I’ve by no means earlier than left a meal ruminating on a crouton. I’ve spent a whole bunch of hours over the course of my life analyzing the flakiness of a croissant, the chunk of bucatini boiled al dente and the tender flesh of a baguette. However croutons, to me, have at all times been secondary to the salad itself—a typically superfluous addition to the contents wandering a plate of produce. That’s, till I ate dinner at Lord’s.
Praised for vivifying the stale status of British fare, the one-room restaurant at 506 LaGuardia Place was already filled with patrons simply an hour previous its 5:30 p.m. opening on a latest Tuesday night. Tealight candles and gold pendants illuminated the dim brick and evergreen area warmed by picket flooring, cubicles, tables and chairs. The inside was an overture to the meal itself: a night in England. Like getting into the din of a nook pub, the sensation was just like the solar gracing Hampstead Heath on an overcast day: a break from the clouds, a darkish ale, a Scotch Egg.
London-born chef Ed Szymanski and Patricia Howard debuted Lord’s, their second ode to British eating, in fall 2022, following the 2020 opening of Dame (first as a fish ‘n’ chips pop-up for pandemic takeout after which as a full-service seafood restaurant in June 2021). Practically two years later, Lord’s is a well-oiled machine, with a full home Monday by way of Saturday.
Szymanski discovered the ropes of the restaurant business in kitchens with sizable meat choices on the menu. Raised by dad and mom who liked to prepare dinner, he renounced the “high-flying profession of asset administration” in 2012 to apprentice (with out pay) at London’s Pitt Cue for 3 cooks who every went on to earn a Michelin star. By 25, his aptitude for contemporary meat pies was not solely incomes him a paycheck, but additionally landed him an govt chef position at Cherry Level in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. (The restaurant closed in 2020.) When it was time to open Lord’s with Howard (his spouse and enterprise associate), Szymanski needed to convey extra than simply tasteful British meals to Manhattan.
“It began from a need to not waste something and to indicate the American viewers within the New York market scrumptious methods. I didn’t wish to be a type of eating places which might be French or Italian. I needed to supply one thing slightly totally different [as an] ethos for Lord’s,” the James Beard Finest Chef semifinalist advised Observer. “And it’s not like we’re mad scientists with a pig within the basement. It’s a seasonal restaurant that makes use of each a part of the animal, a number of recent greens and fish. It’s about placing life within the cooking and good soul within the restaurant—that’s the type of path that the restaurant’s on.”
Summer time inched in the direction of autumn by the point I dined on Lord’s ever-changing, meat-heavy menu, and I used to be not solely within the dishes, however within the end result of how they got here to be. Within the first week of September, the dinner menu contained 17 dishes complete (unlabeled starters, salads, mains and two sides). Eight of them featured pink meat and foul, and 7 seafood. The one solely vegetarian choice was a salad with romano beans, radishes and aged gouda, however greater than half of the plates contained recent herbs, peaches, tomatoes, cherries, leafy greens, eggplant, cabbage or collards. At the least within the hotter months when produce is offered, Lord’s isn’t as “meat-heavy” as it’s a restaurant with heavy meats.
Whereas Szymanski believes respect for seasonality, farmers, fishers and butchers to be a few of the greatest methods to positively affect the meals business, the farm-to-table concept isn’t new. It has turn out to be a preferred promoting level for cooks and restaurateurs to enchantment to clients, help native and reduce the carbon footprint from mass manufacturing and delivery. Plus, a radish harvested and served inside days possesses crisp, peppery notes that one emptied from a plastic bag after being schlepped cross-country merely can’t rival.
The farm-to-table ambiance has turn out to be acquainted—the ethereal bistro crammed with wildflower bouquets from the farmers’ market, tins of artisanal baguettes and a foraged mushroom “steak.” This isn’t Lord’s aesthetic. Szymanski units himself aside on the planet of sustainable, seasonal eating with one thing a bit extra hearty: nose-to-tail cooking. Coined by acclaimed British chef Fergus Henderson in his 2004 e-book, The Complete Beast: Nostril to Tail Consuming, the idea revisits the ancestral custom of utilizing each a part of the animal as a way to waste much less and devour extra vitamins. As soon as a elementary, usually sacred, precept of searching and gathering from Mongolia to Africa to North America, western eating has strayed removed from this philosophy. As of 2019, the U.S. has wasted roughly 40 p.c of its meals throughout households, retail and the service business. The U.Ok. confirmed round 12 p.c waste within the meals service business, however 70 p.c in households.
