Celery Is The New Kale At Spuntino, Del Posto & More

Celery is about as commonplace a vegetable as you can find in American kitchens.

But for all its availability, it's most often encountered as a garnish or as part of a base for broths, stews and roasts.

To those who would keep celery sidelined: You're missing out. We've scoured restaurants across the country for dishes that feature this vegetable, and we think our findings present a strong case for celery's ascension to principal produce.

Take the sfera at Del Posto in New York: The creamy panna-cotta-like dessert competes in a textural wrestling match with thin ribbons of celery and a small scoop of celery sorbet. And celery is coupled with lime for an unbelievably refreshing popsicle at Spuntino in Denver. Click here to see a slide show of all these and other dishes.

We nabbed the recipe for one of our favorite dishes, an egg baked in celery cream, from Miller Union in Atlanta (click here to see the recipe). Wash it down with a celery-ified take on the margarita, developed in our Test Kitchen (click here to see the recipe).