John Fraser first gained his reputation as a veggie guru when the chef/owner of Dovetail introduced Meatless Mondays at the Upper West Side restaurant in 2010, composing elaborate and elegant animal-free meals. So when word got out that he would be teaming at the Standard East’s new restaurant, Narcissa, with hotelier André Balazs — who owns a working farm on the Hudson — plant eaters began buzzing.
Now Narcissa, which opened at the end of January, is not only one of the trendiest spots in town, it’s a haven for produce lovers. Fraser’s bountiful offerings are not typical herbivorous fare. He spit-roasts beets on the rotisserie, and, in one of the most original veggie variations on a classic, creates a beef-free Wellington by coating carrots and then baking them in puff pastry.
The inspiration
Ironically, it was meat purveyor and burger king Pat LaFrieda who helped inspire carrots Wellington. He and Fraser were at the gym two years ago, and they began brainstorming. “Pat and I were lifting weights and, of course, discussing food,’’ recalls Fraser. “He was talking about how he loves beef Wellington, but that it’s almost impossible to do well in a restaurant setting, because unless you make it [to order] and make people wait over 35 minutes, the blood can run into the crust, and the beef oxidizes.’’
The two began discussing how to avoid these problems with a new, lighter interpretation of the dish. “The way I get inspired is trying to drill down,’’ he explains. “I will think, ‘What is it about this particular food?’ I will focus and I won’t stop until it becomes something.’’
The evolution
What Fraser initially came up with at Dovetail last year was a separation of meat and crust. He served a roasted sirloin garnished with a single leek wrapped in puff pastry. “We started playing with the idea from there,’’ he explains. When Dovetail’s Michelin star was re-affirmed last fall, and Fraser — along with the other honored chefs — was asked to prepare a dish for the guide’s party, he decided to develop the Wellington concept.
“We wanted to come up with something using vegetables,’’ he explains, so with the help of his chef de cuisine Nick Pfannerstill, he created an early rendition of carrots Wellington. That version used a single carrot, and the layer between “meat’’ and pastry consisted of an espresso bean and walnut crumble in place of the traditional mushroom and shallot mix known as duxelles. He served it as bite-sized hors d’oeuvres. “Every Michelin-starred chef in New York ate it that night,’’ recalls Fraser.
At about that time, he was developing dishes for Narcissa’s menu. “It’s always a challenge to find something you can crave and that will keep you engaged for the time it takes to eat an entire entrée course,” he remembers. “Instead of the single carrot, I increased the surface area by making a mosaic.’’ Cocoa nibs were also added to the crumble.
The preparation
The vegetables are cured in salt and sugar, then roasted with cinnamon, coriander and fennel. While still warm, seven or eight of them are rolled together in plastic wrap, so they resemble a pack of dynamite. After they cool, they are unwrapped and coated in the crumble. Next comes the puff pastry, which is brushed for color with a wash made from eggs collected at Balazs’ Hudson Valley farm.
The sweet and savory dish ($20) is baked, sliced and plated with Blue Foot mushrooms, baby leeks, pickled pearl onions, roasted sunchokes and a sunchoke purée made with silken tofu. It also gets a hit of Fraser’s interpretation of gremolata — extra virgin olive oil, lemon and parsley, served warm. Each carrots Wellington dish is labor intensive; it takes more than an hour to prepare from start to finish. “It’s one cook’s job to make them,’’ says Fraser. “We’ve been selling so many of them that she spends her entire day on the one dish.’’
The famous consumers
When Net-a-Porter launched its new magazine, Porter, just after Narcissa’s opening, carrots Wellington was served as a canapé to founder Natalie Massenet and her guests, including J.Crew creative director Jenna Lyons, shoe designer Brian Atwood, designer Georgina Chapman and model Karolina Kurkova. Fraser says thanks to the cold weather, the fashionistas were craving a hearty meal — although some were confused by what the dish actually was: “People were asking, ‘What is a carrot Wellington?’ ”