In New York, there are secret dinners where marijuana is added to every dish.

Entrepreneurial chefs in New York are hosting semi-clandestine cannabis dinners. Does it give a unique taste or is it just for a buzz, I decided to answer New York Times journalist and writer Robert Simonson.

The first course was tastefully served, a tender scallop crudo with candied ginger and mushrooms in a giant scallop shell. But where, some would like to know, was the grass?

Soon the chef was standing in front of us and explaining. The lime tincture that underlined the dish (the same tincture used in the welcome daiquiri cocktail) was infused with 2 milligrams of cannabis. Chef Miguel Trinidad welcomed his guests - 42 curious visitors, most of whom were strangers. I drank the cocktail and ate the scallops. They tasted great, but I didn't feel anything.

The patrons were well dressed, polite and varied. They were invited to this elegant corner building in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The guests were in a glass-walled event space, behind which scurrying chefs and waiters could be seen. Mr. Trinidad has never worked in this kitchen before. It is very likely that he will never work there again.

Mr. Trinidad and many chefs like him now work in the semi-underground, nomadic world of consumerism. It is patronized by people who think that cannabis is no different from wine or cocktails when it comes to pairing it with food. Mr. Trinidad's company, 99th floor, has hosted dozens of cannabis dinners over the years. His set meals often consist of five courses. But the meal in Williamsburg was especially large. 10 dishes were waiting for us - from lamb to ropa vieja. Cannabis was added to every dish in a variety of ways. As for duck tamale, it was added to lard.

The food was as exquisite as any upscale New York restaurant.

The open kitchen is just as professional, the service is just as intelligent. The overall impression was very far from what was created by 99th Floor in 2015, which shared the principle of organizing a rave. The location of the dinner was often not revealed until the day of the event.

Hallie Zelikoff, food stylist, has attended 30 of Mr. Trinidad's dinners. Including the first, which took place in the basement of the warehouse. Visitors to the restaurant got into it through a freight elevator. And they had to walk past the headquarters of the motorcycle gang to get in there. “I was sitting next to the neurosurgeon,” she recalled. “My mind exploded. I have never experienced anything like this before.”

Marijuana has become much more popular these days.

Just a few blocks away from the "elegant dinner," weed trucks filled the air of Bedford Avenue with fragrance. However, legislation regulating the commercial sale and use of cannabis is under development. And this forces culinary specialists to work in the so-called gray zone.

Doug Cohen, Mr Trinidad's business partner, admitted that the current location was unusually crowded for a cannabis dinner. As a rule, events are held in someone's attic or garage. Due to the legal uncertainty surrounding cannabis, it is almost impossible to open a regular restaurant. Dinners are currently held as private events. Chefs create mailing lists of trusted clients. Beginners need a recommendation to get admission.

Despite the bright lighting and modern decor, the mood at dinner was relaxed.

Perhaps with a touch of adventure, as many of the visitors sat with complete strangers. By using more and more marijuana in their meals, they became much livelier. The conversation gained momentum.

“About the middle of the meal, the water starts to disappear,” the waiter told me as he refilled my glass.

Trinidad, 49, a New York native who grew up in the Lower East Side, says he was born in a cab. At the age of 14, he first tried marijuana. This was in the late 1980s when it was illegal in all 50 states. At the age of 17, he started working in the kitchen. Trinidad eventually became a chef and opened famous restaurants like Maharlika and Jeepney. The purpose of 99th Floor, he said, was to “de-stigmatize the superstone experience”, “elevate” it.

“It's a lot like drinking a bottle of wine,” says Trinidad. – You would drink a bottle of wine for a few hours, warm up and feel better. It's the same with cannabis. In small doses, you can get euphoric without panic.”

By the end of the meal, each diner eats approximately 20-25 milligrams - an amount that Trinidad equates to a bottle of wine.

Years ago, when he first explored this, he attended other marijuana dinners. And found that the doses are too large. In one of them, 30 very high-ranking strangers were stranded on a rooftop.

I attended two cannabis dinners in one week in October. Before the 99th Floor event, I visited one at HighGarden, a TriBeCa cannabis lounge that operates on the premises of the restaurant. And sometimes hosts dinners with a guest chef. Although the event was a little more upscale than they were used to, the HighGarden founders said it was nothing out of the ordinary.

One can only guess how many cannabis dinners are held throughout New York

Though another HighGarden owner suggested there were probably hundreds every week.

That estimate was accurate, according to Damian Fagon, equity director of the New York State Cannabis Licensing Authority, created in 2021.

In contrast to the sophistication of dinner at 99th Floor, the atmosphere of the HighGarden was reflected in the table setting. In addition to the various infusions contained in the food, there was a vaporizer on each table. This is such a small machine, topped with a glass ball, which, when activated, was filled with cannabis vapor. They had to be consumed in small sips, like wine.

In addition, each of the establishments had a black box containing six vapes, courtesy of Prëst, the dinner's brand sponsor. Each cigarette contained various compounds naturally found in cannabis that give each strain its distinct flavors. As with beer or wine, each vape was meant to complement a different dish.

Both balls and vapes are a common sight at dinners prepared by evening chef Travis Petersen

This is a Canadian-born self-taught chef. Petersen has long lived in Arizona and has hosted marijuana dinners since 2018. He began by temporarily turning his house into a restaurant. The self-taught chef hosted five receptions of a dozen people every two hours for four days. Petersen says the price of his meals can range from $200 to $300. (Lunch at 99th Floor was $199.)

