Supper Club Gets Creative

Home Grown Café in Newark may be known for its casual, hip dining, but once a month, the chefs stretch their culinary muscles with a Supper Club event that gets creative with dishes like mini-French toasts with foie gras and apricot jam, and sous-vide tenderloin with pickled maitake mushrooms. “It’s a wonderful time for the chefs to showcase their skills and include different ingredients we wouldn’t normally use,” says Sasha Aber, who owns the restaurant with her husband, Eric, a chef.

Each multicourse dinner, held on the last Wednesday of the month, offers a different theme focused on locally grown ingredients, seasons, drinks or all three options. “Through the Supper Club, we can get a little wild and let the customers trust the chefs, knowing we’re going to put out an amazing plate, but not knowing what it is—something maybe a little avant-garde,” says the restaurant’s executive chef, Seth Harvey. “It gets us giddy in the back of the kitchen.” Previous dinners featured “Birds and Brews,” which explored the flavors of spring through a study of fowl, and “Flutes and Shoots,” which celebrated the early harvests of the season with Champagne and other sparkling beverages.

The next Supper Club is scheduled for July 29. (At press time, the theme hadn’t been decided.) Seating is limited, so reservations are required and taken up to one month in advance. Most dinners cost between $69-$85, including drinks (but not gratuity). Call Home Grown Café at 266-6993 or email supperclub@homegrowncafe.com.