Chef Gardens: Up the Ladder at Evening Star Cafe

Evening Star's chef Keith Cabot and master of soil Jonathan Stark

By Ana Hurler

As the chef of Evening Star Cafe, there is nothing more rewarding for Keith Cabot than to go up to his rooftop and harvest produce for that night’s service. “There’s nothing better than going upstairs and pulling it out of the ground,” he said.

The 1,300 square foot garden provides more than 60 percent of the restaurant’s produce during the peak season, Cabot said. With the instillation of tarps to cover the beds and fans, the garden continues to produce throughout the winter, although at a lower rate.

Evening Star has served as a neighborhood dining spot in Del Ray neighborhood of Alexandria, VA, since 1997. The restaurant has several distinctive areas for friends and families to gather, from the main dining room and Front Porch, to The Majestic Lounge and No. 9 Lounge. The restaurant is open to Planet Wine next door, where Cabot creates meals paired with wines at The Farm Table. Each has its own seasonal offerings.

“It’s only 1,300 square feet,” Cabot said. “I say 'only' because that’s small for a whole restaurant, but that’s bigger than most people’s apartment. So it’s big for what it is, but it’s small in the sense of what it’s providing for. So how do we get a product to produce the fastest, the best, the largest?”

The rooftop garden started four years ago, and Cabot has been at the restaurant for two and a half years. With help from Jonathan Stark, who does handyman work for several restaurants under the Neighborhood Restaurant Group and whom Cabot calls the “master of soil,” the garden has grown and become more efficient.

“In the last year, we really just started making it the most efficient we can,” Cabot said. “Jon was getting to know the soil, he was getting to know different plants, and he was trying a lot of things out so there was just a lot of one-offs, and to use that on the menu for a whole restaurant, you really need to see quantity.”

Now, the garden produces enough to have an item on the menu for the whole season. By dividing the garden into 24 square-foot gardening style beds, they can calculate how many blocks of each plant are needed to produce the yield they are looking for. Within the blocks, smaller herbs are planted on the outside, while larger, taller plants, such as tomatoes and beans, are placed in a row in the middle to maximize access. Cabot said they also only plant varieties they can use responsibly, and do not like to use anything with a germination of more than 80 days.

“Then the bed is just not getting used,” he said. “There’s something in it, and it’s growing, but we’re not getting anything out of it. And it really slows down what we’re able to use on the menu.”

To supply the rest of their produce needs, Cabot works closely with Northern Neck Fresh Fruits and Vegetables for deliveries gathered from local farms. This partnership also includes a weekly CSA where anyone can order a box of produce and pick it up at the restaurant.

“My philosophy is that if you know where your product’s coming from, you have that much more insight into what to do with it,” Cabot said.  “You know when it’s going to be ready, you know when it’s going to be harvested, you know how much you’re going to get. You just have that connection.”

While the rooftop garden takes much more planning, time, and effort than ordering produce, Cabot said the payoff is “going up there, climbing that ladder, and picking that produce off the plant and then using it right away.”

“The product doesn’t get any fresher than that,” he added. “No matter what anybody says, no matter how they want to phrase it, no matter what term they want to use, it doesn’t get any fresher than picking it off the plant and putting in on the table.”

The other benefit to the rooftop garden is extending the shelf life of the produce. By the time Cabot gets to the bottom of a box of produce, it’s no longer fresh. With the garden, the produce is harvested during the day and used up during the service.

“No matter what avenue of produce vendor or how you’re getting your product, that’s the number one thing,” Cabot said. “How do you manage that time to make sure that what’s going on the plate is as fresh as it can be?”

To emphasize this freshness, almost everything from the rooftop is served raw or slightly cooked.

“The fresher the vegetables are, then the less cooking heat you really apply to them, because once you apply heat to something it starts to deteriorate,” he said. “You’re losing its flavor, you’re losing its texture, and those things you’re compromising at that point.”

Rooftop produce is the centerpiece of many current dinner offerings, such as the shishito peppers with mint, feta, and lime, and the tomatoes with purslane, basil, and sherry.

“For me, it’s really about letting the produce shine,” Cabot said. “The roof takes so much time, it takes so much effort, so much thought to get the produce to a point where we’re ready to harvest it. And when we harvest it, I don’t want to do something to the product to disrespect that process.”

