Chef Rich Strub spent two years preparing his rustic yet modern restaurant, Eden, nestled in Hanover Square. The process involved ripping out the floors — in Syracuse’s first steel building, established in 1898 — and constructing an eight-ton fireplace. Strub also built nearly every piece of furniture.

The restaurant officially opened its doors on Aug. 14 and has set out to provide fresh, locally sourced food to customers, Strub said. So far, he’s surmounted his goal by ensuring that 86% of the food is locally sourced, he said.

“A lot of our produce comes from Grey Barn Farm in Tully. The farmer there is a real good friend,” Strub said.

He visited the farm this spring to talk about the different kinds of crops that were expected to grow, Strub said, and even assisted in the seeding process.

Eden serves food like violet Beauregard peas from the farm, a type of pea that keeps its color even after it’s cooked, Strub said. It’s also expecting tetra squash and honeynut squash, which Strub said he’s looking forward to putting on the menu.

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The menu reflects what the restaurant offers and what’s in season, Strub said. The cooks collect food from the farmers market each Saturday or local farmers drop it off at the restaurant. Because of the change in inventory, Strub said the menu changes daily. Every day, the staff prints out new menus and labels them with a library stamp, he said.

Eden’s building owners, Eve De Rosa and Adam Anderson, who are both professors at Cornell University, agreed that the farm-to-table food arrangement is special.

“A lot of times in Syracuse, the food just goes down to New York City,” De Rosa said. “It’s really nice to have the farmers come here as their first stop.”

To keep with the theme of the restaurant, each dish is cooked in a wood fire. In addition to being a conversation starter, it allows for preparation methods that aren’t usually used in normal kitchens, Strub said. For example, there’s one method they use where they cook food in the ashes of the fire.

Strub said once the fire burns out, they slow roast veggies in the remaining white ash allowing for the vegetables to become tender. They also coal roast vegetables like sweet potatoes and carrots, he added. In this process, the outside of the vegetables are burnt and later the charred layer is peeled to reveal a flavorful product on the inside.

“Our methods are very simple in the kitchen,” he said. “We let the flavors speak for themselves.”

In addition to locally sourced vegetables, other items served at Eden include house-made sausage, chicken roasted in a cast iron skillet and goat cheese tortellini.

Creating a unique restaurant experience where customers can try foods home to central New York was the goal for the three business partners, who all worked together to make Eden happen.

“When we bought the building, it was with a mission to support an artist that would add something to Syracuse,” said Anderson, in an email. “We wanted to invest in the community, and Rich has made that possible, including the amazing staff we have around him.”

 

Published on September 10, 2019 at 11:07 pm