Farmhaus is a very evocative name. What are you trying to get across? You’re in the middle of the city.
I know. We spelled the name “haus” which is a little kickback to Grandma, where all this started. She was German. Their whole clan moved over. … The gardens of my youth are really what stayed with me and encouraged me to keep doing this. The neat thing now is that it’s come full circle. We try to tread the water with all this local stuff. Six, seven years ago, it was brutal because it was so expensive.

How much do you envision sourcing locally and how much will you rely on conventional sources?

I think this will be the closest we’ve gotten to realistically [being] fully locally sourced. I don’t have any idealistic visions of being able to do it 100 percent. We don’t have enough infrastructure on the farmland to do it 100 percent. Within a couple hundred miles, we’re getting closer.

You’re opening in March – that’s a tough time to be sourcing everything locally.

My style has always been responsive. If you have this huge broad spectrum, it’s so difficult to narrow in on what you want to do. But if you let yourself respond to what’s around you, it’s so much easier.

Do you mean culinarily or in a business sense?

I mean in the sense of the produce. What’s going on right now? Just change the menu. Locking into a menu in my opinion is the stupidest thing anybody could do. You’re forced to buy commercial everything.

What’s your opening menu going to look like?

It’s going to be somewhat heavy, because we’re not going to be very thick into [the growing season] yet. We do have some things … already. We are excited that we’re going to have a noticeable opening with produce, so that’s encouraging. Winter vegetables and things that are finishing, and we imagine that by the middle of March, we will have a lot of stuff: greens, leeks, some of the earlier peas.

Many diners are familiar with your cooking, so how is this going to be an evolution?

With our increased kitchen space, we get to be serious across the board. … The limitations are lifted. Everything that came out of the kitchen at Erato came out of a small, 4-by-2-foot table, so it had to go from pan to plate.

How else are you pushing the local concept?

No one has ever taken the local wines seriously. That’s always been a discouraging thing to me. This is such a food-driven restaurant. The … fun wines to pair with food typically aren’t the big, sophisticated wines. We’ve had so much fun tasting. We drove through Alto Pass [in southern Illinois] and went to some of the more premier Illinois-side wineries. Some of them have been open for 35, 40 years. There is so much that is so explosive and so different, so unique – the Chambourcin that comes out of the Illinois side is just remarkable. Awesome fruit quality. How cool is that going to be? To pair local wines with local food? And I think that’s an evolution for us. It furthers the concept.

Are you going to have vegetarian dishes each night?

The most exciting thing for someone who is a vegetarian would be to get a hold of us [ahead of time], because then our possibilities increase. Time to prepare makes such a huge difference because if we need to pull something out of something we’re already doing, we have to know a day ahead of time to do anything interesting. If I were to put some kind of style on the vegetarian stuff we do, it would be very rustic and very simple. Showcasing the ingredient itself. There’s nothing like taking these little baby turnips and things we get and just roasting them. It’s so simple.

Are you directly collaborating with farmers, asking them to grow specific things for you?

Definitely. I just got a call from a really good grower of ours who specifically focuses on the spring and fall, which are just awesome times – people think that the growing season starts in April and ends in November, and it just doesn’t. We had produce all the way to New Year’s Eve last year. It’s not hard to throw a hoop house over things and continue to harvest into February. We actually encouraged a farmer last month from the East Side, who does all of the raspberries and things for us, to grow some hogs for us. He wanted to try it and so he grew some Chester White hogs. Tore ’em down a few days ago, and we’re waiting. Started some charcuterie and everything.

It sounds to me like you’re following your instinct, that you’ve really learned from each place you’ve worked and are applying that here.

The least successful places I’ve seen have been the ones that try to do everything for everyone. If you try to do what you do very, very well, that is such a recipe for success. And the closer I get to that, every time it seems to work. I think if you have your passion in every dish, and you’re excited about it, then it makes it more exciting to sell it. Then it becomes more than just making money, which I haven’t done yet either. [laughs] The line between work and play gets diluted, and that is the goal.

Farmhaus
3257 Ivanhoe Ave., St. Louis

The post Kevin Willman brings his Locavore philosophy to Farmhaus appeared first on Sauce Magazine: Intelligent Content For The Food Fascinated.

Your title is director of farmstead operations and executive chef, but you’re not a farmer. However, I will have a gardener/farmer as a partner, so together we will develop the chefs’ garden. In addition to the chefs’ garden, we’ll have a more detailed raised-bed garden with an Osage Indian garden or an absinthe garden [and] … an old-fashioned, 8-foot-by-8-foot smokehouse with an offset fire pit.

The Overlook Farm project is Nathalie’s brainchild. What is her vision? Picture in your mind The Inn at Little Washington. Blackberry Farm. … Clarksville Station, Overlook Farm, it’s an oasis on Route 79. You’re out for a leisurely drive and then all of a sudden, booya, here’s this spot and you’re like, “What is that?”

So was it the project that brought you back to St. Louis? It was the scope that this project had. A farm-to-table restaurant that’s steeped in tradition. You know, this farm has been in Nathalie Pettus’ family for more than 150 years. I was enticed and fell in love with her vision and passion for what she wants to do. She wants to return that land to its agricultural roots and showcase what [Clarksville] can – and does – produce.

What are some menu highlights? We serve … breakfast, lunch and dinner [daily]. We’re cooking on our toes. Sometimes we know, sometimes we don’t know what the farmer’s going to bring to our back door. … We’re doing all of our own baking – bagels, breakfast breads, English muffins, beignets, doughnuts. Lot of charcuterie – sausages and pâtés and terrines and rillettes. I mentioned earlier the smokehouse we designed. I see lamb prosciutto in our future. I see hanging hams. Dinner is going to be a blast – all the proteins we have at our fingertips. Lamb, pork, chicken, bison. … Venison. So we’re going to keep it simple and let the food speak for itself. One of the challenges that we have is that we are in Clarksville, and we need to appeal to a broad demographic of guest. I don’t care where you come from; big, delicious, bold flavors win every time. Freshness and quality win every time.

Your hotel background helps you understand the need for broad appeal at this particular restaurant. I grew up in this business in my family’s restaurant, and at one point I said, “I will no longer cook a chicken wing!” And then I got into the hotel business, and for the last 10 years, I’ve cooked more chicken wings than anyone could shake a stick at. We will do recognizable, approachable food, but with our own flair and commitment to quality. I am mindful of the fact that we are 40 minutes north [of St. Louis]. When you travel to see us, we’re gonna make the experience well worth your visit.

