Three Penny chef makes offal* good fare
Toolbox
By Sylvia Fagin Correspondent "I think you might have to talk to me about the warm calf kidney," the woman said dubiously to - Published: November 24, 2009
the bartender, after she ordered a beer. As she spoke, the chef emerged from behind the bar, carefully erased the words "marinated duck hearts" from the big chalkboard menu on the wall, and in neat block letters added new text: "this pressed rabbit."
Some explanation is in order. The venue: Three Penny Taproom, the Montpelier bar with 22 craft brews on tap. That chef: Brett Champlain, formerly of the New York City gastropub The Spotted Pig. This rabbit: Cooked on the bone until the meat falls away, then pressed, cooled, and sliced.
"It's just a terrine," Champlain explains of the rabbit. "But I don't like using that term because we're in the U.S., and we speak English."
A specialized English, perhaps. Champlain has taken it upon himself to introduce new fare, and with it a new vocabulary, to patrons of the Three Penny. You'll not find nachos or mozzarella sticks here, and for that Champlain offers no apologies.
Instead he offers calf's breast poached in curds and whey and orange peel, or calf's heart braised in root beer and brown stock. The former elicits memories of childhood creamsicles; the latter, the sweet sense of a hamburger and soda.
"I'm not going to use euphemisms," Champlain says. "I don't see anything wrong with calling it what it is. You either order calf's kidney because you haven't had it, or because you have."
Most patrons haven't, but once they try the calf kidney, or the pressed rabbit, or the duck's heart stewed in stout, they tend to be sold on the concept.
"Even people who gave me a hard time when I started are super supportive now," Champlain says. "I've been doing this quite a while — I forget that to some people, it's off the wall."
Champlain, a Colorado native who trained at Johnson and Wales culinary school, moved to Vermont to escape the crazy pace of the New York restaurant world. But while Champlain was watching the Tour de France on the bar's flat screen, Scott Kerner — one of the bar's three owners and a former Goddard classmate of Champlain's girlfriend — pitched the idea of bar fare.
Initially hesitant, Champlain grew to see the good opportunity for what it was.
"I always wanted to have a place with a chalkboard menu," he says. The fare emerged from his desire to use the whole animal — and keep costs down. Area restaurants serve local hamburger, steak and tenderloin, he notes. "I wondered where the other parts were going."
"If you cook it slowly and season it properly," he says of the meat he prepares, "chances are it'll be good." Plus, with these less-used parts, it's easy to offer well-executed food at a lower cost.
"People come here to drink beer," he says. "They don't want to drop a lot of money on food."
With a great brew in front of them, they're also not in a hurry, allowing Champlain to prepare the food with the deliberate pace of a monk alone with his tools: A tiny stove that could've come from his New York apartment, a toaster for the crusty Red Hen bread that accompanies many dishes, and an industrial slicer Champlain treats like a mandoline to julienne seasonal vegetables like celeriac and carrots.
Despite the cookbook titles on the shelf — "Nose to Tail Eating," "Beyond Nose to Tail" — Champlain admits that eating 100 percent of the animal is "a bit of a stretch."
"I haven't eaten brains," he says. "And I'm OK with that."
Sylvia Fagin is The Times Argus Food & Dining correspondent. Contact her via her blog "Aar, Naam ~ Come, Eat," at sylviafagin.wordpress.com, or via email at sylviafagin@yahoo.com.
28