Grow Better Veggies

The Experience of Manresa - A Novice Reports

Cynthia's assistant, Christopher Donovan, ate at Manresa Restaurant for the first time last night. Here are his thoughts about the experience.

From the moment a patron enters Manresa s/he is 'held'—like the way a newborn baby is held. The analogy holds, because to enter Manresa is to enter a land where every detail has been designed with the goal of providing an exquisitely soothing atmosphere wherein to enjoy exquisitely crafted food. One enters, as it were, David Kinch-Land, and for every detail of refinement noticed, a hundred or more pass unnoticed, working even more subtly to support the various aspects of his art.

Like the meal itself, entering Manresa involves a series of subtle shifts. Utter absence of pretension describes the door, and you are greeted in a soothing hallway. Your coat is stowed for you in the highly functional wooden paneled cupboards. You enter the dining room proper — though you do not realize it except upon reflection — at the very middle of the room. So there is no awkward moment where the entire assemblage looks up with impatience at an outer door letting in a blast of cold air and a 'new' customer; by the time a patron enters the Manresa dining room, there can be no awkwardness, since her entry point is the very center of the restaurant.

The Chef's Grand Tasting Menu is the choice for those with the leisure to enjoy a selection of dishes Chef Kinch feels like conjuring up on any given night. We were graced with seven amuses – tiny, savory treats that are so tasty you literally cannot help but want more . . . much more! But then that is me wanting to 'super-size' everything. It is antithetical to the agenda, which is more akin to prolonging pleasure than drowning in it.

In considering how I could possibly do justice to the experience of any one dish, or (heaven forbid) the totality of dishes which delighted me, I realize I cannot. How does one describe sex in words? Arpege farm egg (soft boiled, with sherry vinegar, cream, maple syrup and chives). A sunset in braille? Blood orange sangria, with Cointreau and carrot. To the person who has had the experience, the words may evoke a memory, may seem accurate in their own way. But to one who has not eaten Manresa fare, no words can remotely describe the experience. We had, as I said, seven amuses. These were paired with appropriate wines. Then followed eight courses, and four exquisite desserts. Since I cannot describe it in words (and I decline to use the cliches), you simply must eat there.

Manresa is a temple to quality. Not the appearance of quality as described by external features, or quality as it is commonly understood—but quality as functionality: what tastes the best? What smells the best? What has the most life? I know this to be so because I help Cynthia grow the vegetables that supply the restaurant, and I appreciate the wisdom that underlies and overshadows biodynamics. The rest of it that I don't know or understand (which is most of it), I take on faith. Because I know the chef. In the garden, his favorite question is, "how does it taste?" His favorite statement: "Here—taste this!"

We live, for the most part, in a culture fascinated with veneer thin appearances, where quality may be entirely absent so long as a thing looks like the thing it is a simulacrum of. And yet quality has a power that is undeniable. We cannot gainsay it. Witness Manresa; you simply must eat there!

By Chef David Kinch: Into the Vegetable Garden...The evolution of a dish

The Chef wrote this post.  When I asked him about including a photo of the dish, he said, "People need to smell, taste, and feel it to really experience it.  Seeing a one-dimensional picture of it isn't the same."  I've had the pleasure of eating the dish.  I couldn't agree more.  Here are his words:

The relationship between Love Apple Farm and Manresa Restaurant is very special. Love Apple is not a show garden, nor does it exist for just PR purposes. It is not just a seasonal garden; it’s where the bulk of the restaurant produce is grown year round. It is a working farm, an integrated facet of the restaurant, just as important as anything or anyone else. Its role is unique; not many other restaurants have the opportunity to create an exclusive farm to table relationship that has such an impact on a menu.

From the very beginning, we wanted to create a dish that celebrated the garden, that showed the special nature of our relationship and how it constantly changes, not only with the ephemeral changes of the seasons, but with the thoughts and designs of the kitchen team.

It had to be a vegetable dish and the obvious choice was to create one in which the complexities come from the abundance of the produce itself.

There is a reference point for a dish like this. Michel Bras in Lagioule, France is one of the most influential chefs of the last century and into this century. Ingredient obsessive, and a forager of forgotten flavors, his food is unmistakably French. He nevertheless embraces, in fact, helped create, the modernist aesthetic we see developing around the world. He has a huge (and is perhaps the largest) influence on Ferran Adria and the other Spanish vanguardists who garner a lot of current press. Bras’ dish was simple; a “gargouillou” or a dish of vegetables (with a touch of ham). It contained herbs and vegetables, cultivated and foraged, raw and cooked, grains, flowers, etc. He wanted this melange to reflect the landscape and country that he was in. The dish changed as the seasons did, a perfect reflection of that seasonality. This dish has had enormous influence on a whole generation of chefs around the world, many who took the idea and built their own theme into it. Some, like Andoni Aduriz of Mugaritz, just outside of San Sebastian and one of the world’s brilliant talents, has placed his own stamp on what has now become a signature dish at his restaurant worthy of his name.

So how did we start? The only real rule for this dish was that if it had arrived from the garden, then it had to be on the plate.

We originally started with a dish called “Potato gnocchi and burrata cheese, vegetables from the garden." After awhile the gnocchi became a superfluous element, especially since Cynthia started harvesting fantastic varieties of potatoes.

So it became “Potatoes and vegetables from the garden, burrata cheese.”

But through the course of our first four full seasons we wanted to go even more. We did not want it to be a collection, but a plate as if we had held a mirror up to the garden and it showed an edible reflection. The ephemeral nature of what the unfolding seasons show us, the daily nuanced changes that only Cynthia and her team see must be present.

Over time we have learned how we can use different elements of a plant at different times of its life: roots, stems, seed, flowers, buds, leaves, shoots, etc. The possibilities are endless. This changed things dramatically. We began to view the dish more as a concept, a mirror, and not just as a plate of food. We wanted customers to step into the garden, to enter it in their taste and in their minds when they ate the dish, to feel as if they transported themselves to the garden of which we are so proud.

So we changed the name and called it “Vegetables from the garden, their vegetable juices.”

We then created an edible “dirt” based on roasted chicory root and dried potatoes, which not only played its visual role but a superbly flavorful one, contributing the slight bitter note that we had been searching for.

We changed the name one more time.  It became “Into the vegetable garden.” This concept of a sense of place on a plate, not just a reflection of the terroir, but for the dish to actually represent the location is a big step. There are some groundbreaking chefs who are taking these ideas to the next logical step of what we are just touching on. It is fascinating.

We have a lot of visitors to the farm and the restaurant, both customers and people in the industry. It is amazing the reaction that we get from them when they have the dish after a visit to Cynthia’s special place. It is interesting that almost all understand the idea, and some even take it with them.

This dish has now been on our menu for two years and the name never changes. But the dish does.

Everyday.

Like a day in the garden.