The King Bee, a restaurant on New York City's east side, has a unique connection to Newfoundland and Labrador.
The restaurant's dishes are largely inspired by Acadian culinary history. The menu connects the lineage of Louisiana cooking to its predecessors in the Maritimes and France.
Ken Jackson, one of the restaurant owners, spoke recently about his connection to this province with On the Go.
'The menu structure and the ingredients being coastal seafood and game, we're not quite up to foraging level here — but it's something we aspire to.'- Ken Jackson, King Bee co-owner
Jackson told host Ted Blades he had been been doing research for several years on Louisiana country cooking, with an interest in coastal foods.
"My partner, Eben Klemm and I have been working on this for a few years, and we brought in our chef Jeremie [Tomczak], so to get him up to speed, we took a couple of trips, one to Louisiana, and one to Montreal," said Jackson.
"And in planning for the Montreal trip, I have a chef friend here, Riad Nasr, who's from Montreal ... and he said if you're in that direction, you should make a point of going to St. John's, because there's really cool stuff happening there," he said.
Poutine Râpée is one of the entrée menu items at The King Bee. The dish is made with lamb, turnips and partridgeberry preserves. (Daniel Krieger)
"We took a two-three day trip to visit restaurants there, and get a better sense of the coastal areas. I think Raymonds is the big focus, because I think Jeremy Charles is doing some pretty great things."
While in the province, Jackson said he was influenced with several kinds of food he sampled, including partridgeberries, which he said made an impression.
"Part of Jeremie's background was in Swedish cooking. He worked at Aquavit for a number of years, so he was really familiar in using lingonberries in different ways. But then when we were in Newfoundland — we found just the perfect example of berries, and really gravitated toward the name. It was a pretty name and the ones we had there were just perfect."
Cod tongues on the menu
The King Bee's fish and chips is offered as an appetizer, which is cod tongue served with espellette and remoulade.
Jackson said the idea of using cod tongues was definitely inspired by his trip to the province.
"We just loved eating them there. And also, it tied us in a little more to the history of that area, and the history of cod being used, and the history of that being a delicacy among fishermen. I think all those things appealed to us," he said.
'We took a two-three day trip to visit restaurants there, and get a better sense of the coastal areas. I think Raymonds is the big focus, because I think Jeremy Charles is doing some pretty great things.'- Ken Jackson, King Bee co-owner
"The menu structure and the ingredients being coastal seafood and game, we're not quite up to foraging level here — but it's something we aspire to. It just sort of made our concept gel a little bit more in our minds."
Pork cracklings
For anyone from Newfoundland and Labrador who's fried up scruncheons to serve on the side of fish and brewis, or with fishermen's brewis, you'd also expect to find them on a restaurant menu here. But in New York City, Ken Jackson and his partners decided to add them to the King Bee menu, as 'cracklings.'
He added cracklings weren't actually an inspiration from his visit to the province.
"It's a huge thing in Louisiana. One of the things Jeremie uses is whole pork bellies instead of just the outer skin, and there's some meat on it," he said.
"So to make all those things work together, he uses peanuts and caramel. It's not as sweet as it sounds, but to balance it, he uses the powdered malt vinegar which gives it a vinegary-pop. There's a lot going on ... but it seems to all work together really well."
NYC diners enjoying 'unique' experience
When asked about how the Newfoundland-influenced menu items have gone over with patrons, Jackson said he's received a great response.
"The response has been really good just to have a unique dining experience — it's not typical," he said.
"It seems everything and every variation of everything has been done here in one way or another, and I think people are really responding to having a sort of completely new cuisine, presenting it the way we are with respect towards history— but also modernizing things for the palate."
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