Chef Ed Brown on an
antique tractor at Chef’s
Garden in Huron, Ohio.
Chef Brown commissions
the farmers at Chef’s
Garden to grow specific
produce for him.
they’ll remember the wine the next time.
She’s brought the connection full circle.
Customers at Barbara Lynch’s Boston
restaurants, including No. 9 Park, got to
make the connection themselves on a recent trip to Italy. Lynch took a group to see
the wineries that make the barolos that are
on her list, the artisans who cure the meats
on her charcuterie plate, and the farmers
who grow the rice in her risotto.
Sometimes, the relationship between
chef and source is one that’s been building over many years. Andrés, who owns
the D.C. restaurants—among them, Jaleo,
a tapas bar; Oyamel, which serves interior
Mexican; and Zaytinya, which focuses on
eastern Mediterranean small plates—was
born in Spain and goes back all the time.
He was there earlier this year when I
e-mailed to ask him how he sources the
ingredients for his restaurants. He e-mailed back, “Sometimes I am thinking of
something wonderful I know exists and
it is a matter of trying to bring it here. A
great cheese I grew up eating in Spain, or
jamón ibérico, for example. I know these
products and their quality, and I know
their producer and I want them. So we
just go to work trying to get them here.”
Other times he discovers new tastes
along his travels. Like avgotaraho, which
is dried mullet roe from Greece.
“This was a very high-end product,
a very select product, unusual even in
Greece,” he wrote. “I was able to try it
on a trip to Greece and I knew this was
something special. So we went to work
trying to get it for Zaytinya. In the case of
Oyamel, I knew grasshoppers or chapu-lines were a great delicacy in Oaxaca and
I had to make that happen. Very authentic. So we went to work and now we bring
them from Mexico to serve at Oyamel.
They are a best-selling item.”
(I’ve had them, but in Mexico.
They’re kind of salty and crunchy, like
popcorn. Andrés sautés them with garlic
and tequila and serves them in tacos.)
I wondered if Andrés’ relationship
with his purveyors has ever given him
exclusive rights to import. After all, he
worked hard to get that first Iberian
ham to America.
“There have been times that we were
first,” he wrote. “But for me it is not so
much about exclusivity as it is about
discovery. And sharing that product
with others. Avgotaraho maybe has a
market in America because we were
crazy enough to begin bringing it for
Zaytinya. Other people tried it and said,
‘Hey, they’ve got something there.’
Thomas Keller (of Per Se in Manhattan) has started buying avgotaraho after
trying it at Zaytinya. The avgotaraho is
now sold with my logo on it. Same with
Ibérico. Many people worked for years
to bring Ibérico ham to America. When
it finally arrived, Jaleo was the first restaurant to serve this ham. If we have an
exclusive it is mostly because we open
the door.”
Open-Door Policy
Opening the door is something
Mary Ann Cricchio and Masood
Masoodi are quite familiar with. They
had to convince importers to carry a
certain pasta—paccheri—so they could
put it on the menu at Da Mimmo in
Baltimore, where Cricchio is the owner
and Masoodi the chef.
Indeed, Cricchio sends Masoodi to Italy every summer so he can keep abreast
of any new products and maintain his
relationship with the growers, farmers
and producers there.
“I like him to go over there and actually meet them, because I feel like we get
