Plum Restaurant Oakland

We’ve been meaning to check out Plum for a while.  Having visited Daniel Patterson’s Coi on a couple of occasions and Il Cane Rosso for lunch several times, we were fans, but Plum remained distant, literally and figuratively.  We are ridiculously lazy, and – perhaps psychologically – find it difficult to make it over to the other side of the bay. But when I heard that Sean Brock was coming to cook at Plum, I immediately booked a reservation.  Chef Brock’s reputation, it seems, has been growing in leaps and bounds, first garnering accolades for taking the helm at South Carolina’s McCrady’s, bringing modern techniques (à la Ferran Adrià) to the genteel old American South, and then opening Husk which is dedicated to using historically southern ingredients:

“At McCrady’s, Brock uses exotic ingredients such as tonka beans, soy powder and liquid nitrogen. At Husk, there will be strict rules about what can be served. Every item must be grown in and have historical relevance to the South. That means no salmon, no olive oil and no balsamic vinegar, among other things. But there will be sarsaparilla-glazed pork ribs with pickled peaches, wood-smoked chicken with Rev. Taylor butterbeans and chanterelles, and breads made with antebellum flours. “I’m not trying to prove anything. I’m trying to educate,” Brock said. “But I need rules. Otherwise, I’ll be reaching for the olive oil. And if they taste olive oil, they’ll think that’s what Southern food tastes like.”

–By Jane Black, Washington Post Staff Writer, “Sean Brock re-imagines Southern cuisine.”

In 2010 Chef Brock won the James Beard award for Best Southern Chef. Continue reading →