So what is your cooking style? New World classic. I’ll take a classic dish and put a New World spin on it. I’m not talking fusion. I’m talking a new, brighter approach. … Pork belly over a ragoût of white beans is a classic, classic dish. But we lightened the dish with lots of colorful aromatics. Celery and carrots. We made this incredibly bright green scallion coulis that we streaked the plate with, so the beans just popped behind that beautiful green.

How are you developing the menu at Overlook? There’s not a lot of avant-garde cooking going on. This is an opportunity to get back to technique.

Why do you think chefs are turning toward technique-driven, classic dishes? For me, it’s a personal challenge. Classic is just that. It’s the cornerstone of what we do. Good cooking has legs and will be around for a long, long time. The flavor of the month, the fusion cooking, if we go back into our memories, there may be a dish or two that we really liked here or there, but nothing beats a perfectly cooked short rib over creamy parsnips. There’s something special about looking at a pâté that’s perfectly formed. There’s something righteous about great knife skills. It’s a tip of the toque to those that came before us. That sounds a little cheeseball, but this is a craft that’s gone on for centuries. It hasn’t changed that much if you really think about it. The challenge is excellence.

Overlook Farm
901 S. Highway 79, Clarksville, 573.242.3838

The post Big Ideas, Bold Flavors: Grandinetti Is Back appeared first on Sauce Magazine: Intelligent Content For The Food Fascinated.

Give me a snapshot of your career. When [my husband] Kurt moved to St. Louis, I went to Napa Valley and studied culinary arts and wine and afterwards did an externship at Trio in Chicago. They closed their doors shortly after, and I … then moved to Ohio, where I was a pastry chef for a small boutique [bakery] similar to this. Eventually I went up to Chef’s Garden, which is a sustainable farm, and got their kitchen going for the pastry aspect and then moved to St. Louis.

So what is the vision? We just wanted to go back to the basics, back to the technique. Desserts were becoming so architecturally crazy, and people were losing flavor. We were like, “Remember when you used to step into your grandma’s kitchen?” All those things that brought you back; every taste that you took brought a memory along with it. We joke around – we put the door in, the creaky screen door, because it’s just like grandma’s house. You take a bite of a hand pie, and it’s exactly the way that you remember it.

Bittersweet Bakery
2200 Gravois Ave., St. Louis
314.771.3500

Well, it’s one thing to reference nostalgia, and it’s another thing to do classic pastries well. We use really [high] quality ingredients with everything we do. And we bring technique into it, which I think a lot of people are just skipping these days. Technique is almost nonexistent.

When you were studying food, what brought you toward pastries? I actually studied savory; I never studied pastries. When I was doing my externship, the pastry chef asked if I would consider coming over to the pastry side. We called it “the dark side,” and I was like, “Absolutely not. No way. I hate it. It’s never gonna happen.” Chef Dale Levitski cut a deal that I could continue working garde manger if I went over to pastries. I figured, if anything, it would give me the technique that I needed to create savory dishes. Technique is universal. Not a lot of chefs know how important pastry is to their application of savory food.

Can you give me an example? Pâte brisée – a perfect example. It’s a dough, and you make it completely on the dough’s terms. People use it all the time in savory applications like quiches or goat cheese tarts.

What is it that makes savory chefs dislike pastry? It’s the anal things, like hoarding your pastry brushes and not letting anyone use them. Savory side doesn’t see any problem in sharing brushes but pastry absolutely does, because when you’re brushing something and then it smells like garlic, it’s gross. Sheet pans. Oh my gosh, … a straight sheet pan is nonexistent because people are roasting their bones on them, and it’s just like a constant argument. Savory doesn’t see any problem with it at all. They don’t understand that you need a straight sheet pan for a cake. It’s a constant battle.

So where did you get your base recipes? Where, for example, did you learn to make frangipane? I learned to make frangipane with duck eggs, actually. …We grew up baking. Things like that, I remember from when I was a child. And then a lot of it I know from reading books. [Frangipane] was always made using duck eggs. We’d like to try to implement that here if [the eggs] are available in the area. We’re still trying to find out what is available locally.

What can you source locally in pastry? Fruit, obviously, but what else? Everything can be local. People have given us little tips: If you want apple cider, you have to go here, and if you want this, go there. At first it was overwhelming because we found ourselves going different places for specific items, but then it all came together and it was like, OK, it’s not so bad. It’s shopping around. It’s going back to the day, not sacrificing what you want because it’s convenient. A lot of the purveyors in the area, the smaller guys, are amazing. Fox Rivers Dairy – they’re … four brothers that own this little place and you get good cheese, good jams and it’s fun.

And your ice creams … they are so creative. Every ice cream that we make is made with fresh ingredients. We don’t use any bases. We have an amazing ice cream machine. It literally is a dream come true. You make a crème anglaise, flavor it accordingly. Each one has a different tweak. The ice cream batter, we let it rest overnight. The ice cream machine works on viscosity. As it’s cooling, each ice cream has a different viscosity, and [the machine] actually stops itself [when the ice cream reaches it]. In pastries, it’s hard to utilize leftover things. Say we have a bunch of toffee left over. Naturally, [we] do ice cream. It’s a great way to use product that doesn’t look as pretty. [It’s also] where we try flavor combinations.

The post Flavor Trumps Flair at Bittersweet Bakery appeared first on Sauce Magazine: Intelligent Content For The Food Fascinated.

Salsas
El Torito Supermarket and Restaurant Wind your way past the cans of beans, the piles of dried chiles and the fresh produce, back to the meat counter. There you’ll find house-made salsas that are fresh, hot and cheap stacked beside fresh Mexican cheeses and crema. The salsa selection varies, but no matter which of the five you pick, you’re assured of two things: nuanced flavor and heat that’ll tingle your tongue for, oh, about an hour. There’s a burnt-orange dried-chile salsa with smoky undertones and pronounced fire. The tomatillo salsa is verdant green and tart. Red tomato-based salsa pricks the taste buds with sweet tomato flavor before it gives way to a lingering heat. Grab a bag of thick, crunchy, salty tortilla chips on your way to the register, and dig into some of the best salsa this side of the Rio Grande. 2753 Cherokee St., St. Louis, 314.771.8648.

Italian Meringue
Rue Lafayette Dessert should make you smile, and when you savor the soft, sweet Italian meringue at Rue Lafayette, you may well giggle. Here, executive chef Natalia Penchaszadeh piles her pastries with snowy, fluffy, sweet pillows of happiness. The cooked meringue tops lemon curd and mixes with almond flour to make macarons; it’s also sometimes baked into Pavlovas. But Penchaszadeh uses it most strikingly and deliciously atop her tres leches coconut cake. Soaked in coconut milk, this moist cake is elevated by spikes of meringue given a final dusting of cinnamon. For lovers of European-style pastries, this is a taste of sugary bliss. 2024-26 Lafayette Ave., St. Louis, 314.772.2233.

