Chef Tarver King was destined for the culinary world, even before he was born. His grandmother went to college with cooking's ultimate rock star, Julia Child, and he heard stories about the food icon throughout his formative years.
Later, his cooking career came full circle when he participated in the celebration of Child's 90th birthday—the Inn at Little Washington, in Washington, VA, where he was working, handled the dessert course for the evening.
Now executive chef at Goodstone Inn & Estate, a small but group-friendly property in Middleburg, VA, King has cooked with some of the industry's living legends, including Roy Yamaguchi (at his eponymous restaurant in Philadelphia) and Thomas Keller (at the French Laundry, in California's Napa Valley). He's also done stints at top restaurants in England.
But now his sights are firmly on something one doesn't need to be a chef to appreciate: fresh ingredients. On the 265-acre farm where Goodstone sits, the possibilities for King's concoctions are nearly endless, and he's excited about the options available to him.
In fact, his enthusiasm for what's known as the farm-to-table approach (where chefs use local ingredients) is spreading quickly, not just through customers but through readers and viewers of his blog, for which he also takes photographs.
MeetingNews found King in a moment of calm to hear what he will cook up next at Goodstone.
Q: You place a strong emphasis on using fresh, local ingredients, mostly grown on property. How does that impact the guest experience?
A: This is the purest I can ever possibly be. After years and tons of research and sleepless nights in search of the best ingredients, those efforts can only go so far. But here, I can pick stuff out of the ground and see the animals and how they're treated and fed. At another restaurant where I worked, we used to call the produce purveyor and yell, "Pick it, cut it, and put it right on the plane!" Here, we can pick parsnips out of the ground, and almost a week later, the quality is still great. I get excited about that.
Every day, we go into the garden and say something like, "Oh, we have parsnips; ok, we have to do something with that," and then we pair them with proteins, etc. We have formulas, but nothing's set in stone; it all depends on the ingredients.
So, when we first meet with groups, we keep the menu planning wide open. If, for example, a customer's event is a few months away, we'll ask, "What do you like, what do you want to see or not see," but we wait until the day before, roughly, to come up with the menu.
Q: How do planners, who like to organize things ahead of time, respond to that?
A: A lot of people appreciate that the menu is planned with the best ingredients. We want to make sure that everything we use is at the peak of its potential.
We did have one group that wanted a menu farther out, so we did that for the customer.
Q: Why did you start a blog?
A: We wanted to show customers what we're working on, keep guests involved with the kitchen, and, at the same time, create a tool to advertise up-and-coming dinners, local farms, etc. In other words, we wanted to put the guest in the driver's seat of what we're doing.
Q: How has it helped you connect with meeting planners?
A: It shows planners the quality of our food, and what we have going on at Goodstone. Plus, it's brought us business; a couple who'd seen the blog came in to eat and then said, "My company is looking for a spot for a retreat, I'd love to bring a group here."
Q: What food and beverage programs do you offer groups?
A: We could involve a group in a farm-based experience, followed by time in the kitchen to do some preparation for their own meal—using the ingredients they found.
Other options include a private wine tasting focused on any number of topics, like tasting some of Virginia's finest wines, how to blind taste like the pros, or learning the differences around the world for a particular varietal (e.g., chardonnay).
Another program on the beverage side would be for the group to come up with its own signature cocktail.
Q: What's your favorite food?
A: It's kind of a mood thing. My girlfriend—who's a pastry chef here—and I eat a lot of ethnic food, like Indian cuisine.
But there's a place here, called Hunter's Head, that serves English food, like shepherd's pie, and it has a cool atmosphere with fireplaces; we like that a lot.
But traditional food is good, too; I really appreciate that.
Originally published March 9, 2009