Interview · People · Vegetarian
Noa Reyes on Cooking With Restraint
The chef behind a small vegetable-forward dining room talks about what she leaves off the plate.
Noa Reyes changes her menu most weeks, sometimes most days, depending on what arrives at the back door. We talked about what that kind of cooking actually asks of a kitchen.
How do you decide what goes on the menu each week?
Mostly I don't decide much at all. I go to the market, I see what looks alive, and the menu more or less writes itself from there. The hard part isn't choosing — it's resisting the urge to add more once I've already got something good.
Is it ever frustrating to plan around ingredients you can't control?
Less than people expect. A fixed menu is its own kind of pressure — you're always trying to make the same tomato taste like it did in August. I'd rather change the dish than fight the season.
What's a mistake you see in home cooks trying to cook seasonally?
Treating every vegetable like it needs to be the star. Sometimes the best thing you can do for a really good radish is put it next to butter and salt and stop there.
What does restraint actually mean to you in a dish?
Knowing when the dish is already finished. Most food doesn't fail because it's missing something. It fails because someone kept adding after it was already good.
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