Leaf Lard
Wenneman Meat Co. Leaf lard’s making a comeback. A few generations ago, many baked goods incorporated natural shortening – aka lard – but the fear of saturated fat ended that. Modern cooks are again seeking out this hard-to-find treasure. At Wenneman Meat Co., pigs are butchered on premises Tuesdays and Thursdays, and if you want to nab this traditional butcher shop’s incredibly high-quality leaf lard, call to have some set aside. Wenneman sources hogs from only four farmers within a 20-mile radius of its St. Libory, Ill., location, and because the shop handles the entire butchering process, you’re ensured a product so fine, your grandmother will ask for your pie-crust recipe. 7415 State Route 15, St. Libory, 618.768.4328.

Chris Sommers
Pi It takes considerable business savvy to open three restaurants in less than two years, but when Pi owner Chris Sommers moved from San Fran back to his native St. Louis, a conventional, one-and-only indie eatery was never in the plans. Sommers, along with partner Frank Uible, has taken a great pizza crust recipe and whirled it into a wildly successful pizzeria that has The Loop, Kirkwood and now the CWE – as well as places much farther afield – abuzz. What’s Sommers’ vision for Pi? “To elevate the experience in general and differentiate with quality ingredients that at the same time create a sort of a ‘lifestyle-something’ that people could embrace that is off the pizza scene,” said Sommers. Differentiate: a standout thick-crust cornmeal-based pie. No Provel. No pastas or sandwiches, either. That “lifestyle-something” translates to gluten-free crust, vegan options and green-as-can-be (local and organic) food and beverages, plus eco-friendly operational decisions on design, décor, recycling and more. Top it all off with the recent addition of chef Marc Baltes (Cardwell’s at the Plaza, Niche) and pastry chef Mathew Rice (Niche), and it may not be long before Pi encircles the world. 6144 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314.727.6633; 10935 Manchester Road, Kirkwood, 314.966.8080; and (opening soon) 4753 McPherson Ave., St. Louis.

Tamales
El Chico Bakery Slip into El Chico Bakery early Saturday or Sunday, and slide out with perfect tamales, red or green. Plump and inviting, still warm from the steamer, the tamales made each week by the matriarch of the family running the bakery sell out well before noon. The masa is slathered on the corn husks just right – not too thin, not too thick. You’ll taste a hint of garlic, a smidge of onion in the moist pork filling. But things get jiggy when you hit the added bits – mild red ancho chiles for the wimpy, green peppers with spicy tomatillos for the gutsy. (Great for breakfast, BTW.) 2634 Cherokee St., St. Louis, 314.664.2212.

Cassoulet
Atlas Restaurant Each year customers wait, forks at the ready, for chef Michael Roberts to put his much-loved cassoulet back on the menu at Atlas Restaurant in the DeBaliviere Place neighborhood. This rich, soul-satisfying mélange of lamb, duck confit, Toulouse sausage and flageolets is heightened by tomatoes, fresh herbs and toasted bread crumbs, ensuring that not a speck remains on anyone’s plate. 5513 Pershing St., St. Louis, 314.367.6800.

Drive-Thru Margaritas
Nachomama’s We don’t know how this can possibly be legal, but apparently, it is. Nachomama’s, the venerable Rock Hill Tex-Mex dive, has a drive-thru. Everyone knows that. You can order burritos, enchiladas and that fabulous roasted chicken, right? But did you know you can also get a Margarita? Yes, a Margarita. From the drive-thru. Pull up to the window, and they’ll cheerfully hand you a to-go cup full of the tangy libation. Where else do they make it so easy? (But they don’t dispense straws!) 9643 Manchester Road, Rock Hill, 314.961.9110.

Randall’s Wine and Spirits Say you like tequila and mezcal – a lot. You’ve run through even the obscure brands. Then you hit the shelves at Randall’s and discover the Del Maguey Single Village Mezcal – four varieties, one for each town in Oaxaca, Mexico, where they’re distilled. Also: the Del Maguey Pechuga, an ultra-exclusive mezcal made with (among other things) a cooked chicken breast suspended within the still. Mamacita! Truly, Randall’s offers a positively obscene selection of liquor, beer and wine in a warehouse-sized store. From the low end to the high, it stocks a dazzling array of libations, and everyone seems to have trouble leaving with only what they planned to buy. 1920 S. Jefferson, St. Louis, 314.865.0199.

Legend Club
legrand’s Market and Catering Do you measure the gustatory brilliance of a sandwich by how much grease has soaked through both the wax paper insert and the butcher paper wrapping? If so, you should love the Legend Club from LeGrand’s Market. It boasts not only a sweet roasted red-pepper sauce, but also hot Havarti and a garlic cream-cheese spread – as well as tender turkey, spicy pepperoni and perfect pastrami. And smack in the middle is a layer of real bacon crumbles. Everyone has his or her favorite sandwich, sure, but perhaps only the Legend truly lives up to its name. 4414 Donovan Ave., St. Louis, 314.353.4059.

Kakao Chocolate Kakao (pronounced kuh-KAY-oh) Chocolate leads The Lou as a brand of artisanal chocolates and confections that makes cacao-lovers go gaga. Everything – from the fragrant lavender truffles to the decadent, crisp pecan bark that showcases the Show-Me State’s signature nut sprinkled on dark chocolate – is individually handmade at Brian Pelletier’s Fox Park shop. The chocolatier and his crew get kudos for innovative goodies like velvety truffles infused with teas, spices, liqueurs and even beer, using top-quality, all-natural ingredients (oftentimes organic or sourced from local businesses such as Traveling Tea or Mattlingly Brewing Co.). 2301 S. Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314.771.2310.

Guanciale Salume Beddu A true spaghetti carbonara may be the best pasta dish on the planet. It’s certainly one of the simplest: dry pasta boiled to al dente, one egg, lots of freshly ground pepper, a generous grating of Parmigiano-Reggiano and crispy bits of guanciale. What’s guanciale? Think bacon, but with five times the porkiness. It’s hard to find in America, but thankfully, local purveyor Salume Beddu makes a stellar version of this Roman delicacy, curing raw pork jowl and flavoring it with red and black pepper, brown sugar and rosemary. Accept no substitutes – and look for it at area farmers’ markets. salumebeddu.com.

