurant

The Preparation Challenge

Chef Robbie Felice, James Beard-nominated chef and owner of New Jersey restaurants Viaggio Ristorante, Osteria Crescendo, pastaRAMEN, and Bar Mutz, learned the hard way that the U.S. Open requires serious preparation. "We actually got asked to do it last year, said yes, and then it was a bigger lift than I thought it was going to be. So we had to back out last year."

This year, he's serving a mix of favorites and new dishes, including a secret item he's planning to drop on social media. “We're basically replacing the Japanese milk bread with an Italian Roman flatbread known as pinza Romana, serving A5 wagyu on top of it with arugula and a more Italian katsu sauce,” he said, sharing the inside scoop.

The Wisdom That Comes With Experience

David Burke, in his 14th year at the Open, has seen the evolution firsthand, and at the stadium, he focuses on serving Latin food. "My menus here are Latin,” he said. “I do consult for a couple Latin restaurants in northern New Jersey,” he added, pointing out that his US Open food is different from what he serves at his New York City and New Jersey restaurants. “Same style, just different cuisine."

Josh Capon, co-founder and chef of VCR Group, referred to Burke as his mentor and emphasized the unique challenges. "The most important thing he taught me was to be built for speed. When you're here and you're doing the volume that you're doing, the food needs to make sense."

"Normally, if you open up a new restaurant, it takes you six months to get going. We're in and out of here in two weeks. So we got to hit the ground running and make everything great from day one," Capon explains.

At Fly Fish, Capon’s station at Arthur Ashe, he serves "lobster rolls, tuna pokes, scallops, ceviches, crab tostadas, stuff that you want to eat on a hot summer day when you're walking around and staying light on your feet."