By serving the produce this way, Cabot gives patrons a chance to taste the full payoff of all their hard work up there. While this payoff does take extra time and resources – Cabot and Stark are already planning next season’s harvest – Cabot said working in the garden is simply what he loves to do.

“I think it’s an amenity for me,” he said. “It’s there so we can get the best product for the guests, but I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful for the garden, I’m grateful for Jon, and having those resources at our disposal.”

Chef Keith Cabot shared his recipe for Sweet & Sour Eggplant, a variation of which is currently being used in his duck dish.

1# Italian globe eggplant diced, 1 inch cubes

1# Japanese eggplant sliced, 1 inch pieces

1/2 cup red onions diced, small

1/2 cup fennel diced, small

1/2 cup honey

1 cup red wine vinegar

4 cups apple juice

Pinch chili flake (you can add more or less based on your preference for spicy)

2 laurel leaves, fresh

1/8 cup cornstarch

Toss eggplant in oil. Bake at 375 until light brown.

Sweat onion and fennel with chili in enough canola oil to cover a rondo on medium heat until tender, no color. Deglaze by adding laurel, honey, vinegar, and juice.

Reduce by half.

Add eggplant and cook until glazed.

"Chef Gardens" is a weekly blog series featuring local restaurants with gardens in the greater Washington, DC area.

About the Author:

Ana Hurler, a senior multi-platform journalism major at the University of Maryland, College Park. Ana is interning with us this summer.

Chef Gardens: L'Auberge Chez Francois Alsatian-style Freshness

by Ana Hurler

Owner and executive chef Jacques Haeringer continues his family’s tradition of serving fresh French classics at L’Aubuerge Chez François in Great Falls, VA.

“We do a seasonal menu – unapologetically French classics,” Haeringer said. “We kind of, not snicker, but we kind of go, ‘oh, farm to table, garden to table,’ isn’t that the way it was supposed to be all along? I think it’s really over used.”

Haeringer gardens about one acre of the property’s six total acres. The restaurant has always had a small garden since opening in 1976, but Haeringer greatly expanded it about six years ago because “it just was the right time to do it,” he said. The garden still continues to expand as Haeringer takes on new projects.

“We grow quite a bit of our own stuff, but it’s right here,” he said. “We like that a lot, and I think our customers – long time patrons – appreciate that it’s actually done right here and you can see it and touch it and feel it.”

“My dad was an avid gardener, and I am,” Haeringer added. “It’d be a shame with all this property not to.”

Chez François has not always been the idyllic country inn that patrons know today. Haeringer’s father, the late François Haeringer, founded the original restaurant in downtown DC in 1954. Jacques began helping his father in the restaurant at 11 years old. Eventually, changing cityscapes pushed the Haeringers to move away from DC and closer to François’s vision for the French restaurant.

“Dad had always wanted to do a country-type inn because when he was an apprentice in Alsace he worked in a country-type inn and always wanted to have one,” said Jacques. “So he looked around for properties and found this place and bought it in ’72, and then the restaurant downtown they knocked the whole block down.”

Jacques continues to run the restaurant with his brother, Paul. While the business has continued to grow – Haeringer now manages a 93-member staff – he maintains his father’s legacy of serving “unabashedly French classics” to the public.

“It’s a small business,” Haeringer said. “It’s a pretty nice sized small business, but it’s a small business – family run business.”

And business is going strong for the Haeringers. L’Auberge Chez François has been in the top 100 on Open Table in the U.S. for the last four years, and won many awards, Haeringer said. He added that he is “humbled to have such a great following.”

“People wait for it, it’s nice. They are looking forward to the local produce – our produce,” he said.

While the garden cannot supply all of the restaurant’s produce needs – Haeringer said he would “need a hundred acres” to do so – it certainly provides a great deal of seasonal produce and herbs. He said right now, all of the tomatoes and peppers come from the garden. No matter what is being planted, Haeringer’s priority is utilizing the space efficiently.

“What we do are high value crops for us,” he said. “We try to utilize the space. We do intensive farming, so we plant the tomatoes in between the rows of lettuce, and then when it gets too hot and the lettuce is gone, the tomatoes will come. … It supplies a lot, so for maybe two-and-a-half months you won’t buy any tomatoes.”

