Spring is an especially happy season for restaurateurs in northern climates who are dedicated to buying locally produced ingredients. Dean Zanella, executive chef of 312 Chicago, owned by Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group, is one of a large group of Chicago-area chefs who find it possible to buy a large percentage of ingredients from regional small farmers during the growing season.
“I could not have done this five years ago,” he said.
At this time of year, 312 Chicago serves at least three or four menu items daily made from local ingredients. Recent examples include a goat milk ricotta and nettle gnocchi with spring onions on an heirloom tomato sauce, spit-roasted pork with fingerling potatoes, rapini and ramp salsa verde, and a dessert of barley shortcake with strawberries, rhubarb jam, strawberry-honey sorbet and honeycomb.
The cost of local foods is often not cheaper than those supplied from distant warm-weather growing regions, Zanella said, but the better taste of fresh-from-the-farm foods is worth the expense.
Sarah Stegner, co-chef and co-owner of Prairie Grass Café with partner George Bumbaris in suburban Northbrook, Ill., shares Zanella’s locavore philosophy.
“I know the farmers, and I know what to expect from the product,” she said.
Both agree it’s more important for products to be local and grown sustainably than to be certified organic, which many are not.
“To get organic certification can be unrealistic for small farmers,” Zanella said, pointing to an unwieldy and time-consuming certification process.
These chefs and many others are patient enough to wait until the season’s crop of desirable produce, like asparagus and strawberries, is ready, rather than buy those ingredients from nonlocal sources.
“I don’t have to be the first one to have strawberries,” Zanella said.
This year, because of a cold and rainy early spring, local strawberries came in about a month later than last year, presenting one of the challenges of buying locally. Other challenges can be crop failures or shortages and delivery problems.
“Sometimes the farmer’s truck breaks down, and he can’t deliver,” Zanella said, adding that one supplier suddenly stopped chicken production once. “That happens when you deal with small-time operators.”
Another annoyance is some farmers’ insistence on getting paid at the time they make the delivery, Stegner noted. Others won’t deliver to her suburban restaurant if they can’t make at least one delivery nearby.
Do customers appreciate the trouble these chefs go through to get truly farm-fresh products? Some do and some don’t, Zanella said.
Still, Stegner and her peers say the benefits of buying locally far outweigh the challenges. “I like to think that what my customers taste will make enough of a difference that they will come back,” she said.