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New chef, new day dawning at Almost Home
Things are really cooking in downtown Greencastle.
From spiffy new storefronts to exciting additions like Music on the Square to new restaurants, brew pubs and even more options being planned.
Not about to be left behind in this restaurant renaissance, Almost Home owner Gail Smith has bold new ideas for her acclaimed eatery, now in its 26th year.
First and foremost is the addition of an executive chef, Troy Roberts, with a culinary pedigree featuring many of the notable Indianapolis restaurants.
"The motivation," Smith said, "is to elevate the style of cooking and have somebody with a little more expertise in the kitchen than me."
The addition of Roberts, she said, will allow her to run the business and "be out front," essentially as the face of the Almost Home/Swizzle Stick franchise.
As a means of introducing Roberts to the community, a signature wine dinner featuring the Chateau St. Michelle family of wines is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Monday, June 13 in The Swizzle Stick.
The dinner is limited to 60 guests and space is still available at $30 per person (call 653-5788 for reservations). Smith noted that The Swizzle's regular Monday night open mic set with Jack Gibson will begin about 8:30 p.m., following the wine dinner.
Monday's four-course meal will replicate the dinner served to rave reviews when the DePauw University Board of Trustees ate recently at Almost Home.
The meal will begin with an appetizer of pan-seared sea scallops with white truffle corn relish, followed by grilled asparagus salad with fried quail egg. The main course will be a traditional French coq au vin (or chicken breast braised in wine). Dessert is a blackberry creme brulee.
The courses will be paired in order with a Columbia Crest Horse Heaven Hill Sauvignon Blanc, Drumheiler Chardonnay, a 14 Hands Hot-to-Trot red blend and finally a Chateau St. Michelle Eroica with dessert.
The menu is right down Roberts' alley. The 49-year-old chef says he's spent half his life in Florida, "so I really like cooking with seafood."
His cooking style, he said, is "mostly French with an American twist to it."
"I like traditional French sauces," the chef further explained, "but we're in the Greencastle setting," meaning he doesn't plan to overdo it here.
"I like simple that tastes good," Roberts added. "If you use great ingredients, you don't need to use a lot of stuff to make it taste great."
Almost Home's new executive chef is coming to Greencastle after almost five years at the Capital Grille, which he helped open within The Conrad hotel in downtown Indianapolis.
Prior to that, Roberts was executive chef at Rick's Boatyard at Eagle Creek Reservoir, was a chef for the Eagle's Nest atop the Hyatt in downtown Indy for four years and a chef for Crystal Catering, which included dining duties for such venues as the Indiana State Museum, NCAA Hall of Champions and the Indianapolis Zoo.
But how he ended up in Greencastle is no mystery.
"I kind of already knew Gail," he explained, "and I'm from a small town like Greencastle (around Greenfield) and I really like her restaurant.
"With what's going on in my life, it just really all fit together well. That doesn't always happen."
Roberts doesn't wear a DePauw baseball cap just for show, his oldest son has just finished his freshman year at the university (he has two other boys in high school at Mt. Vernon in Hancock County).
But it's food Roberts wants to talk about most.
"We really want to raise the bar on the culinary experience here," he said.
Roberts has already started cutting steaks himself at Almost Home. Filets and ribeyes are brought in from the Chicago Stockyards, he said.
"We get the whole loin and cut it into steaks," Roberts explained.
Sirloin and flat irons, meanwhile, are sourced locally, Smith interjected.
She explained that the attention to culinary taste and detail Roberts exhibits "goes back to the Matt O'Neill days at the Walden Inn."
She turned to Roberts to add, "Sorry to put that kind of pressure on you" in reference to the beloved Irish-born executive chef and innkeeper who opened the Walden Inn and now operates the Runcible Spoon in Bloomington and another restaurant in Lafayette.
She also praised her previous chefs, John Hecko and John Wilson, as being talented and "taking me out of the tea room phase."
But the arrival of Roberts isn't the only change in store for Almost Home.
"After 25 years Almost Home has a new kitchen and a new chef," Smith said. "We're doing a whole new branding and it starts with Troy.
"We've always talked about us being about comfort food," Smith continued, "but we're not really comfort food."
The menu is now more "contemporary cuisine," she said.
Roberts, meanwhile, said patrons can expect a more seasonal menu in the near future.
That means lighter fare in the summer "when it's hot and people feel like you don't need a 24-ounce porterhouse in the middle of a 95-degree day."
The new chef also looks forward to establishing relationships with local farmers to provide the freshest and most flavorful products.
"It's been really important to me in my career," Roberts added, "to support the local farmers. Up until about 15 years ago I used to raise Angus cattle myself."
Meanwhile, Smith also noted that now that her restaurant's facade and its kitchen have been remodeled, it's time to tackle the interior at Almost Home.
That's why the dinner Monday night will be in The Swizzle Stick.
"The other side will be torn up," Smith said.
In addition to new carpeting, the front portion of the east side of Almost Home will be remodeled into more retail-suitable space.
"We worked on the back of the house, now it's time to work on the front," Smith added.
The retail area remodeling will allow for better display of ready-made sandwiches, salads and soups to "grab and go" for those who don't want to dine in or don't want to wait for carry-out.
"Fast and fresh, that's the theme," Smith said.
Like it's almost home, of course.