This past weekend, as celebration of the pending graduation, I was fortunate enough to go out to two amazing restaurants with good friends. Initially, we were trying to go to Le Bernardin, a Michelin Three Star, NY Times Four Star, restaurant in the heart of Manhattan. Le Bernardin, to put it bluntly, is one of the best restaurants in America; arguably one of the best seafood restaurants in the entire world.
We booked Blue Hill as a back-up but quickly came to the consensus that we should just do both, on back to back days. Tommy Lasley, a friend of mine, did his externship at Blue Hill, so we were exposed a few things and given some opportunities that others wouldn't. Blue Hill at Stone Barns is a NY Times Two Star restaurant, but would be higher, save the reason for the restaurant.
Chef Dan Barber has orchestrated an amazing farm-to-plate program at Stone Barns, an educational facility and working farm on Rockefeller land in Westchester County, right outside of New York City. The restaurant is built around this idea of providing the necessary goods from the lands right outside of the restaurant. As part of this, the restaurant changes daily in what it offers and has availability of; meaning that the menu is changed daily by inventory, but also by seasonality.
Chef de Cuisine, Josh Lawler, was kind enough to give us a personal tour of the animals, greenhouses, kitchens and wine cellar. It was quite amazing and a very humbling experience to see such wonderful things and hear it straight from the second-in-command.
To say the food was amazing is an understatement. I could talk forever about the food, just from Blue Hill, but I won't. What I will say is that it was such a pleasure to be able to eat at these world-class establishments with people that I know and love. To eat with others who share your passion is what makes food wonderful. It's ultimately one of the most communal things we do in life and I can't imagine a group I'd rather have spent it with. So Ryan, Ben, Tommy, Al... I salute you.
Walking in to the Stone Barns Center.
Chef, showing us the greenhouse. The cooks come down to the greenhouse to harvest their ingredients. We did our own "harvesting", being allowed to pick and taste anything we wanted. I was amazed at how sweet and mild the baby collard greens were; something you will probably never see anywhere else.
The Greens and Root Vegetable greenhouse.
These pigs will be slaughtered and consumed completely on-premise, resulting in some of the most incredible tasting pork you've ever had. As part of our VIP treatment, one course was completely composed of tidbits from the pig's head. Ear, snout, jowl, thyroid and a little muscle that connects the jowl to the head. It was incredible and not-at-all gross (so don't even think that.)