Steve Neukomm
Square One Brewery and Distillery Steve Neukomm may have begun Square One as a microbrewery and later expanded the Lafayette Square operation to a gastropub, but distilling alcohol was always in the back of his mind. After the entrepreneur was licensed to distill spirits in August 2008, Neukomm determined to offer not only top-quality standard spirits to the local market (thus the birth of the Spirits of St. Louis labeled vodka, rum and gin), but also inventive craft liquors like whisky made with cherry wood-smoked malt, artisanal rums such as Green Flash (a spiced rum infused with vanilla bean and blood orange) and the rum-based Citrus Mello Cello, inspired by Italian limoncello. “We’re trying to create new and interesting things for people to discover and enjoy,” said Neukomm. As Square One Brewery and Distillery readies to release its latest production, a beer schnapps loaded with hops, the “and Distillery” extension is quickly becoming a hallmark of the Square One brand. And if Neukomm has his way, he’ll soon get distribution so that folks all around the Midwest can sip the products of his fine still skills. 1727 Park Ave., St. Louis, 314.231.2537.

Choosing a Beer with Jamie Coffman
Dressel’s Public House It’s a great problem to have, no doubt. But sometimes our town’s ever-expanding selection of craft beer makes ordering a bit bewildering: Go dark or light? With an ale or a lager? Local or regional? Any bartender worth his salt can offer knowledgeable recommendations, but at Dressel’s Public House in the CWE, bartender Jamie Coffman turns such indecisive moments into an experience. A series of rapid-fire questions helps Coffman narrow the field. (Always first: “What mood are you in?” Next, “Hoppy or malty?” One or two more build from there.) Then he’ll set two to three samples on the bar and instruct you to taste them from right to left. Pick the one you like, and he’ll pour you a pint while filling you in on the details: brewer, style, flavor characteristics. The result? The beer you didn’t know you wanted. 419 N. Euclid Ave., St. Louis, 314.361.1060.

Ray Hill
Hill Brewing Co. “I’ve always liked Almond Joy candy bars,” said local brewer Ray Hill, explaining the origin of one of his craft beers. He laughed and added, “Will I sell a million of the toasted-coconut porters? Probably not.” For much of the past decade, that devil-may-care attitude has positioned Hill as the hops-and-barley equivalent of The Little Engine That Could. And as a budding beer baron, the man keeps chugging along. This year, for instance, he’s been toiling almost nonstop to rehab a Jazz Age Ferguson brownstone. There, in Ray Hill’s BrewHouse, he plans to offer his interpretations of international beer styles, based on his studies under the Beer Judge Certification Program and paired with appropriate cuisine. When? Early 2010. Maybe January. Maybe February. Hill affably confessed that no now-now-now timetable will trump his vision. That vision earlier prompted him to sever a cushy-sounding agreement with Anheuser-Busch. (Hill has chutzpah like a like an imperial stout has heft.) Driving his vision is one of the oldest motivations known to humanity. “I love what I do,” Hill remarked. “I love the beer business. I love craft breweries.” We all should drink to that. 418 S. Florissant Road, Ferguson, 314.521.2337.

Bona Fide Espresso
Goshen Coffee Co. These beans may be billed as perfect for espresso, but we like them just fine using the plain old drip method, thank you very much. Goshen Coffee’s Bona Fide blend packs a punch, with the perfect balance of berry notes and in-your-face bitterness tempered by a little taste of caramel and chocolate. Goshen Coffee, located in Edwardsville, offers an all-organic line of fair-trade coffees, doing good economically and environmentally while pleasing people’s palates. Buy the blend brewed or whole bean at 222 Artisan Bakery in Edwardsville, Foundation Grounds in Maplewood, Local Harvest Grocery in South City or a number of other specialty shops. 110 First Ave., Edwardsville, 618.659.0571.

Ginger Beer
Franco The corked bottle of cloudy liquid behind the bar looks like lemonade, but don’t be fooled – it’s Franco’s homemade ginger beer. Not carbonated or sugary like most such brews, this adaptation’s recipe is simple: minced ginger, brown sugar and lime (rind and juice), steeped in hot water until the flavors have been infused. The unexpectedly punchy, spicy and refreshing beverage is used mostly for cocktails … like owner Tom Schmidt’s new creation, The Old Gentleman, which serves the ginger beer in a martini glass with gin and a wash of Ricard. Try the ginger beer in a hot toddy, with vodka or in an iced tea, even. But trust us – there’s nothing gingerly about it. 1535 S. Eighth St., St. Louis, 314.436.2500.

Grilled Cheese Thursdays
Companion Every Thursday, Companion’s lunch special ups the ante on a classic pair, teaming its thick and creamy tomato bisque with any of the bakery-café’s four grilled cheese sandwiches. Go Mediterranean with mozzarella-basil-tomato, French with Brie-apple-apricot jam or old-school with the unabashedly simple – and unashamedly gargantuan – Cheese on Cheese, whose two layers of tangy Cheddar and Swiss, studded with sliced tomato and melted between three slices of toasted house-made brioche, make it our favorite. 8143 Maryland Ave., Clayton; 4651 Maryland Ave., St. Louis; 9781 Clayton Road, Ladue; 314.352.4770.

Paul Hayden
The Wine and Cheese Place St. Louis has probably hundreds of places to buy wine, more than a few of them staffed by wine geeks. You know the type: They can wax poetic about the microclimate in a particular region of Alsace and get starry-eyed talking about malolactic fermentation. Which is all well and good, except that sometimes you just want to know what wine to drink with dinner. Enter Paul Hayden, wine manager at The Wine and Cheese Place. “It doesn’t matter to me what the sun exposure is like on the eastern slope of a vineyard,” he said. “I don’t care about the dirt. Wine should be fun. It shouldn’t be that geeky.” Despite a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of winemaking, Hayden prefers to approach wine from a consumer’s perspective. He learned the business from the ground up, starting out stocking shelves at the shop’s Rock Hill location while still a teenager. Now, with more than 20 years of experience, all of it at The Wine and Cheese Place, Hayden has a gift for demystifying wine. Add that to an almost uncanny ability to pair the right vintage with almost any dish, and you’ve got a real wine pro on your hands. 7435 Forsyth Blvd., Clayton, 314.727.8788.

Roasted-Radish Bruschetta
Taste by Niche Although modern life has conditioned us to favor complexity over simplicity, Taste by Niche puts the lie to that conditioning with its roasted-radish bruschetta. A bit of olive oil, salt and lemon juice. Three varieties of radish, chopped. A slim rectangle of toasted bread, its garlicked scent delicately perfuming the tiny Benton Park space. Almost necessarily, the subtlety of the radishes will astound someone expecting, even dreading, the palate punch of the ones Granny Burpee served as appetizers every second Sunday. But then, as Taste proves with this small plate, subtle borders on sublime. 1831 Sidney St., St. Louis, 314.773.7755.

