The current lineup at this LoHi restaurant is filled with hits, from clams with green garlic to rabbit cannelloni to chicken with taboon, a Palestinian flatbread.
. She's talking about both the temperature outside and her recently released summer dinner menu, which she describes as"juicy and vibrant and hydrating," noting that it doesn't shy away from spice, either, with chiles front and center.
"One of the things I usually do is I make a list of ingredients, but I also do a mood board with words," Hampsten Fox says. For summer, those words, which often come out in poetic phrases, include terms like"bold,""sexy" and"steamy." Water is also a major summer inspiration, notes the chef, who grew up near the Jersey shore, now owns a house on the Baja peninsula, and has done a lot of traveling to coastal cities.
But the work doesn't end there. Once Hampsten Fox has"made the album, I have to come back and teach the violinist and the cellist," she says, gesturing toward her kitchen staff."I've got to get them to hear the music. It's a process. It's actually a very emotionally stressful time to flip the menu for the kitchen."
This season, one of those things is spices, which Hampsten Fox sources from Burlap and Barrel."Baharat, sweet and smoked paprika, urfa chile, silk chile — I'm just crazy about that stuff," she says.