Chatham Bars Inn greenhouse dinners: World cuisine with farm produce

BREWSTER ― Chef Kevin Curtin and farm manager Josh Schiff are out on the Chatham Bars Inn Farm, crouching over to pick flowering fennel.

“Here, try this,” Schiff urges, handing us what looks like a piece of greenery from a floral arrangement but explodes in the mouth with a sweet, fresh burst of flavor.

Curtin is Chatham Bars Inn’s executive sous chef and has been overseeing greenhouse dinners here for three years.

The eight-acre farm that grows more than 140 varieties of vegetables and herbs is his grocery store.

“It all kind of starts back in January when Josh is buying seeds,” Curtin said. “Any cool new seed that hits the market, Josh is on top of it and we start figuring out ways to use it on the menu.”

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The farm’s produce feeds the kitchens at Chatham Bars Inn eight miles away, ending up as ingredients or edible garnishes on dishes at Stars, the Sacred Cod and other restaurants the inn runs.

In late summer and fall, Curtin uses those flavors to serve up Friday night dinners for 150 people out in the field or, when it gets colder, in a greenhouse. This week’s culinary destination is France, but you can taste the Cape Cod farm in nearly every bite.

“I travel all over the world for work and France is my favorite ― they know how to live,” Joe Ryan of Chatham said.

Ryan, who was at the dinner with his wife, Mary Ryan, said, “I was especially happy tonight because I didn’t know the menu until we came in.”

Seated next to Joe Ryan at the long communal table is Susan Savage, whose daughter, Katie, has brought her here for a birthday celebration.

The multi-course meal unfolds over two hours. The cost is $200 per person and the food is served family style, with each course perfectly timed.

The celebration of French cuisine starts with gougeres (cheese puffs), butter-dipped radishes each wearing a jaunty yellow cap of butter and a mug with duck consomme. Each course is paired with a wine, starting with a welcome cocktail of Negroni Sbagliato à la Française.

Tables are set with baskets of house-made breads, butter and sauces. But here is where the farm takes center stage: Bowls of vegetables nestled on eggplant hummus appear with colors so vibrant they might have been staged for a still life painting. There are purple carrots, and yellow, as well as more traditional orange.

Some weeks, there are cucamelons, a hybrid planting producing fruit that tastes like a sweet cucumber but looks exactly like a watermelon sized for a dollhouse.

There is a wagyu (beef) and tuna tartare with smoked onion soubise, chicories and puffed rice. Of note are the greens in this, called lacy tangerine and derived from an edible marigold plant.

“Edible flowers are a stretch for some, never mind eating the greens,” Curtin said, noting that a lot of creativity from a lot of people goes into using all the farm’s yield. “A few years ago, we made a Marigold Wit beer with the greens.”

While the appetizer is being plated at the front of the tent, Chatham Bars Inn executive pastry chef Brennan Froeschner is placing the first 100 of 600 plump white scallops being seared on a drum-sized flat grill. Yes, he’s the pastry chef.

“This is my happy place, here at the farm,” said Froeschner, helping out with a protein course because the 150 white chocolate profiteroles he made for dessert are all set until it’s time to serve.

Curtin said he and many of his contemporaries graduated culinary school (Culinary Institute of America Hyde Park Class of 2012 for Curtin) at the height of the farm-to-table movement. Both he and Froeschner keep home vegetable gardens as well as working at the farm.

While Froeschner grills scallops, Curtin places a tray of vegan “scallops” into the wood-fired pizza oven. They are disks cut from plump white Eastham turnips, which Curtin is searing to serve with greens. The sugars caramelize in the oven’s blazing heat as the vegan shellfish cooks.

The main course is Beach Plum Glazed Duck, with the slow-cooked legs over scallop potatoes with onions and the fennel we met earlier in the evening. Duck breast is served in separate platters, with lemony leeks. This explains the appetizer of consommé as the French, and the chefs here, try to "waste nothing."

As the meal draws to a close, with cream puffs and a wine pairing of Sauternes du bordeaux, the chefs are lined up waiting for the signal to pour hot French chocolate over the profiteroles. The signal comes when all plates are cleared and a cadre of servers whisks desserts to the tables. The service works like a well-oiled clock.

Guests are invited to take home the table bouquets that florists Sara Pells and Jena Smith have crafted with white hydrangea and pale pastel flowers grown on the farm.

“It’s France so the greenhouse will be lighter and more white to complement the French theme,” Pells said. “Last week was South America so we did more of a tropical feeling”

The diners have come dressed in everything from designer jeans to a gold sequin jacket that sparkles under the twinkling white lights laced over the soaring ceiling. Everyone is wearing a celebratory mood, laughing and calling out farewells.

Despite the rows of herbs growing in live trays (meaning chefs cut them directly onto plates just before serving,) it is hard to picture the greenhouse in the spring when more than 40 varieties of tomatoes grow, some as part of Chatham Bars Inn’s Farm working with Cornell University to develop a hearty, flavorful tomato that can grow in the Northeast's colder climes.

“We’re showcasing vegetables at these dinners that people would not normally encounter,” Curtin said.

Cooking with newer items, like etender eggplant that is served raw and Italian Ox Heart tomatoes that stay green on top when ripe, helps people be more receptive to buying those things at the farm stand and using them at home.

For a list of upcoming greenhouse dinners and the farm stand’s winter hours, visit chathambarsinn.com/.

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