Merguez Sausage
Prairie Grass Farms It appears at area farmers’ markets, listed on a casually hand-lettered posting at Dave and Barb Hillebrand’s Prairie Grass Farms booth. Merguez. This French lamb sausage, flavored with North African spices, isn’t available all the time; nor is it available anywhere but the Tower Grove and Maplewood markets (and, during winter, St. Louis Community Farmers’ Market). All the more reason for you to buy as much as you can when they have it on hand. Grilled, sautéed or removed from its casing and added to a sauce, the sausage features a complex spice mixture that provides a heady complement to the rich lamb. Don’t pass it up. 573.835.2272.

COCOA NIB AND MERGUEZ PIZZA

Adapted from a recipe by David Lebovitz

1 10-inch pizza

4 Tbsp. olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 small onion, peeled and finely chopped
½ lb. merguez sausage, removed from its casing
1 Tbsp. harissa (spicy Moroccan tomato sauce)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
2 Tbsp. cocoa nibs
¼ cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
Pizza dough, rolled to a 10-inch round
4 oz. fontina cheese, grated
2 oz. mozzarella cheese, grated

• In a small bowl, mix 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and the minced garlic. Set aside.
• Heat the remaining olive oil in a skillet and cook the onion until soft and translucent. Add the merguez and harissa, and season with salt and freshly ground pepper. Cook slowly for 10 minutes uncovered; then take off the heat and allow to cool.
• Once cooled, stir in the cocoa nibs and chopped parsley.

To make the pizza:

• Preheat the oven to 450. Brush the top of the pizza dough with the reserved garlic-infused olive oil. Sprinkle half of the cheese over the dough; then spread the sausage mixture over the cheeses. Finally, top with the remaining cheese, and bake the pizza until the cheese is bubbling and a deep, golden brown, 6 to 7 minutes.

Locally Grown and Sourced Foods
Local Harvest Grocery & Café Peaceful Bend Vineyard. Lemp Lager. Goshen Coffee. Patric Chocolates. Heartland Creamery. Gelato di Riso. If you understand the importance of buying locally grown and sourced foods, you understand the marvelous work Local Harvest does. More than half of the South City bodega’s products come from the vicinity, and to see them all clustered together in the same shop does the heart – and the small business – good. Also, at the café just across Morganford Road, Local Harvest offers what just might be the tastiest – and the only – vegetarian slinger known to man. Locally sourced foods, produce in-season and vegetarian options: how things are supposed to be. 3148 and 3137 Morganford Road, St. Louis, 314.865.5260 and 314.772.8815.

Sangria
The Map Room The Map Room owner Michele Floyd’s sangria will astonish you – whether the melon medley, mixed berry, pineapple or peach. “I hate to say it,” she said, “but I’ve been collecting sangria recipes since high school.” It shows. Her complex recipes feature a sweet, zesty blend of fruit steeped for about 24 hours in liquor and wine. Also, Floyd’s sangria lacks the raw, crunchy fruit so common to others; maceration softens and mixes it into the base spirits she uses. And through experimentation, Floyd has learned what works – both in the height of summer and the dead of winter. 1901 Withnell Ave., St. Louis, 314.776.3515.

Savalan Market There’s no sign for Savalan Market, just a sandwich board on the sidewalk advertising gyros, hot coffee and baklava. Once inside, be prepared to rubberneck. Dal in saffron yellow, red, cream and quiet green. The tiniest, most perfect green lentils. Plump dried mulberries to crunch alone or to mix with dried, seasoned garbanzos for a salty-sweet snack. Tart cherries big as shooter marbles jarred in glass. Bricks of feta, beaucoup goat cheeses and thick Mediterranean yogurt. Rose, fig and tart cherry jams. And don’t miss the honey-rich baklava or the gyros, both made in-house. 3608 Bates St., St. Louis, 314.352.4999.

Affogato Acero As a postprandial treat, the latte can be a bit of a bore. Espresso and steamed milk. Big deal. Acero offers a vivacious variant and then some, though, in its affogato, a nice, simple espresso poured over a small scoop of vanilla bean ice cream from Serendipity. Bitter, sweet, creamy and delicious, Acero’s affogato will make you love taking your after-dinner coffee in your dessert. 7266 Manchester Road, Maplewood, 314.644.1790.

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How did all of this come about? I’ve known Gerard for five years now; [he] was a line cook for me out in Salt Lake. He left there to open Niche. At the beginning of the summer, I was up here off and on helping Gerard get Taste [by Niche] up and running. I had spare time. The restaurant I was at before actually burned down at the end of March. It was an old, historic inn – Richmond Hill Inn in Asheville, N.C. – that very tragically burned. So being without work except for a little consulting here and piecemeal stuff back in North Carolina, when this came available for Gerard, he gave me a call to see if I would be interested.

What is your culinary style? The food that I’ve done in the past was in line with what Niche is doing now. But over the past couple of years, I’ve been wanting to get more and more rustic. More and more approachable. I don’t like empty restaurants. I wanted to be part of a neighborhood place where, on any given weeknight, I know 60 to 70 percent of the people that walk through the door. Maybe this is the second time this week they’ve come in. That to me would be great success.

A true neighborhood restaurant … what is your price point? The price point is going to be incredible. We’re hoping to keep 99 percent of the entrées under $20. There might be a few steak options – beef is expensive – that creep above $20. We want to offer a three-courses-for-$30 menu.

How do you approach cooking? I have always felt I’ve been a great shopper. Developing relationships with local farms, cheesemakers – local interests me quite a bit. And I like taking one ingredient at the peak of its season and repeating it two or three times on a plate. So you might see a turnip gratin, a turnip purée, a fried turnip. Just to give people an idea of what that ingredient can be. I also like clean purity of flavors. So that’s why I have to be a good shopper. The ingredient has to taste like that ingredient, which has to taste great.

If you’re cooking classic French food but with a local, seasonal angle, what items will always have a place on the menu? With bistro and brasserie cooking, even though they’re set dishes, it’s the accompaniments that change with the season. I’d like to set it up so it is constantly revolving. [And] cassoulet in the middle of summer doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. There’s seasonality that way in how people eat.

What about the pastries? The pastries, again, are going to be traditional French. So you’ll see chocolate mousse and profiteroles.

I know you haven’t fully developed the menu, but what else can you tell me? Duck confit, cassoulet, beef bourguignon. We will have plats du jour that might be mustard-braised rabbit. Eventually we hope to add a raw bar up front so we can offer oysters and the giant seafood plateaus that you see all over France. You’ll see some variety meats, certainly.