Even with all the food the garden is providing, Haeringer said it can still be a struggle to get the kitchen to actually feature the produce in dishes.

“Believe it or not, the hardest thing is getting the kitchen to get the chefs to use the stuff,” he said. “It’s so easy to get that box of lettuce – they don’t have to clean it, they don’t have to pick it, and all that stuff.”

Even so, Haeringer does not want the produce to just be used as garnishes. Rather, the produce often becomes a featured part of the dish.

“So we’ve pushed everybody, and the servers, and the front of the house people to feature the stuff rather than, ‘oh, it’s just a garnish,’ it’s ‘on your plate you will see X,’” he said. “And then we encourage people to go out and walk around the garden.”

While they continue to grow the garden, the Haeringers maintain their father’s vision of providing customers with authentic French cuisine using garden-grown produce at a variety of settings in the country inn.

Chef Jacques Haeringer shared his recipe for his popular Alsatian-Style Tomato Salad, using produce grown on-site.

Serves 4

4 ripe tomatoes

1 head of Boston or Bibb lettuce

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Pinch of evaporated cane juice or sugar (optional, if tomatoes are not fully ripe)

4 tablespoons finely chopped onions

4 teaspoons finely minced scallions

2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh basil

2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh parsley

2 teaspoons red wine vinegar

4 tablespoons vinaigrette

Wash the tomatoes and lettuce, drain both well. Make a bed of lettuce on four individual salad plates. Remove the stems and thinly slice the tomatoes. Fan out the tomatoes over lettuce.

Season the tomatoes with a pinch of salt and pepper, and sugar, if desired. Top each tomato with 1 tablespoon onion, 1 teaspoon scallions, ½ teaspoon basil and ½ teaspoon parsley. Pour ½ teaspoon vinegar and 1 tablespoon vinaigrette over each serving.

"Chef Gardens" is a weekly blog series featuring local restaurants with gardens in the greater Washington, DC area.

About the Author:

Ana Hurler, a senior multi-platform journalism major at the University of Maryland, College Park. Ana is interning with us this summer.

Chef Gardens: Centrolina and DC UrbanGreens

Centrolina photo by Greg Powers.

By Ana Hurler
Centrolina’s unique partnership with DC UrbanGreens not only supplies produce for the restaurant, but also helps the nonprofit satisfy its mission of providing fresh food for the community.

DC UrbanGreens has two urban farms, one in Ward 7 and another in Ward 8, which use underutilized space to grow produce for the surrounding community and help alleviate food insecurity. The organization aims to increase awareness and education to residents.

“The passion is really driven by youth and making sure that – in just a holistic way – they’re being nourished,” said community outreach director Annie Li. “We all strongly believe that feeding yourself well leads to a healthy mind.”

A couple of friends founded the nonprofit in 2013, and it has continued to expand and involve more of the community. It receives most of its funding from grants, which allows the organization to hire local residents and distribute produce.

“There’s kind of two sides to the organization,” Li said. “There’s growing the food, and every day that can lead to different challenges, and then there’s also getting the food out to the people, which can also be very challenging.”

The food they grow is based on what the community wants, which helps them have more significant engagement in the area, Li added. Centrolina is the only restaurant, and for-profit organization, they sell to.

“Chef Amy at Centrolina is our only for-profit organization we partner with, which is special for us and just a really cool thing we get to do,” said program director Avery Snipes. “It was never part of the vision.”

After initially connecting last September, DC UrbanGreens and Amy Brandwein, the owner and chef of Centrolina, established a partnership consisting of weekly produce drop offs.

“I was thrilled because I felt like it was really important to support our local economy,” said Brandwein. “I was really, really, really excited to be able to have a partnership with the farming community and residents of Washington, DC.”

Brandwein added that she thinks organizations such as DC UrbanGreens are the future of growing fresh food in urban areas, and not only providing it to residents, but also getting them involved in the process.

“I think what they’re doing in terms of using land that wasn’t used before, converting it, and growing things, that not only serves the community in terms of giving them access to local produce, but also helps improve the overall well-being of communities,” Brandwein said. “And it puts people to work in our city. I like the fact that my dollars go to residents of Washington.”

