For a place that has not even officially opened yet, The Greenhouse Tavern on East 4th is generating a huge buzz among the foodie crowd here in Cleveland. Let me add to the buzz here.
Congratulations are first in order: the Greenhouse Tavern is now officially the first Ohio restaurant to be certified "green" by the Green Restaurant Association. From the solar powered bathroom faucets to the reclaimed barn wood Chef Sawyer found on the side of the road, the GHT is all about reducing, reusing and recycling from top to bottom.
But the restaurant itself could not feel fresher. You don't feel like you are anywhere else you have ever been and yet you immediately wish more places felt like this one. This is due to the passion and vision of Chef Sawyer and Chef's Widow Amelia and their dedicated, energetic staff. Mrs. Epicure and I were present for a Friends and Family dinner as well as an industry/Facebook party this past week, and every person I encountered who was working there seemed just as energized and happy as the patrons. That does not happen very often.
To me, Chef Sawyer has the ability to rally the team much like a great coach can do in sports. His leadership and belief in his vision and mission follows him no matter where his determined steps take him. He seems to be quite gifted at surrounding himself with people who thrive on his drive to create authentic tastes, authentic settings, authentic experiences.
More than anything else, though, Chef Sawyer is a man of the earth--he respects what the planet gives him and celebrates those gifts in simple, striking ways. How else to explain a small dish of French radishes with butter and salt that just screams spring and gardens and sunshine? Or a tray of oysters with chunks of sea salt, yolk-yellow lemon, and horseradish vodka that you want not to finish so that on a really hot day this summer you can enjoy the cold, clean perfume of the sea as it passes over your lips? Or a bed of beef tartare with a cone-shaped poached egg nestled in it like a gem on a pad of velvet that tastes somehow even better than it looks on the plate?
(That tartare, by the way, was recommended to me by our server who just a couple of weeks prior was still a vegetarian. I mean, when a just-converted vegetarian recommends a raw meat dish to you, you had damn well better try it.)
The opening of the Greenhouse Tavern is set for Tuesday the 14th, the day after Mrs. Epicure's birthday. For people who moved here for the food, and who have fallen in love with the city because of its people, getting to dine at the Greenhouse Tavern is a gift that combines those passions in a way something in a wrapped box never could do.
We couldn't agree more, having been able to see the space come from the raw to the beautifully renovated and repurposed place that it is now. I never doubted that Jon and Amelia and everyone else involved could deliver. Now I just hope that sometimes we will be able to get in the new hot spot. And Happy Birthday in advance to your lovely wife.
Posted by: Steve | April 11, 2009 at 11:23 AM