Whisk Finally Finds a Home
Chefs Jeremy Kean (left) and Philip Kruta of Whisk. Photo provided
The last time we saw Whisk chefs Jeremy Kean and Philip Kruta, they had ended their tenure at Wink & Nod and were riding off into the sunset to research ideas for their eventual brick and mortar restaurant. Now, after that nine-month hiatus—a motorcycle journey that took them as far away as Louisiana and Tokyo—the duo has quietly returned and resumed cooking in a new permanent home in Jamaica Plain.
Taking up residence in the Fazenda Coffee Roasters Cafe, the Whisk team has already scheduled some of its famous supper club pop-ups, with a sold-out dinner on Mother’s Day, and three more set for the end of June. Additionally, they’re scheduling live music performances at night paired with comfort foods they picked up along their Kerouacian odyssey (fried chicken, ramen, and Georgia meat pies), and revamping Fazenda’s everyday menu with a new La Marzocco espresso machine, house-baked pastries and breads, and scratch-made sandwiches utilizing sausages, bacon, and smoked salmon, all made in-house.
“As much as we love composition and the tasting menu format, and we’ll always do that, our belief system is centered around people,” Kean says. “We want to give them things that are really accessible. Yes, our food is French-inspired, but we really want to add in all those techniques that we picked up [on the road trip]. At first we stopped off in New York to check out WD-50 and David Chang’s restaurants then went to South Carolina to check out Sean Brock’s Husk. But to be honest, as we got further south, we started to run low on money, so we had to eat a lot of street food. We got really familiar with local guys doing barbecue and Georgia meat pies and stuff like that. We learned a lot about comfort foods we weren’t that familiar with, and we were really inspired to bring that home and incorporate that into our own cooking.”
Whisk is kicking off its comfort food and live music concept starting in July, which along with their more formal, thrice-monthly pop-up series, will help shape their eventual full-time dinner menu. Currently, Fazenda Coffee Roasters is still open and operating under normal business hours, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, serving Kean and Kruta’s revamped café menu.
“We’re renovating at night, and putting in a new kitchen, and redeveloping the whole cafe program,” Kean says. “Whisk is in JP and we’re building our home now. We want people to see a progression and see it evolve and that’s why we’re doing the supper clubs and the pop-ups and the cafe. Whisk finally has a home.”
3710 Washington St., Jamaica Plain; 617-477-4519 or whiskboston.com.