How do you interpret traditional, rustic French food? A lot of traditional brasserie and bistro cooking is cooking of economy where you’re not cooking a filet mignon. You’re cooking a flatiron steak, a shoulder cut off the steak that is incredibly delicious, more flavorful than a filet mignon. A little harder to cut through but you make up for it in flavor. The crux of it is full-flavored food [that’s] not afraid of some fat, certainly, but we’ll have some great salads too.

Brasserie by Niche
(An early November opening is anticipated.)
4580 Laclede Ave., St. Louis
314.454.0600

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Why did you decide to go this route? [My wife, Nancy, and I] had searched for a long time for a boutique property, something that we could make fine dining. The stars were aligned and we just happened to drive by 5525 Oak St. It needed a ton of renovation. But we knew, this was it. So as far as the schedule, number one, there’s not much going on out here on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I wanted to use that time to focus on the marketing aspect of the business. But in addition, to be able to make my son’s soccer game on Tuesday afternoon. It’s a balance of business and my personal life, and I think that in the restaurant business, you can have both.

You traveled the world as a corporate chef for a cruise line, so what is it that made you gravitate toward French cuisine? I’m interested, fascinated, by the history of French cuisine. I’ve traveled France extensively. I don’t think I’ve had a bad meal there. There’s just this mystique of romance. It’s classic. It’s the root of what we are all taught in culinary school. It’s the root of modern cooking.

And your menu changes all the time. My menu changes weekly. I’d like to get to the point where I’m issuing menus a month in advance. It’s difficult for me, though, because of my relationship with Norman Weise of Weise Nursery, who is growing most of my produce. He can’t tell me four weeks in advance what’s going to pop up out of the ground, what’s going to be ready to harvest. He can give me an idea … two weeks out. This week he has this beautiful white sweet corn. He has turnips in as well. Sweet potatoes. So I’m utilizing those products. He gives me the incredibly fresh ingredients and I create a menu, I work with it.

How did the partnership spring up? He’s my neighbor. I live in the subdivision next to his farm. I bought landscaping supplies from him over the years and got to know him. It was always our concept to partner with local businesses and organizations, to marry our ingredients together to create something beneficial for both of us. … When [Norman’s] father ran the farm many years ago, he grew produce and he sold it at the family stand. When his father passed, Norman wanted to honor him and he wanted to go back to growing and selling produce, which he started this year. I went up there to buy hydrangeas or something, and he had all these tomatoes laid out. He told me the story and I said, “Well, do you think you could grow produce specifically for my restaurant?” And he handed me a seed catalogue and he said, “Pick out what you want and I’ll put it in the ground.”

You’re also partnered with Cottleville Wine Seller. When we first opened, I had a client ask if they could buy a bottle of wine. I don’t have a retail license to sell, so I went to Don Yarber, the mayor [of Cottleville] and owner of the Wine Seller, and I said, “Don, I have people asking to buy my wines. I can’t sell it to them. Would you exclusively retail my wines?” It works out for the both of us.

So with the menu changing all the time, the wines change too. How do you pick what to pair? A ton of tastings. We have our wine suppliers here every week, sometimes two times a week. I’ll develop the menu, call my wine rep and say, “Here’s what I’m doing, come in. I’ve got a white-corn bisque this week, a smoked-duck cannelloni, a beef tenderloin.” I give them an idea: I want a Chardonnay with this, a Bordeaux with this. They bring me wines to taste.

It’s a constant creative process for you. In my 10-year corporate career, it was Monday to Friday, 8 to 5, pushing pencils, creating schedules. There was no creativity to that job. My passion is food. The reason I became a chef is because I like to cook. Period. I woke up one day and [realized] I’m not home. I miss my family. And I’m not cooking. Even though I’m the corporate executive chef, it has nothing to do with cooking.

You must be immeasurably happier now. I feel like I’ve awakened. I have nobody but myself to blame for anything and I’m my own toughest critic. I’m intellectually challenged by this. It’s constant. It’s a great balance between food and business. I absolutely love it. I’ve never been happier or more passionate in my life than I am right now.

Stone Soup Cottage
5525 Oak St., Cottleville
636.244.2233

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Terrace View’s menu is Mediterranean, but that’s such an overarching culinary designation. For me, what that will mean is my foundation of French and Italian. That’s where the focus of this food will be. But there [are] a few dishes that I love doing that are Moroccan or Spanish or Greek or something like that. I didn’t want to be too restrictive … obviously with my background the bulk of it’s going to be French and Italian. But I didn’t want to be too specific.

So how did you edit the menu? I have just really – in the past couple years – bought into the local farmers much more because they’re so much easier to deal with than they were 10 years ago. And there’s so much more available. It’s almost just as easy calling my farmers as it was calling my purveyors in the past. So what I was thinking was local ingredients, Mediterranean flavors. Which truly is what Mediterranean food is: It’s local food cooked the way they cook it.

Cooked very simply. Quickly. I’m obviously not going to get lamb from Italy. I’m not going to buy my goat from Spain, my lemons from Greece. So as much as possible, I’m thinking, let’s go with local and think like somebody that lives near the Mediterranean. They would get the best possible product and then cook it in a way that’s simple and to the style of where they are.

You have a lot of steaks on the menu. I got to thinking about these businessmen down here and I got these people that are doing organic, grass-fed beef and lamb and pork. So I put a little section on the menu that’s just going to have an emphasis on that. Like, I won’t go to typical chain steakhouses; I won’t eat the meat. I’ve done enough research and study of that kind of processing and so forth that it has turned me off to want[ing] to eat that kind of stuff.

It’s nice that on your menu you follow through with your convictions. This past year I’ve really done that, especially with the $25 menu that we did at [The Crossing, Liluma and Acero]. At first I was like, well, I’ll do organic grass-fed beef and we’ll do that as the higher-end tasting menu. And then for the lower-end tasting menu, we’ll do mass-produced food. And then I was like, that’s the problem with America. The people that don’t want to spend – or can’t spend – the money are the ones being punished ’cause they’re the ones eating the processed foods and all the garbage that’s causing sickness. So why do I want to punish those people? Why don’t I put it upon myself and do, like, the porchetta: Find good pork, find good, inexpensive cuts of meat and prepare them properly so that now I can … have that for the customers.

So what about the wines? All the wines are Mediterranean. I decided [to] … just go [with] European wines. They’re mostly French and Italian with a little bit of Spanish sprinkled in. I think I have one Greek wine.

