Jose Garces Buys a Farm
Just when you think you have all of Jose Garces’s upcoming restaurants on your radar — JG Domestic Fine Food & Spirits, a ‘farm-to-table’ spot in the Cira Centre (opening in September), a roving taco truck, (also appearing in September) and a beer and brats concept at 208 South 13th Street (late October/November) — he drops a farm into the mix. Garces tells the Restaurant Club he’s just purchased a property in Ottsville, Bucks County, just north of Doylestown. Does this mean the chef is pulling up stakes and retiring from city life?
Not exactly. Garces says the farm is a recreational place for him at the moment; a place for he and his family (and perhaps some of his hard-working employees) to relax and get away … but, the Iron Chef never sleeps! Eventually, he plans to grow produce on the property to serve at his restaurants, thereby really putting the farm in the farm-to-table concept.
“I’m really looking forward to doing all of that next year,” he told the Restaurant Club, “We’ll probably build greenhouses. We may do a smokehouse as well. It’s really endless what can be done out there.”
The property also has a barn, which Garces says may become a private dining room where guests can visit for seasonal farm-fresh dinners. He’s still brainstorming ideas at the moment — the farm is his project for 2011, as he already has plenty going on already for 2010. For now, Garces says he’s using it as a getaway — and a place to turn off. “I was there in a field for 15 minutes,” he told us, “Just standing around and enjoying the silence.”
We’ll have even more details on Garces’s upcoming projects in the August issue of the magazine, so stay tuned!
*Photo by Zoey Sless-Kitain
