You might find crispy cod cakes with pork belly, Asian slaw and avocado puree a farmer’s salad featuring Ireland Farms lettuces, fresh berries and French feta and cornmeal-crusted fried whole okra served with an Alabama white barbecue sauce. The menus change seasonally and frequently within the season, depending upon what the farmers have fresh. Pan-seared duck breast comes with rice grits, pickled rhubarb and Vietnamese au poivre sauce. They add tahini to the roasted cauliflower there are Hungarian paprikash wings. Think grilled Duroc pork loin with miso sweet potato, dashi, braised collards and satsuma. They pair strozzapreti pasta with Gulf-fresh shrimp. One look at the menu reveals an inventive approach that mixes ingredients that are familiar with others that are perhaps not what you’d expect. “I’m like, ‘Whatever your garden makes … just bring that to me.’”) He gets eggs and grits from McEwen & Sons and coffee from Non-Fiction Coffee Co. They rely upon local makers and small-farm partners like Southern Organics and Alena Ingram (“She just grows a small garden and … she just brings stuff to me,” Boodram says.
There are fun small plates for grazing, along with freshly crafted cocktails and a long list of accessibly priced bottles and wines by the glass. He opened The Anvil at the beginning of the pandemic (two weeks before the shutdown) and has, even in these difficult couple of years, grown it into a successful, popular place.Īt The Anvil, Boodram and his chef de cuisine Trenton Tisdale cook globally inspired dishes for lunch, dinner and weekend brunch. He worked with Daniel Humm at Eleven Madison Park, too.Įventually, he and his husband and their adopted daughter, Delilah, moved to Birmingham where Boodram joined Chef Chris Hastings at The Hot and Hot Fish Club and OvenBird. After that, he worked in pastry (something he had not studied as much) with Chef Geoffrey Zakarian. Come in, and let’s do an interview.” And that led to a job at Per Se where Boodram refined the skills he had learned in school. When Boodram returned to New York, he called Keller and said, “Hey, I met you in Paris.” And Keller replied: “Yeah, I remember you. I loved your food, and I changed my path and my career because I wanted to do what you’re doing.’ And he said, ‘When you come back to New York, give me a call.’ And I said, ‘Okay, but I’m still in culinary school.’ And he said, ‘Yeah, don’t worry about it.’’’ Then there was this moment of serendipity: “I was in Paris,” Boodram says, “and I ran into Thomas Keller and I said, ‘Hey, just so you know, I went to your restaurant. So, he changed his life’s course and enrolled in The French Culinary Institute where he graduated as valedictorian. “I was like, ‘Oh my God!’ I fell in love with it.” And Boodram, who says he was a picky eater as a child, had an epiphany during the nine-course tasting menu. Shortly after 9/11, his husband took him to dinner at Per Se, Thomas Keller’s famous restaurant. He wanted a career in the fashion industry and was studying fashion merchandising at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. “It was something we just shared between us.”īoodram didn’t initially set out to be a chef. I’d get so excited.” That and fried chicken, which his mother made for the two of them whenever his father was traveling. “Every time my mom would make okra, I’d love it.
Growing up in Trinidad, they ate vegetables for breakfast, and okra has always been his favorite.
I want-even though it looks different and feels different-when they put it in their mouths and they close their eyes, it brings them back to that memory they have.” … Most people associate food with when they were growing up. I always want to bring it back to the memory. “There’s a memory that goes with food as well,” he says, “and I always have to remember that. “I think what I do best,” he says, “is showing food in a different light. You can read it here and see a cool video by my partner Brittany Faush.Ĭhef Boodram delights in making the familiar taste different-and new and exciting. I sat down with Sedesh for an Alabama NewsCenter story. At The Anvil, he serves a global menu that is flavored by his travels, crafted from his classical training and rooted in our own South. his first solo concept, The Anvil Pub & Grill in Hoover’s Village at Lee Branch, Boodram drew from both his life experiences and his love of family to create an upscale, modern English pub-a nod to his early years growing up in the former British colony, which held onto certain food traditions.
0 kommentar(er)
