Farm-Fresh Servings

Local restaurants showcasing ingredients and seasonal menu items sourced fresh from the farm.

“The reason they make pots that you cook with on the stove round is so you can always change direction when you’re cooking,” Chef Greg Kuzia-Carmel at Menlo Park’s Camper heard from a station mate while cooking in Spain. The idea typifies the way some Bay Area chefs are designing their menus—changing direction based upon seasonal rhythms of local farms.

And it’s not just that chefs are incorporating ingredients from area farms—many of those farms are being called out by name on quickly evolving menus. Names and places like Bellwether Farms, Cypress Grove cheeses and Glaum Egg Ranch are printed on menus. Porta Blu, Meso and Camper are three of these seasonally focused restaurants that showcase their devotion to locally sourced ingredients on their ever-changing menus.

While other parts of the country deal with ice and snow or searing heat, much of the California coastline, Santa Cruz Mountains and Salinas Valley don’t face such obstacles. “There’s just this amazing vitality from local farms that exists 12 months out of the year,” says Camper’s Chef Kuzia-Carmel. The restaurant’s relaxed vibe and rustic design of exposed beams, landscape pictures and outdoor curios is inspired by Mother Nature, and so is what’s on the menu. Culinary spontaneity dictated by what’s in season results in creations like an earthy charred eggplant dip and fresh homemade rigatoni.

Going “farm to menu” and focusing on gathering ingredients from local farms harks back to the dawn of humanity. It used to be the only option people had before the industrialization of food processing, storage and transportation. Ingredients from far away initially had an exotic appeal, but the once-exotic has become commonplace. Diners are accustomed to and may expect access to any kind of food year-round.

The return to farm-to-table mindset started in the U.S. in part with Berkeley’s Chez Panisse in 1971. The movement has continued to grow and spread throughout California, the country and the world. That continued focus on featuring the work of local farms has helped build the prominence of Bay Area restaurants. Menlo Park’s Porta Blu is all about coastal California flavors infused with worldwide influences, serving up dishes like chilled octopus and Niman Ranch lamb dip. “Much of the Peninsula and Silicon Valley has become a dining destination simply because of the way restaurants like us choose to showcase local ingredients,” explains Porta Blu’s Chef Marck Banagan. 

Cooking with Seasonality in Mind

It’s easier for chefs when they’re planning menus to use the same set of ingredients year-round. When using seasonally available ingredients, change is inevitable and that can be challenging. Meso, a new Santana Row restaurant in San Jose, serves modern Mediterranean dishes designed to bring people together—small plates to share or one dish for the entire table to dig into like their crispy and juicy full roasted Mary’s Free Range Chicken. Chef Gregory Short embraces and celebrates change as part of the job, “I’m a very seasonal chef. If it’s not available locally, I don’t use it.” Local farms and what they are growing add eloquence to Chef Short’s menus. “I want whatever the farmers and growers are producing nearby. I’m not going to pull something from out of the region just to have it on the menu.”

Being able to use high-quality local ingredients is a benefit for all involved, spurring an ongoing relationship between the restaurant and the farmers and ranchers. “Our relationships with Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Co., Glaum Egg Ranch and Pitman Family Farms ensure that our menus uphold the standard our guests expect to receive when dining,” says Chef Banagan. “We want to use the best products and pay homage to the farmers for the time and work they put into their craft.”

Because of the close relationships these restaurants have cultivated with farmers, they sometimes get a say into what’s planted. For instance, Camper Chef Kuzia-Carmel asked a local pepper farmer to grow a rare pepper for the restaurant. “If it succeeds, we’ll be one of the few restaurants on the West Coast with the vaunted ají dulce pepper.”