Petersen, a 38-year-old man with a tattoo on his arm that looks like Paul Bunyan but turns out to be his lumberjack grandfather, is currently on a seven-week tour. He hosts dinners in eight states, most of which have legalized recreational or medical marijuana. He is promoting his new book, An Introduction to Culinary Cannabis. Dinner at Highgarden was his first in New York. But this month, he plans to set up a regular residence here for events every six to eight weeks.

He was surprised at how radically the perception and prevalence of cannabis in New York had changed since his last visit. “I was here a couple of years ago, everything was done more underground,” he remarked.

On the subject: Everyone wants to sell marijuana in New York: the city received 900 applications for a license

To pursue his current dream, Petersen left behind a 12-year career in an oil and gas company.

There he received a six-figure salary and benefits such as car allowance, pay mobile phones, tickets to hockey games and 30 rounds of golf each summer.

“Unfortunate,” was how he described his former life. “There is a huge hole in me, and nothing could fill it.” At 31, he was fired and used his severance pay to start over: “Making this culinary marijuana brought me happiness.”

At dinner, I sat across from a journalist named Sam K. Long, creative director of Honeysuckle magazine. He attended 20 such dinners.

"It's the wild west," he said of the dinner scene, "in the best libertarian sense."

Sitting next to him was a man named Adam, who makes ice cream in Brooklyn. It was his first marijuana dinner, but he had tried vape pens before.

Next to me, a young woman in a wool cap took a deep breath in the balloon and quickly panicked. Needing fresh air, she fled before the first course, a small piece of smoked watermelon drizzled with honey-Dijon mustard and pickled watermelon rinds, served in a wooden box filled with steaming herbs. She never returned.

Unlike Trinidad, which serves the same meals to all diners at the same dosage, Petersen adjusts the dosage individually.

You choose your level using a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is 5 milligrams of THC (the chemical in cannabis that makes you high) and 5 is 100 milligrams. Once you have determined your cannabis use level, you should stick to it throughout your dinner. According to several online charts, a dosage of 100 milligrams is considered extremely high. And not recommended for all but the highest tolerance cannabis users. I chose the least powerful option, level 1.

If I had to briefly describe the two dinners I went to, I would say that Petersen's dinner was "weed with food" and Trinidad's dinner was "weed with food." Ironically, both restaurants served scallop crudo. In Petersen's dish, marijuana was added using shrimp salt containing CBD and prickly pear gel containing THC. However, at both dinners, the effect continued long after the last meal. Cannabis use, unlike smoking or vaping, results in a delayed and longer-lasting high. Within hours of finishing each meal, I was fully aware that I had been to a marijuana dinner. I was not alone.

“I think it's mostly the aftermath,” said a woman named Michaela, who attended the three Trinidad dinners. “It's not so much a matter of taste. All people are different. But for me, I get a feeling of warmth, the light becomes really bright. And then she turned to the great irony of the marijuana dinner: “The first time my friend and I went for pizza right after that.”

So what exactly does marijuana bring to a meal, besides vigor and high?

It depends who you ask. For Trinidad, it's just an ingredient. “In my opinion, cannabis is a herb,” he said. “Each variety has a different taste.”

Petersen sees the health benefits. “It's not about getting high,” he says. “We can extract these therapeutic effects from terpenes.”

But not every chef is convinced of the value marijuana brings to food.

“Personally, I don’t think that just because we legalize something, it should permeate every aspect of our lives,” said Chef Alex Rijge. “The thought that food has run out of creative ideas and restaurants must now turn into pharmacies is extremely depressing to me.”

Many fans of cannabis dinners

compared with ordinary wine vapors

However, alcohol is not a popular topic among cannabis lovers. Petersen does not serve cocktails or wine at his dinners.

“The difference between making dinner with alcohol and making dinner with cannabis is quite large,” he observed. “When you drink, you get a little drunk, you get a little out of control. Sometimes you say things that you don't mean. At the end of the night, if people drink, they don't get up and leave right away. They like to sit and hang out. Those who are into cannabis are polite, they are happy to be there. When dinner is over, people just get up, pay their bills and leave.”

In Trinidad's experience, cannabis users either want to smoke or want to drink, but they tend not to do both at the same time.

Some of the visitors felt the same way. Griselle Del Valle, a singer who attended dinner at HighGarden with her husband Calvin Fernandez, said: “When it comes to drinking, you enter a completely different world and it can drive you crazy. With cannabis, it's a special atmosphere. It's softer."

According to Del Valle, she smoked every day, but Fernandez did not.

“I don’t like marijuana,” he said, because he was there out of professional curiosity

Fernandez is the chef. “This could be the next wave of popularity,” he suggested. “I feel like if I don’t find out about this, I will be left behind.”

This next wave may come sooner than he thinks. Cannabis management office Fagon, who himself attended a number of dinners, said his office hopes to introduce initial regulations for cannabis lounges and canteens in 2023. He wants the licensing to match what existing operations are already doing.

Trinidad and Cohen intend to be among those contenders. Petersen said he was not interested in running a restaurant. He would rather have a career as a cookbook author around the world or a cannabis tutor promoting education and changing minds. But he agrees that New York will lead: "People are preparing for the market to really change."

For Victoria Vilardi, a pastry chef who has worked with Trinidad on dozens of 99th Floor dinners, this change can't come so quickly. For her, the question is not why use marijuana. Why not?

“Honestly, we create delicious food,” she says. “The weed just makes the dish taste better.”