Farmhouse Dinners!
Chef's Dinner Table invites you to celebrate our new partnership with Gastler Farm, a historic family farm in Durham, Connecticut. Chef Julie Carrión and farm manager Leah Gastler have collaborated on a series of Farmhouse Dinners to celebrate the best produce picks of the season! Canapés and four courses will be professionally paired with an exquisite wine program. Menus are designed to highlight the peak crops of the season, including custom floral arrangements created for each evening.
For this installment, we look forward to Peony's Peak, the optimal time to see these gorgeous flowers in full bloom! With a vintage feel to the table settings, floral china, and lacy linens, the menu will highlight late Spring vegetables, both cultivated and wild. Peony arrangements on the tables will be for sale to guests as they depart, with proceeds supporting the farm's continuity.
As you enter the grounds, you will be greeted by a reception and passed canapes with tours of the fields, led by Leah Gastler, farm manager, who maintains her family traditions in this historic property, with its stone wall builds, gorgeous flowers, and verdant gardens. Amidst decorations of works by local artists and artifacts gathered over many years of life in an idyllic setting, diners will gather at an intimate farm table to enjoy a memorable meal, lovingly prepared and served by our team. You will be surrounded by like-minded individuals who also like to eat, drink and be merry without being too fussy about it. Or, as we like to say: "There are no strangers here, only friends we have yet to meet".
THE MENU
Canapés
Deviled Eggs~ pickled vegetables
Cucumber Rolls~ smoked trout mousse and caviar
Country Pâté ~ rhubarb chutney, butter brioche
Artichoke and Cheese Croquette
1st Course
Poached Asparagus ~ lump crab meat, herb emulsion, gathered greens
2nd Course
Black Sea Bass~ Spring pea flan, chanterelle mushrooms
3rd course
Dark Chocolate and Rhubarb Tart ~ strawberry rose custard
ABOUT THE CHEF
Chef Julie Carrión spent the early years of her culinary career in New York training under Top Chef Master Anita Lo, and then Montreal-based chef Normand Laprise of Toque, before accepting a position at Restaurant Daniel, the year that Daniel Boulud won back his coveted fourth star from The New York Times. She was the Executive Chef for a culinary non-profit called The Kitchen at Billings Forge in Hartford, now called Forge City Works. There she created a job-training curriculum for underserved communities, opened two bakery cafe locations, and an off-premise catering business. After nearly a decade with Yale University as Executive Chef, catering to the university’s President and elite guests, Julie is now the Culinary Director of Chef’s Dinner Table, a private dining venue and culinary salon in New York City. A resident of central Connecticut, she became enchanted by Gastler Farm when she was introduced to Tim Gastler before his passing in 2023. They dreamed up the farm dinners together, and now his daughter Leah keeps the dream alive!
ABOUT GASTLER FARM
Gastler Farm has been a working farm for several generations and contains a Smithsonian-registered garden. From 1937-1990 Gastler Farm was locally famous for their pansy fields, which blanketed the front fields with color every Spring. Charles H. Gastler bred his own unique strains of pansy seed, known for their large faces and robust stems, and the farm became a springtime destination for CT residents, including Katharine Hepburn! Leah Gastler is the 4th generation to bring new life and business to Gastler Farm. As a classically trained violist, started in the event business hosting classical music concerts in the farmhouse through a non-profit that she founded: Kalmia Garden Chamber Music and Arts Foundation, which continues its annual performances this Spring. Leah is passionate about big ideas and creative endeavors, and loves pouring her energy into creating a space for such ideas to flourish. At Gastler Farm, she is able to marry her innate love of nature and plants, with the expansive energy of human creation, curating a space that both inspires and gives opportunity for ideas to be realized.