How have you seen the St. Louis restaurant industry change over the past 11 years? I think that what you find is that not having a global, or at least national, perspective of what food is … makes it a lot harder to impress diners. In the past, … someone might be an average cook and a nice guy, [and] he might make it for 10, 15 years. But nowadays, if you’re not on your game, doing nice food, taking great care of your customers, the competition will eat you alive. I think that’s good. … And now, to get somebody from Kirkwood to come to Clayton, they might drive by three good restaurants on the way. So you have to be enticing enough to get them past those restaurants.

What kind of direction did you get from Citygarden? I would think they want something sophisticated to reflect the setting. That’s what they said they were after. I came in and … they showed me through it and they told me all the trees in the park, all the bushes, all the plants are indigenous to this area. The bluffs are supposed to [mimic] the Mississippi and Missouri River bluffs. The meandering [paths] are supposed to be the rivers and so forth. I was like, well, why don’t we do a menu that pulls from the regional foods and then do it in the way I do, which would be a Mediterranean flavor. So, call it Midwestern flavors, Mediterranean food or Midwestern food, Mediterranean flavors. When I told them that, they were just like, “That’s it. That’s exactly what we want.”

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A lot of Middle Eastern cuisines overlap. You call this a Syrian experience but you mentioned that it has a lot in common with Lebanese food. It’s absolutely the same kind of food. Lebanese food, Syrian food, Palestinian food. It’s similar to Jordanian as well. These four countries, a long time ago it was one country. But when the British people and the French people went [there], they divided it into four countries. We have the same kind of food, but why it’s known as Lebanese food? Because Lebanese people, they start traveling before Syrian and Palestinian and Jordanian.

How did you put the menu together? Let’s talk about baba ghanoush. It’s known by everybody and really tasty. It’s mixed between grilled eggplant, tahini sauce and a bit of garlic. We put olive oil on the top. It’s something really amazing. And the cheese pie or the meat pie, this is absolutely traditional. Back home we call it sambousek. It comes from our small city, Deir El-Zor. It’s like tabbouleh. When we have something special like a birthday, we have to have tabbouleh.

One of the dishes on your menu that I’d never had and just love is the muhammara. This is mixed between pine nuts and walnuts. I mix it with red chile pepper, a little bit of olive oil, a touch of garlic, a touch of onion – and all these ingredients, when you mix it all together, it looks like hummus.

And you have to tell me about the rosewater tea you serve. Actually, this is not tea. It’s a mix of flowers, rosewater, and I mix it with fresh mint and lemon. It tastes fresh. It feels like you are in a spring.

And it’s like perfume. To be honest, I was thinking I [could] take a shower with this.

I love Middle Eastern food; it’s so fresh with varying textures and nuanced flavors. Everything is fresh. If you look on our menu, there’s a lot of vegetarian stuff. I have meat as an entrée, but our meat, it’s not fatty. And there’s a difference in how we eat in Syria. Here, the lunch is not important. In our country, we have to sit all at home at lunch, like 2 o’clock. We have a lighter dinner, lighter breakfast.

So what would a typical lunch be? That’s what we’re planning to do with our specials. Every day we’re going to have the dish of the day and that’s going to be absolutely Middle Eastern. It’s like, my mom, what she’s cooking every day at home, I’m gonna cook it here. It’s not known by Western people. … Now I have the opportunity to say to people, “This is our food.” I’m gonna call my mom and ask, “What are you cooking today?” and do it here.

When you were growing up, did you cook with your mom? When I was 14 years old in Damascus, I went to the culinary school for two years. I’d get the recipe that we tried at the school and I’d go home and start doing it myself. My mom helped me a lot. … I finished my studies, I got my diploma from back home in hotel management and moved to England to improve my language. My dream was to be a general manager for a big hotel, a five-star hotel. This was my dream. But I couldn’t get it because my English was really bad. I couldn’t even say “hello” to you.

Well, that’s changed. After I was in love with a half-American, half-Syrian woman – she couldn’t speak Arabic, so the only way to speak with this woman is English!

Has she helped out at the restaurant? Actually, she is doing for us the dessert. The knafeh and the baklava.

Your baklava doesn’t have as much phyllo as others – it’s dense with walnuts. And what we do, at the top we put a bit of pistachio. And the knafeh is a mixture between cheesecake and baklava together – shredded phyllo on top and then our syrup. But if you taste it, it’s not really sweet. If you try to eat a piece, you want another piece.

And when you say that at Ranoush you give people a “Syrian experience,” what does that mean? Syria is like the heart of the Middle East. So you’re going to find here everything in the Middle East. When I was saying about our specials, … one day I’m going to do something special for Saudi people, for Gulf people. One day I’m gonna do specials for Algerian people. Moroccan people. It’s like The Loop. “The heart of St. Louis,” we can call it. You can find everything in The Loop. Syria is the same. That’s what I want to do here.

Ranoush
6501 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis
314.726.6874

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Did you just happen into making sushi or was it a deliberate choice? I always wanted to get behind a sushi bar. This was about a year after culinary school, so I worked the line for five, six years, was a sous chef in Vail and always wanted to get my foot in the door if it was possible. The Japanese chef’s name was Ted Minami. He taught me how to make rice; … that was my main function. After about two months, he let me start making rolls. I wasn’t allowed to cut it. … If there were one or two extra grains of rice, he’d pick it off and … flick it at me. It was hard to handle. I kept my mouth shut and just did what I was told.

Why do you have to be trained to make rice? That’s the building block to sushi. There is a lot of continuity as far as how to make shari-su. “Shari” is rice; “su” is vinegar. One, it flavors the rice, and two, it adds a nice sheen. The biggest component is rice vinegar – … it’s a seasoned, aged, better-quality vinegar. Added to that is a lot of sugar, almost half the volume of the rice vinegar is sugar. There’s a little bit of salt, a little bit of mirin and then kombu, which is a dried seaweed. There’s a big wood bowl that you use to cut the rice, … [which] slowly incorporates the vinegar and breaks up the rice into individual grains.

When you go to a sushi bar, what do you order that will indicate the level of overall quality? Definitely the tuna. The Japanese say there’s two things you always look for: tuna and tamago. Tamago is a Japanese egg omelet. There’s a special copper pan that’s square that you only use to make tamago. Every chef has their own recipe. It starts off as a paper-thin sheet and then you fold it and pour more egg and fold it and fold it and fold it so when you cut it, you can see all the layers. There’s sugar, there’s sake, there’s mirin, soy, a little dashi. That’s something that took years to perfect because you have one bad flip, and it’s done.

