Chef Josh Roland has joined the CWE’s Wild Flower and will launch a new menu there likely during the first week in April, co-owner Phil Czarnec just told us.
Roland previously developed the menu and cheffed at Jim Edmonds’ Fifteen. Lately, though, he’s been working on projects in Washington, D.C., that involved consulting more than cheffing, Czarnec said. With a chuckle, he added, “And now he’s getting his hands dirty again, so to speak, with the food. He’s extra excited with regard to that because it’s a lot more fun than sitting in front of the computer.”
Roland will emphasize a farm-to-table approach, said Czarnec, highlighting “the local farmers and the smaller butchers that give us the personal attention that we like to give to the guests.”
Roland’s influence will extend across lunch, dinner and brunch at Wild Flower, Czarnec said: “He’ll have touched everything in some way.”
Czarnec paused to reflect on specific dishes on Roland’s first menu. “There’s a beet salad that he’s doing,” he said, “which had the goat cheese and the raisins and the pistachios and the horseradish vinaigrette, three different types of beets … “
And among Roland’s entrées? “He did a spin on a carbonara that gave it that stickiness that people love about carbonara, that texture,” Czarnec noted, “but he did it with a cauliflower purée. And the pancetta was cut just right, where it’s crispy on the edges but it has just enough tenderness in the center, and then with a poached egg on top of that. That one really rang my bell.”
Finally Czarnec teased, “[Roland] and I are working on the next concept, another place. … That could be as early as two months and as late as four.”
This article appears in Mar 1-31, 2010.