If you’re an early bird to the Saturday City Market (a 7am-er), you’ve probably been indulging in a little treat that few of your late riser friends probably even know about—free samples of seasonal, locally-sourced dishes courtesy of chef and L’étoile restaurant owner Mark Gresge. That’s right. Free. This is the third year Gresge has set up his own stand at the market to give shoppers a taste of what’s possible with the local bounty plus a recipe for trying the dish at home. A couple of weeks ago, it was Dixie cups of chilled English pea soup that earned rave reviews; Gresge ran out of all five gallons he’d made by 10:30am. This past week he distributed greens from Roundabout Farm braised with bacon he’d cured and smoked himself served over Bird Mill Grits from Ashland.
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L’étoile’s Mark Gresge (seen here in the restaurant garden) has been preaching the local-food gospel for years, and now he’ll be doing it over the airwaves. |
Gresge admits there’s a bit of self-promotion in his freebies, but when he tells us he also just wants to share his knowledge “with people who wouldn’t know what to do with fresh spinach,” we believe he’s sincere. After all, Gresge has been showcasing local products at L’étoile for more than 10 years—that’s well before “Buy Local” became a popular bumper sticker. And even now, he doesn’t reference this or that farm on his menu as a way of touting his commitment to local and seasonal ingredients from the likes of Polyface and Planet Earth Diversified, because it’s just a given that he would use the freshest and best ingredients available. “Any good restaurant does that,” he says.
This year, Gresge is also co-hosting a radio program from his City Market stand with radio personality Joe Thomas of WCHV 1260 AM. If you see Gresge walking around with white chef coat and mic, let him and all the listeners out there know how much you love local strawberries and those Bagelini things.
Tavola to open; Ventana to expand
The latest word from Michael Keaveny is that Tavola, the restaurant he will open in the old Crush space in Belmont, will have a mid-June debut. The latest word from Michael Fitzgerald is that Ventana, his tiny “Modern Mexican” small plate and fancy drink pad in the alley on Fifth Street SE, will take over the space next door vacated by Migration: A Gallery earlier this year. With the assistance of architect Michael Stoneking, who owns the building, Fitzgerald plans to knock out the wall between the two spaces, expand the kitchen and create a full dining room and lounge. In addition to tripling the number of seats and gaining the capacity for full-scale dinners and private parties, Ventana is also getting street frontage on Water Street where Fitzgerald plans to create open air seating. Local chef Sebastian Jack will take over as executive chef when the newly expanded Ventana opens “by August 25,” says Fitzgerald.
The larger space will accommodate an expanded menu of small plates, salads, appetizers and entrées as well as a Thursday-Saturday fixed “degustation” menu. Fitzgerald says prices likely will be in the range of $8-12 for small plates and $15-25 for larger dishes, with a few feature items listed at $30-plus.
Fitzgerald tells us Ventana likely will close around mid-July while the contractors make two spaces into one. Though he admits this is an interesting time to be making such a major expansion, the availability of an adjacent space was something he just couldn’t pass up. “Would this opportunity come up in a good economy?” he asks.