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Erato in Edwardsville gives its chef plenty of room to play with his food
• by By Catherine Neville • Photo by Josh Monken
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When the owner of Erato, certified sommelier Tim Foley, decided to expand his Edwardsville wine shop to include a restaurant, he reached out to executive chef Kevin Mark Willmann, whose culinary career includes stints at Mosaic and Lucas Park Grille. The new Erato debuted last November in a new location, with an expanded inventory and a dinner menu; it added lunch the first of the year. Willmann’s creations have gained an increasing foodie following ever since.
How did you develop the new menu to transition from wine bar to restaurant?
We wanted to do small plates and tasting menus where people could experience wine and pair it with an awesome bite of food. There was a big demand for us to do a high-end dinner as well. So it made sense that we would do fine dining in the back and a more casual, tapas kind of feel everywhere else.
What items are you excited about?
On the more accessible end of the spectrum, we do a fresh mozzarella bruschetta, which is just a nice bite to go with the great red wines that we have. And then, on the other end of the spectrum, composed salads. We ran a lobster and purple potato salad with a truffle-mustard vinaigrette and candied balsamic cubes made with agar-agar [a red algae-based thickener common in Asian and Indian cuisines]. So we push the envelope on some levels, and then on the flip side we keep accessibility in some of those small plates.
So you’re able to be creative.
It’s a chef’s dream to have 40 seats and the ability to touch every plate. If something’s not right, it doesn’t go out.
What can people look forward to on your menu this month?
As spring hits, our farmers are kicking up. Fiddlehead ferns, morels and asparagus … things really pop up quick in the spring. It’s exciting for [farmers] to be calling me, [saying,] “Hey, we’ve got seeds in the ground.” Spring will bring back our full array of local produce.
Why do you to take a sustainable approach?
I was actually born here. So there’s a lot of …
people that would be disappointed in me if I didn’t use their stuff. And it’s that good anyway. These are things that were instilled in my childhood and burned in my brain.
I will never forget the summer sausage from Korte in Highland. [My grandmother] was a part of that family, so from 5 years old, there’re pictures of us with these logs of summer sausage. They still make it the same way and it’s so good. It’s not a political thing, I just enjoy having relationships with people around me.
Talk to me about the chef dinners you’re offering for eight to 10 people.
They have seven to 10 courses – it will depend on the day. We might have 13 smaller
courses – it just depends on what’s available. Very small tasting portions, very composed. You won’t see the pile of mashed potatoes and the big chunk of meat. These are going to be beautiful to see and experience, not just to eat. Bring your camera.
And all of it paired with wine, of course.
Absolutely, and that’s the great thing. Tim and I have done a couple wine dinners where we’ve mixed up the traditional – maybe I’ve hit ’em harder in the beginning with a heavier dish. We challenge the static style that everyone is so used to of building from a salad to fish.
What else should I know about what you’re doing?
We are building a canning kitchen in Greenville. We’re going to use all of the excess that we can obtain this year, buy in bigger quantity and can and process our own product. The goal would be to have some that we could sell, too, USDA inspected and approved and all that stuff. Our goal is to sustain ourselves year-round.
That will be a challenge.
It is a challenge. I remember my grandma going down to the cupboard to grab a thing of corn or other things that she made. It could be the coldest January day but she would pull out her strawberry preserves on a piece of bread with some butter from the local dairy.
That’s an experience that you can’t get away from. It would almost be a tragedy for me to not take advantage of it and give that back to our customers.
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