We can’t help but smile when asked how it feels to have received a Michelin star. Especially as it’s a question that, after an incredulous pause, usually ends …."and after 17 years!”
The simple answer is unequivocal: to be acknowledged in this way following the year our industry has suffered through is simply terrific. It’s a major, career-affirming event for our executive chef Jordan Rosas and pastry chef Neidy Venegas, both of whom moved to our small town from one of the biggest and diverse cities in the world only to confront raging forest fires and vexing pandemic closures. Forced to re-envision their approach to cooking, they pivoted from To Go, to Provisions, to an innovative version of ‘Safe Distance Dining,’ strengthening and even expanding our farm partnerships. To receive a star is wonderful for them - as it is for all of our cooks, bartenders, servers, and dishwashers, who immediately felt the wind in their sails when they came to work. Pride is an amazing elixir.
If you’ve read this blog at all over the many years K2 and I have been putting it together, you know how we’ve filled those 17 years. Keeping the farm and the mantra ‘Eat the View’ relevant. Constantly upping our game when it comes to sustainability and rewarding labor. Gathering wine and spirit makers, artists and designers of all stripes and finding new ways to incorporate their work into the quarter-acre we occupy in the center of Healdsburg. For all the perfect nights in the gardens, the cocktails shaken, the farmers laden with boxes shouting hello at the kitchen door, not a day has gone by when we haven’t faced obstacles, some pretty damn challenging. Restaurants are first and foremost a performative art. What you learn must be practiced, over and over, then re-enacted with split second timing night after night, without losing that spark of initial inspiration that makes a dish memorable. Fire isn’t the only thing that flares up; knives aren’t the only things around with sharp edges. People whose private lives are filled with drama seem drawn to this profession. But you don’t get into this life - certainly don’t stay - if you can’ t stand the heat in the kitchen. Because when it’s showtime, you just have to bring it.
So yes, we’re proud of those 17 years. If nothing else we’ve been consistent in our passion to figure out - to do more than just survive - this exasperating, exhilarating, exhausting but ultimately life-affirming business. Being able to interact with people who make delicious things, sharing with them the desire to tell compelling food and wine stories - connecting them and their stories to our guests - this is what sustains and guides us. We want to thank Michelin for keeping us in their sights and welcoming us into their community.
Chef Neidy Venegas’ dish above: Quince/ Verbena/Grains of Paradise + Tahini Manjari Mousse. Chef Jordan Rosas’ dish above: White Bass/ Broccoli Chowder/ Manila Clams/ fennel/ broccoli stems
A few weeks ago I wrote about how we hoped to come out of Covid in a manner that might embrace ‘dining out’ as more of collaboration, a commitment of time with delicious intent shared by both diner and host. It’s also very much a collaboration between chef and farmer, chef and purveyor, and each member of staff working together, showing care for every element of service, and, crucially, for one another.
But the further we get into society opening up again the more I feel the truth that the social zone we are re-entering - for all its old sheep’s clothing - presents a new paradigm. We are all looking for purchase in this new world, relevant experiences that will resonate, not just for an afternoon or evening but as a thread running through our lives.
Reading Richard Powers’ new novel “Bewilderment” a few weeks back a line jumped out at me that I can’t get out of my head, “…if some small but critical mass of people recovers a sense of kinship, economics would become ecology. We’d want different things. We’d find our meaning out there.” Whether this is an achievable goal or not isn’t the point. We need to try. And there may be no better place than the communal dining room, especially those that take their cues from nature and its seasons. With so much of life in the 21st Century spent dipping into virtual realities, there is great solace to be found in the fact that there is - as yet - no virtual substitution to sitting down in a room full of strangers and taking food and drink into your body to be nourished, engaged, and looked after in the pleasurable way humans have craved for centuries. To quote the last line of an Erika Meitner poem, “gather is a transitive verb.” To have the ability to work at what it means ‘to gather’ so it exalts this time, in this place, rewarding human endeavor, living our lives doing what we love, has been an honor and a privilege.
To celebrate the year ahead, upholding traditions we think have always made Barndiva unique, we’re hosting special exhibits, parties, and collaborative events that speak to our interests, and, we hope, yours. The Pink Party, Fête Blanc, and Fête Rouge are back. Collaborations with other chefs who Eat the View. A ‘throw out the playbook’ series of parties, starting with New Year’s Eve. But first up a mixed media evening that combines the talents of three rising stars in the ceramic world with the work of Barndiva’s brilliant floral farmer. Up from the Earth is one from the heart for us. It elementally connects everything we do in Philo to everything we do here in Healdsburg.
Stay tuned and keep your calendars fluid. From Chefs Jordan and Neidy, and the entire Family at the Barn, we hope to see you soon!
Up from the Earth will take place November 12, from 4-8. It is for one night only. Barndiva’s Nick Gueli will be joined by Grace Khalsa, Ian Hazard-Bill and Miles McCreary from the Mendocino Arts Center to display work specifically made for the show that combines their Anagama wood-fired kiln vases and food safe vessels with florals Nick has grown and dried at the farm. Thanks to the wonderful Lulu Handley, we will be pouring wines from Handley Cellars, and the Gallery Bar with Isabel at the helm will be open for the first time since, well, you know.
Please note: all the work will be for sale, and range in size and price, with all proceeds going to the artists. Join us to celebrate these talented individuals.
