When you’ve cooked under Thomas Keller and Grant Achatz, nabbed $10,000 on Food Network’s “Chopped,” and owned a restaurant that’s regularly ranked as one of North America’s best, the whole world is your oyster.
But for New England native chef Evan Hennessey, there’s simply no place like home.
“I grew up here in Dover, [New Hampshire],” Hennessey said. “I’m not a city boy; I need the mountains, the ocean. I need to be near nature.”
The chef and owner of Stages at One Washington, set in a historic mill along the Cocheco River, has turned down opportunities to lead restaurants in the hallmark cities most chefs drool over. He’s more interested in championing his home region.
“We have an incredible bounty of ingredients all around us; I want to redefine New England cuisine,” he said. “So many people think that if it’s not chowder or apple pie, then it’s not New England. Not true—or rather, why not?”
Ask a casual diner to envision New Hampshire cuisine, and cured monkfish or beach radish-infused yogurt would hardly come to mind. And yet these are only a couple of the locally sourced items found on Stages’ menu.
“New England has a history of growing, cultivating, harvesting, foraging, and preserving that dates hundreds of years,” Hennessey said. “We pickle, ferment, dry, cure, smoke, and can various ingredients. One of our favorites is to salt brine fish with sea salt we made from the ocean from where we gather seaweeds, then smoke and cook at a very low temperature to preserve.”
By incorporating such techniques with local ingredients from land and sea, he achieves diverse flavors that, while reminiscent of Nordic or Japanese cuisine, are just as “American” as apple pie.
Guests sit at a six-seat countertop facing the kitchen, “so we’re able to describe, define, and have great conversations about where these ingredients came from and why we chose them,” he said.
One dish he’s especially proud of features sea truffles, red algae harvested from the New England coast that has the taste and aroma of black truffles, infused into his version of chawanmushi, a Japanese steamed egg custard.
Another past dish involved an Irish Dexter cow raised with Old World slow-farming methods. Hennessey roasted the beef over an open fire while brushing it with a miso made from Jacob’s Cattle beans, which are native to New England. Additions of grilled dill and a French-style reduction sauce, made with roasted bone stock seasoned with black garlic, bridged this tribute to the region’s agricultural past with more modern cooking methodology.
“In 20 years, I hope people see New Hampshire as a destination for food,” Hennessey said. “There is so much more, and we know so much more, and that needs to be shown.”
