Loren Michelle has been in business with her catering company, Naturally Delicious, for 21 years. She’s had a garden from the get-go, but it wasn’t always accessible. “We had to do a little construction to get our clients to enjoy the garden, being that this is a brownstone in an urban space. The garden was underutilized when we started our company. We were passionate about bringing our clients into an environment where they can enjoy being outside and seeing where our food comes from.”
The 2,5000-square-foot garden and Private Dining Room can accommodate 50 people cocktail-style and 18 seated at a farm table; it is complete with ambient lighting. “The way the garden is situated [guests] have a vista of the entire garden. It’s very open and in the background is the F train, so it’s really an essential New York City urban space.”
FOLLOWING THE SEASONS
“Fall is my favorite season coming into August, September because we’ve got everything from heirloom tomatoes, corn, peppers, cucumbers, butternut squash … all the different kabocha, Hubbard squashes, mushrooms are really nice then, too. In the winter we’re dealing with a lot of typical things like rutabaga, celery root, Brussels sprouts, parsnips, more of the root veggies, cranberries. … In the spring we’re doing spring radishes, pea shoots, asparagus; in the summer we’re getting more into, all the berries are in. We’re just really following the seasons. We really focus on not emphasizing the asparagus and the pea shoots and all the spring vegetables until they’re really in season. [Farm-to table] is the undercurrent on every single menu that we do because we want to keep it as seasonal as possible.”
“Fall is my favorite season coming into August, September because we’ve got everything from heirloom tomatoes, corn, peppers, cucumbers, butternut squash … all the different kabocha, Hubbard squashes, mushrooms are really nice then, too. In the winter we’re dealing with a lot of typical things like rutabaga, celery root, Brussels sprouts, parsnips, more of the root veggies, cranberries. … In the spring we’re doing spring radishes, pea shoots, asparagus; in the summer we’re getting more into, all the berries are in. We’re just really following the seasons. We really focus on not emphasizing the asparagus and the pea shoots and all the spring vegetables until they’re really in season. [Farm-to table] is the undercurrent on every single menu that we do because we want to keep it as seasonal as possible.”
PARTNERS & PURVEYORS
“We have a lot of strong relationships with partners, purveyors … we’re getting microgreens throughout the year, we’re getting carrots, yellow beets, red beets. Our partners are also seasonal, we’re trying to not buy food from Australia if we can avoid it. We’re getting oysters that are seasonal. We like to stay local with Long Island oysters, Montauk oysters are great in the fall. Our fish is likely to be dayboat fish from our purveyors— that’s caught locally.”
EVERYTHING MINI
“Like the mini margaritas, tacos and Arnold Palmers with mac ‘n’ cheese fritters or hush puppies or something like that. Or a mojito with mini Cubans. People just want to see it. It’s cute, it’s fun. We just did mini paellas in a little cast-iron pan … you can serve that with pitchers of sangria, or little sips of sangria.”
DESSERT
“I think the cupcake is not on-trend anymore. Waffles are a thing, gluten-free, dairy-free, and I think you’re going to see that with all sorts of desserts. We do a lot of gluten-free and vegan desserts [like glutenfree orange blossom truffles.]”
MINIMIZING WASTE
“We’re limiting as much waste as possible. All of our paper goods that we use for disposables are recycled. It’s a big deal to be zero waste. It takes a lot work. My goal in the future is to collaborate with my restaurant neighbors and get one of those macerator/composters that basically churns up your food in 24 hours. My goal would be to have one central composter on my block.”