Whereas the United Nations regards extreme meat consumption, notably beef, lamb and shrimp, as a major contributor to greenhouse gasoline emissions, one might argue that in the event you’re going to serve meat, serve all of it. As a meat pie maven, residing by the nose-to-tail philosophy is a technique Szymanski limits waste in his kitchen. It’s the carnivore’s tackle sustainability.
On the identical time, the chef fastidiously selects merchandise from individuals, farms, companies and purveyors that develop and course of impactful components. He has frolicked creating relationships with suppliers to obtain artisanal merchandise that align with Lord’s ideas of utilizing extra, losing much less and selecting correctly. Some joined him and Howard as friends at their marriage ceremony in Could 2023.
He additionally works straight with farms that ship a complete animal for his kitchen to butcher in-house, selfmade sausages and pork stomach, all of which require a fantastic high quality salt to return into play.
Salt, a pure mineral from evaporated ocean and typically lake
“Salt is the unique preservative. You’d butcher a pig on the finish of summer time and eat the components higher consumed recent over the following weeks, after which protect [the rest] for winter when there have been no greens. Alongside the way in which, individuals found out these items tasted higher; issues like prosciutto. Prosciutto is actually nose-to-tail, and salt is a key element in that course of. I can’t take credit score, however I’m comfortable to be a beneficiary of [those] discoveries,” Szymanski advised Observer.
Sustaining a trusted community of suppliers was how Szymanski grew to become one of many first U.S. restaurateurs to make use of Cornish Salt (along with Maldon, one other small-batch, extensively distributed English salt). Based by an archaeologist and run by a conservationist and engineer, the salt has a pronounced taste that comes from the distinctive geology of the cliffs on Cornwall’s southernmost coast. Cornish Salt additionally goals to reduce environmental affect by merging conventional salt-making with modern extraction strategies—sustaining the equilibrium of the ocean’s salinity ranges. Its salt home runs on renewable vitality.
Whereas Cornish Salt’s story aligns along with his philosophy, Szymanski didn’t select it solely for that cause.
“I let the proof be within the pudding and at all times style the product. I be certain that I style [the brand’s story] within the taste. I don’t wish to promote our friends tales; I wish to promote them deliciousness,” Szymanski mentioned.
Whereas salt’s supply and harvest strategies could also be extra usually neglected to the layman than, say, a bursting heirloom tomato picked throughout peak season, it’s—to a fantastic chef— simply as important, and much more versatile.
“Salt brings out the intrinsic taste in all meals. We use salt to garnish every part. It’s within the ice lotions, the crumbles and desserts. It makes meals style extra like itself. We use positive salt to dissolve and crunchy flakes and crystals to offer garnish and chunk,” Szymanski mentioned.
The chef makes use of Cornish Salt’s common and smoked flakes and crystals wherever they’re greatest suited. In late summer time, the menu is pushed by vibrant produce, along with the rotating meat pie; this one contained floor duck with chanterelles and a cherry jus. The uncooked scallops with nectarine and marigold had been vigorous and delicate, with an sudden depth from the crushed smoked salt. The croutons—the texture and taste of which nonetheless linger within the caverns of my bread-loving soul—weren’t an afterthought however a elementary element in an heirloom tomato salad. They had been paired with unbroken basil leaves and cured eel from a small farm in Maine, one other testomony to Szymanski’s diligent sourcing practices.
And the Oysters Kilpatrick (ordered individually at $5 per oyster) had been a nod to the English seascape herself. On a mattress of stones like dusky bluffs, the brine and salt balanced with guanciale and a jammy mignonette of shallot, brown butter, Worcestershire and malt vinegar. Properly, possibly not solely the embodiment of a day on the seashore, however a minimum of the way in which Szymanski would think about it.