At Centrolina, patrons will find an Italian market with a bakery, pastry shop, barista bar, wine shop, and an Italian Osteria, in addition to the restaurant. All of the produce is bought from local farms, and everything the chefs get is made available to shoppers as well, said Brandwein.

“Essentially the idea is that I wanted to buy the best products, not only for myself for the restaurant, but also make them what I would buy and make them available for consumers,” she said.

DC UrbanGreens drops off about 50 pounds of produce per week, depending on the climate and time of year. Right now, it consists of chard, arugula, turnips, lettuce, and tomatoes. This amount of produce only supplements the restaurant’s total needs, and Snipes said Brandwein lets them be creative with what they grow and send over.

“We grow our food based on kind of a cultural demand,” Snipes said. “For the market, if you put a funky looking anything out there no one’s going to buy it, but with chef Amy she’s like the weirder, the uglier, the better.”

“It’s rare to find partnerships that are so flexible and understanding,” Li added.

To maintain this flexibility, Brandwein said she does not really plan anything in advance when creating dishes.

“It really just depends on what’s going on that day, but certainly what they have available is what I’ll put in the dishes,” she said.

Through this partnership, DC UrbanGreens has been able to expand the scope of their mission and continue to grow. There are still occasional setbacks, such as the lack of funding for a fence to keep deer out, but Snipes said they are humbled to have had such a great year already. Regardless, she maintains that serving their neighbors’ need for food will always be the top priority.

“We’re also really grateful because even though that’s a revenue generator for us, she’s still meeting our mission,” Snipes said. “She loves the local movement, she loves what we’re doing on our farm, and so she’s really involved in the mission of this.”

Brandwein acknowledged the importance of farming locally, and said that she hopes to continue to spread the word about possibilities like her partnership with DC UrbanGreens to improve the overall community.

“I just think that as a chef, as a business owner in Washington, as somebody who likes helping people who are in need, this is one of the most important things I can do in terms of how I direct my spending, how I can tell the story, and influence by exposing customers to the fact that we have a farm in DC that’s only 5 miles away,” Brandwein said.

Chef Amy Brandwein graciously shared her recipe for Ricotta Gnocchi with Swiss Chard, Brown Butter and Hazelnuts.

For the Gnocchi:

3.5 cups Ricotta

2 whole eggs

2 egg whites

1 cup pasta flour

1 cup Swiss chard

1 pinch fresh grated nutmeg

In boiling salted water, cook the Swiss chard and place in ice water. Drain the water immediately and dry well. Chop into very small pieces.

Mix all the ingredients by hand, in a mixing bowl. Roll into 1 inch balls and place dough on a sheet pan covered with parchment paper and a bit of flour.

For the sauce:

8 tablespoons butter

4 sage leaves

¼ cup parmesan cheese

Heat a pot of water to boiling and add salt. In a sauté pan over low heat, warm butter and add sage leaves. Continue warming until light brown in color. Cook the gnocchi in boiling salted water until they float to the surface, drain, and add to the sauce. Add ¼ cup parmesan cheese and 1 small ladle of cooking water. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. Toss very well, adding a touch of butter and extra virgin olive oil to incorporate.

Sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese and hazelnuts and serve hot.

"Chef Gardens" is a weekly blog series featuring local restaurants with gardens in the greater Washington, DC area.

About the Author:

Ana Hurler, a senior multi-platform journalism major at the University of Maryland, College Park. Ana is interning with us this summer.

Chef Gardens: At Ricciuti's, Farm to Table is Second Nature

Ricciuti’s Restaurant in Olney, MD, has been serving farm to table produce since opening in 1992
– long before it was in style. 

By Ana Hurler

“We’ve been doing kind of the farm to table thing for our whole existence before it was really fashionable, but we never labeled ourselves as that kind of restaurant back in the '90s,” said James Ricciuti, the restaurant’s owner and former chef.

Ricciuti’s is located in the 200-year-old Olney house on one acre of land in the center of town. It is just outside the Montgomery County Agricultural Reserve, so there are many small farms located within a 10-mile radius of the Italian restaurant. It is a prime location both for the townspeople and for attaining fresh produce. 

“That gives us access to actually a lot of very local farms,” Ricciuti said.

