Brassica Kitchen + Café Opens in Early June
Brassica Kitchen oysters. / Photo provided
It’s been a work in progress for about a year, but Brassica Kitchen + Café, the ultimate realization of five-plus years of Whisk pop-ups (including the inaugural Wink & Nod culinary residency), is set to debut late this spring. Co-chefs and owners Jeremy Kean and Philip Kruta are targeting June 1 to start serving dinner in Jamaica Plain six nights a week.
Kean, Kruta, and co-owner Rebecca Kean (Jeremy’s sister) took over Fazenda Café last spring, and it hasn’t closed as they developed their fine dining-influenced concept. “It was a neighborhood joint people were relying on and really liked being at. It was a mix of not wanting to close and force people to go somewhere else, but also to get to know the neighborhood,” Kean previously told Boston.
A café by day, Brassica will continue to meet the caffeine and pastry needs of the Forest Hills community, thanks in part to Arthur Haynes. The pastry chef developed his skills in New York City at Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery and Daniel Boulud’s Daniel, and at 346 Patisserie in Las Vegas, before joining the culinary team formerly known as Whisk.
Come 5:30 p.m., Kean and Kruta’s oft-changing tasting menu will offer a global palate of flavors, local ingredients and flora foraged from the surrounding Emerald Necklace. The team is calling it “French-American comfort food,” with dishes like octopus tagliatelle. Haynes’ dessert menu will include house-made ice creams. The nightly menu items will also be available a la carte. Later this summer, Brassica will launch brunch, too.
Fans of Whisk pop-ups will recognize the playful updates to classic dishes that the chefs have become known for, they say, but they’re not sharing any more menu teasers just yet.
“Over the last five years, [our focus has] changed into how [we can] celebrate delicious depth of flavor, with semi-health consciousness and environmental consciousness to how we’re doing it,” Kean said previously.
On the bar, Drink alum Thea Price-Eckles is developing a cocktail program to showcase Brassica’s full liquor license. Kean previously promised house-made shrubs and other wild ferments, plus local craft beer and an evolving wine list.
The rest of the former Fazenda Café got a rustic-meets-industrial update, with much of the furniture, including the bar, hand built by Kruta. The casual, 49-seat spot will have board games, wifi, and lounge seating, as well as more formal dining options.
“It’s taken us a year of owning and operating this café to find out what this neighborhood needs. We know what we want to cook and want to do, and now we know what our customer base needs. Our concept is a balance between the two things,” Kean said.
The café will open weekdays from 6 a.m.-4 p.m., and at 8 a.m. on weekends. Dinner is served nightly from 5:30 p.m.-midnight (11 p.m. on Sundays).
Brassica Kitchen + Café, 3710 Washington St. (across from the Forest Hills MBTA station), Jamaica Plain, 617-477–4519, whiskboston.com.