Go over sushi etiquette with me. What people don’t know is that sushi is a finger food. Hashi, which are chopsticks, are more for transferring. If you have a communal plate, pick a few pieces [with your chopsticks] but use your hands [to eat them]. And the dipping in soy, you always want to dip the fish side down, and the fish should hit your tongue first as opposed to the rice. With sushi rice, once any liquid comes in contact with it, it just kind of falls apart. When you make a rice ball for nigiri, you want to have a small air pocket so it’s nice and delicate.

Talk about the Japanese approach to sushi versus the American approach. The American approach is heavy-handed – more is better as opposed to less is more. I’m definitely a less-is-more type of person. … When I lived in San Francisco, the owner of the restaurant was Japanese. He’d have friends that would fly in from Japan and they’d come straight to the restaurant and he’d put ’em in front of me, the only non-Japanese guy, and all they wanted to eat were rolls because you can’t get that in Japan.

You’ve revamped Miso’s menu, adding a section of rolls that are modern and creative. The Papasan roll was inspired when I was at Tokyo Go Go [in San Francisco]. The chef said, “Listen, we have a lot of striped bass and I need you to figure out how to get rid of it all.” We’re in the Mission District, so I figured I’d add a bit of a Latin influence. I took snow crab mix, spiced it up a little bit, did a chiffonade of shiso leaf, sliced the suzuki (striped bass) paper thin, draped that over the top with jalapeño. We’d put it on a sizzle plate and put it in the salamander to caramelize everything. … Two weeks later, it was on the menu. … It’s definitely a high-maintenance roll, and people probably curse my name … in San Francisco every time they have to make it.

What about in Miami, what influences did you pick up there? We have the Tropical. It’s tempura shrimp and mango and cucumber, and it’s coated with toasted coconut. A Floribbean roll.

And you cure some fish in-house? This is saba. I get a whole mackerel from Norway, fillet it, cure it.

You could get this fully cured, Cryovaced, done. Yeah. [But] it’s just one of those things that I enjoy doing – an old-school Japanese method. First, you take the fillet, and then you salt it for about 45 minutes. The salt extracts a lot of the moisture out of the fish and makes the flavor less strong. From there we [soak] it in a vinegar solution for another 45 minutes. That kind of tightens it up and pickles it, almost like a pickled herring. But [it’s] a really light cure, so it doesn’t cure it all the way through. Saba is an oily fish. I wouldn’t recommend it to a novice. It’s more in the advanced category.

Making good sushi seems simple, but it’s quite complicated. When I first started, I didn’t know what I was doing and it was constantly in my ear, “less rice, less rice.” It’s all about training your hands. It’s not like cutting 7-ounce fillets all day long or butchering a salmon. A lot of these fish are really delicate. You have flat fish, you have round fish, and there’s different techniques. I feel really lucky that I was trained under Japanese chefs that wanted to pass along their trade to a round-eye.

Miso on Meramec
16 N. Meramec Ave., Clayton
314.863.7888

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You’re doing creative stuff, not just re-creating what most other chocolate shops carry, like your take on the chocolate-covered strawberry. Everybody makes a chocolate-covered strawberry. I wanted to do something different. So I started with [strawberry] pâtes de fruits, fruit gels that we make with different flavors. I put that in a frame, and when that’s set … I just spread ganache on top and let that set. Then I cut that into cubes and then I dip it in a semisweet chocolate.

What have you added to the truffle lineup? Quite a bit. We want to do things that are really interesting, that are challenging in some ways. One of the truffles is a smoked-tea truffle with lapsang souchong. It has just a little bit of smoked salt on top. I have to use just a tiny, tiny amount of salt because the salt is really strong. The flavor of the tea is just accomplished by steeping the lapsang souchong in cream while it’s heating up.

You are so focused on quality – in your ingredients and also in your methods. Everything is handmade. With all the equipment you see here, you don’t see an enrober. You don’t see those Lucille Ball machines where it’s coming through and dumping it in chocolate. Each of the pieces is made individually by hand.

So is it just you here at the shop? I have a couple other people that work with me. Teresa Lo, I taught her how to make marshmallows for the marshmallow pies – those have taken on a life of their own; people are mad about those. But she wanted to make a regular marshmallow that you could put in hot chocolate or roast over a fire. So she made one. We liked it; we thought it was good. So, we thought, “What else can we do with this?” and she came up with the idea of [putting] fruit in it. She started putting fruit purée in the marshmallow and again, it just took on a life of its own. It was just this whacky idea and people loved it. Those ideas come from all over the place.

What are some other sources of inspiration? The Earl Grey tea [truffle] was something that I had in my mind that I wanted to do, but when a bride came in and wanted to order truffles for a wedding, … she saw the chai tea and asked if I made other tea truffles. And I said I was thinking of making an Earl Grey and she said, “That’s what I want.” I worked with a woman who sells tea here in the city and we tasted three different kinds of Earl Grey to find the one that we thought would work best.

It’s a subtle flavor, but not too subtle. It’s very well-balanced. How many tries does it take you until you hit the right recipe? I mean, steep tea too long and it gets bitter, too short a time and you can hardly taste it. It all depends on what kind of flavor I want to get out of it. The lapsang souchong doesn’t take much at all. We do a lavender truffle; it’s a much milder flavor that goes better with milk chocolate. That steeps for a long time because you want to get as much flavor out of those lavender buds as you can.

What other factors go into creating the exact flavor you’re looking for? There’s a lot that goes into figuring out how is this going to work. What percentage chocolate are we going to dip it in? Is it going to be a semisweet? Bittersweet? What is the flavor inside going to work best with? The chile truffle [needs] a strong bittersweet chocolate.

What types of chocolate do you use? All told I’ve got nine different percentages, not counting the white chocolate. I use four different [brands] of chocolate. Two of them come from California, one comes from Switzerland and another one comes from Columbia, Mo. – and that’s Alan McClure’s Patric Chocolate.

When choosing the base chocolates that you use, what are you looking for? One of the chocolates that I have is what I would consider a neutral chocolate. When I taste it, it tastes like chocolate. A really good chocolate, like Alan McClure’s chocolate, when you taste that, there’s citrus and a tang and smoke and nuts and coffee and all kinds of interesting flavors. But sometimes you don’t want to have really interesting flavors. With the lavender, for instance, you want to taste the lavender. You don’t want the lavender to be competing with smokiness. So it’s finding the right combination.

You use salt on a lot of your chocolates, including your wonderful caramels. Some people don’t get it, they’re not sure about it. Well, a lot of people like chocolate-covered pretzels or chocolate-covered potato chips. It’s because of the salt. In the caramels, you get that little bit of salt that opens up your taste buds to get all that caramel taste with the chocolate.

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