Outside the front of the restaurant, there are three 4-by-16 feet beds planted with a variety of seasonal produce and herbs.

“We decided since we had land available it’d be nice just to build some gardens here and there so we could show what farm to table is all about to our customers,” Ricciuti said. “So they see us walking out there and bringing in baskets of tomatoes and squash and peppers and whatever’s in season.”

Right now, the beds are filled with “the usual suspects: tomatoes, peppers, summer squash, lots of different herbs – basil, parsley, lavender, rosemary,” Ricciuti said. In the fall they plant more root vegetables, such as carrots and beets. As it gets colder, they will switch to more greens: Swiss chard, lettuces, and kale.

The produce from the garden is used in all facets of the restaurant. Ricciuti said they will incorporate tomatoes, squash, and peppers into many summer dinner entrees, while herbs such as lavender and basil are used behind the bar. The fresh ingredients are also used on their wood-fire oven pizzas.

“We’ve been doing it so long, it’s definitely second nature to us,” Ricciuti said. “We’re always trying to use the freshest possible product, and when we have something this fresh and this local, we want that to be the star of any dish we’re doing.”

Ricciuti mentioned their traditional Caprese salad with mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil, as an example of how they use the produce “in its freshest and simplest form when possible” by not manipulating it.

While absolutely everything that comes out of the garden is used, the small beds simply cannot supply all of the restaurant’s needs.

“It’s more or less of a little showcase garden for the restaurant,” Ricciuti said. “So the beds themselves don’t provide nearly enough produce for us, but they do provide some.”

For additional produce, Ricciuti’s turns to nearby farms in Montgomery County, such as Blueberry Gardens, the Farm at Our House, and several smaller locations. Ricciuti said he also grows some produce at home on his three acres of land. Besides produce, the restaurant also receives fresh local eggs, lamb, and pork.

“So we have a lot available just in Montgomery County,” Ricciuti said. “It’s really wonderful.”

From partnering with many local farms, to embracing the Olney House’s longstanding history in the town, Ricciuti’s is a proponent of working for, and with, its community.

“We are an independent restaurant,” Ricciuti said. “We’re very community oriented. We’re staffed with a lot of local kids – high school and college kids. We do a lot of work within the community, and we try to promote the whole gardening thing to everybody – that’s why they come out here. So we’re an advocate of the farm to table lifestyle.”

Newly appointed chef Wilder Martinez shared this recipe for Ricciuti’s Gazpacho using fresh tomatoes and peppers.

Chef Wilder Martinez and owner James Ricciuti

2 lbs heirloom tomatoes

2 lbs zebra tomatoes

1 lb sweet red peppers

1 whole jalapeño pepper

1 cup celery

1 lb red onion

3 lbs cucumbers

2 cloves garlic

2 oz extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

Wash all the ingredients. Peel the cucumbers and remove the seeds, then cut them into small dices. Chop the onion and the jalapeño pepper. Put the rest of the ingredients into the food processor until they are very fine and juiced. Lastly, combine everything in the same container and add the olive oil, salt, and pepper.

"Chef Gardens" is a weekly blog series featuring local restaurants with gardens in the greater Washington, DC area.

About the Author:

Ana Hurler, a senior multi-platform journalism major at the University of Maryland, College Park. Ana is interning with us this summer.

CHEF GARDENS: Up Top with Urbana

By Ana Hurler

At Urbana, executive chef Ethan McKee and his team bring urban gardening to a new level: the rooftop.

Located adjacent to the Kimpton Hotel Palomar near Dupont Circle in the heart of Washington, DC, McKee has been gardening on the hotel’s expansive rooftop for about four years. What started with seven 4 by 4 foot boxes has now grown to almost 60, all planted with a variety of rotating produce and herbs.

“There’s anywhere from 30 to 40 different ingredients on the roof that we start off with,” McKee said. "In the springtime we’re doing lots of leafy stuff: mixed lettuces, kale, Swiss chard, rapini. Some of those items we’re actually able to carry throughout the year, but we transfer in the summertime to more of the fruiting plants: tomatoes, eggplants, peppers.”

The rooftop harvests drive how the restaurant’s seasonal menu is created, with the addition of other locally sourced produce.

