Zach and Alyssa Ladner are making some moves inside the Market Hall at Van Aken District.
In addition to Paloma, the full-service Latin-themed eatery the couple opened in 2022, they operate a pair of stands within the food hall: Gio’s Pasteria and Haute Donuts. As Gio’s was nearing the end of its lease term, the chef-owners decided to make some changes.
“We’ve done several barbecue pop-ups and it’s been really successful,” Zach says.
After winding things down last week at Gio’s, the Ladners shifted Haute Donuts to that larger stand. As of today, Haute Donuts becomes Haute Donuts and BBQ, which gives shoppers more variety morning, noon and night.
Earlier this year, Ladner opened Smokehouse 91, a fast-casual BBQ joint in Mayfield. Barbecue has long been a passion of the chef, who grew up in Texas before graduating from the Culinary Institute of America. But he won’t be duplicating that concept here in Shaker Heights, he explains.
“It is not the same as the barbecue that we do at Smokehouse 91,” says Ladner. “Stylistically it’s the same – it’s still Texas-style barbecue – but at Haute we really focus on whole-animal utilization.”
Ladner says that he added a new butcher station in the Paloma kitchen, where they bring in and breakdown full sides of Ohio-raised beef and pork. Those items are smoked onsite and make their way into menu items like sliced beef, chopped beef, sliced pork, chopped pork and sausages.
The twist here is that the beef and pork used in those menu items will change daily.
“There are a lot of cuts of meat that you can smoke low and slow that are really great that aren’t brisket,” adds Zach.
In addition to those myriad cuts, Haute BBQ offers pork belly burnt ends, housemade beef-and-pork sausages, whole smoked wings and bacon ribs, one-pound spare ribs with belly meat. The plan is to offer heavy hitters like beef brisket and giant beef short ribs on weekends. Everything from the buns to the barbecue sauces are made at Paloma.
The chefs also prepare traditional but “jazzed up” sides such as mac and cheese tossed and broiled to order, candied yams, vegetarian baked beans, pork belly-spiked collard greens and coleslaw starring Cleveland Kitchen sauerkraut.
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