Details are coming in from the PR arm at Jeff Cerciello’s FarmShop, which is looking to an opening in late-October, though anyone following the adventures of the Keller capo’s solo debut knows delays could likely arise until everything is just perfect. Cerciello is putting Michel Darmon, another Keller alum with Guy Savoy experience, in the position of restaurant director here for super-sourced, farm-driven breakfast, lunch, and dinner-service, along with the sale of baked goods and small batch California food products. Now who is he putting in the kitchen?
Joshua Drew, a vet of Ad Hoc, Bouchon, Vetri, and Quince, will lead the kitchen as executive chef, while Brittainy Turnquist, of Bouchon Bakery, will head dessert duty as pastry chef and head baker. From the name to the Brentwood Country mart locale, this place already sounds Tavern-influenced with that same touch of upscale bucolic cuteness, and in timely fashion, is appearing shortly after in-house specialists like Salt’s Cure and the arrival of so-much house-made charcuterie throughout the city.
For breakfast, a be prepared for a 7:00 A.M. opening aided by coffee from LAMill and freshly baked, a la carte pastries. Expect danishes made of in-season fruit, maple scones, house-cured pastrami with poached hens eggs, sweet pepper and rye toast, coddled eggs with smokied salmon and briohce toast, and sourdough waffles with berry marmelade.
Lunch, from 11:00 A.M. to 2:30 P.M., will also be a la carte, with selections of salads mixed with whole grains and goat’s milk feta, gourmet sandwiches like a smoked King salmon rillettes on toasted rye, along with plates of tagliatele with black walnuts, sweet peppers, guanciale, and caraway.
Dinner will always be family-style here, with changing menus, except on Sundays where a weekly fried chicken night will bear Cerciello’s stamp. Guests will choose three or four course menus of dishes to be shared, and one example menu starts with endive and mizuna salad, goes to roast Double R Ranch strip loin, and ramps down with a course of California cheeses, before ending with peach and blackberry cobbler. Expect craft beers and a tight list of California wines to accompany meals.
While the restaurant is currently available for private parties, it will open to the public for breakfast and lunch in a few weeks, with dinner soon to follow. The market component will open in 2011, with the full bakery, prepared foods, house wares, and butcher completing the blend of pastoral/urban perfection.
FarmShop, 225 26th St., Suite #25, Santa Monica.