“What we’re doing here is our interpretation of northern Italian, Piedmont-type cuisine influenced by our region,” McKee said. “Taking things from what’s local and seasonal to us here in the Mid-Atlantic area and incorporating those ingredients.”

Planting the garden usually begins in late February, and everything is grown from seeds that are mostly organic and from sources also used by local farmers, McKee said. “So we’re using the same produce that we would source from another local farmer basically.”

Mckee said he also decided to use seeds because they’re more cost effective.

“You can buy for like $6 enough seeds for mixed greens for a whole summer for a restaurant,” he said.

At the beginning of the year, McKee plants a large amount of varieties so he can see what works well. Throughout the year, he will begin to streamline and only plant more of the most successful varieties.

“Kind of honing in on which ingredients we get the most yield out of so we have the most cost impact, especially from a food cost standpoint,” McKee said. “Also just a quality standpoint too because all the produce that we’re pulling down from our garden is straight from the garden; it hasn’t traveled, it hasn’t done anything so it has longer shelf life also.”

At the beginning, McKee said he was very excited to try growing many interesting varieties of plants, such as heirloom tomatoes, but found out their yield would only be enough to supply the restaurant for a week.

“It’s like, okay that was cool, but not really efficient for what we’re doing because we can get the same quality heirloom tomatoes from one of our local farmers that actually has a farm large enough to supply throughout the season.”

After some experimenting, McKee learned that herbs and leafy greens are the most efficient. Last year they grew around 500 pounds of basil to supply the entire season, he said.

“That’s really the goal: focusing on a few specific ingredients,” he added.

As the garden has evolved and McKee learns which plants are the most efficient, he has also had to learn how to maintain a garden of this size.

“Now we’re learning more of traditional farming practice, if you will, as far as succession planting so that we can supply ingredients for our needs throughout the entire season without having to supplement with other vendors,” he said. “Now we’ve gotten it to a certain size where we can rotate crops.”

The garden’s increased size also means it needs increased maintenance. In the summer, the garden is watered for an hour in the morning and at night. It also must be weeded and re-seeded.

“It’s now like a real earth up there so there’s just like some random stuff growing now,” he said. “Not just weeds but also plants that we planted the year before come up in other boxes across on the other side of the garden. So you get all kinds of little fun surprises of stuff that just comes up.”

All of the garden’s 4 by 4 feet boxes are 1 foot deep and made with Cedar so they last through the weather and repel bugs, McKee said. Each is lined with landscape fabric and filled with McKee’s dirt recipe: “a mixture of different composts: mushroom composts, leaf composts, we use lobster compost in some of them, top soil, vermiculites to lighten it a bit – being up on the roof we try not to cave the hotel in.”

McKee said he’s always been into gardening. While growing up in Texas, his grandmother showed him how to grow prize-wining vegetables she would take to the county fair.

“To me it just makes so much sense to do,” he said. “So I decided that if we’re going to do it though, we need to do it for real. And doing things in buckets is not really going to work for a restaurant.”

While McKee's rooftop garden cannot supply all of the hundreds of pounds of produce needed for the restaurant, he does provide a special chef experience for diners looking to taste the freshest produce through “Cicchetti at Urbana.” The exclusive experience is open to only eight guests every Saturday evening at 7 p.m. for $65 per person. Patrons get a front-row seat as McKee prepares a continuously-changing eight-course tasting menu, with nearly 100 percent of the produce sourced from the rooftop.

 Chef Ethan's Pesto Pizza. Photo courtesy of Urbana.

Below is Chef Ethan McKee’s recipe for Basil Pesto using easy-to-grow herbs.

1 cup packed basil leaves

1 cup packed parsley leaves

4 cloves garlic 

¼ cup toasted pine nuts

2 cups extra virgin olive oil

¼ cup grated Parmesan

salt and pepper to taste

Combine the basil, parsley, garlic and pine nuts in a blender.  Turn the blender on medium speed and pour in the olive oil.  Blend until smooth.  Transfer the pesto to a bowl and fold in the Parmesan. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

"Chef Gardens" is a new weekly blog series featuring local restaurants with gardens in the greater Washington, DC area.

About the Author:

Ana Hurler, a senior multi-platform journalism major at the University of Maryland, College Park. Ana is interning with us this summer.