The Buffalo Jump Returns to Falmouth This Fall
The Buffalo Jump Nightshades: pressed eggplant and thyme blossoms, black mole of tobacco, peanut, hoja santo, and bitter chocolate with ground cherry, clam, and hot pepper relish. / Photo provided
Just because it’s the unofficial end of summer doesn’t mean you’ve missed your chance to try native Cape Cod cuisine at the Buffalo Jump. The ambitious summer dinner series by chefs Brandon Baltzley and Laura Higgins-Baltzley has been extended through mid-November.
“We have had a surprisingly strong turnout and reception,” Baltzey says. The Buffalo Jump debuted July 4 at Coonamessett Farm in East Falmouth, after the Baltzeys parted ways from Falmouth restaurant the 41-70 in order to dive deeper into native cooking—largely English, Portuguese, and Native American dishes, built with hyper-local, often foraged ingredients.
In October, the Buffalo Jump is moving to a to-be-announced, indoor location, still in Falmouth. Baltzley says they are waiting on one more licensing sign-off before announcing the place. The dinners will also move from Monday-Wednesday evenings to Thursday-Saturday.
The mobile license the Buffalo Jump has allows them to operate through December, so if the October and November dates sell well, they may extend the series again, Baltzley says. The couple continue to look for real estate to open their own brick-and-mortar, which is a longtime goal. Baltzley has two failed attempts behind him, with TMIP in Indianapolis, as well as the 41-70.
“We are not going to rush into things like we have in the past, and take the best offer and end up with a shitty investor again. We want to use our own money so we have full control of every aspect of the space as well, so we don’t end up with another bottle of snake oil,” he says.
Baltzley, formerly co-chef alongside Tim Maslow at Ribelle, has stints at Michelin-starred restaurants in New York City and Chicago on his resume, and he also staged at René Redzepi’s self-sustaining Noma in Copenhagen. Higgins-Baltzley is a Falmouth native who has cooked at Le Quartier Francais in South Africa, Chicago’s Trenchermen, and Ribelle.
The couple has been in Copenhagen for the past week to attend Noma’s annual MAD symposium, an annual, invite-only meeting of chefs, academics, journalists, farmers, and venture capitalists. The Buffalo Jump has a few more Monday-Wednesday night dinners at Coonamessett Farm scheduled this month, but they will take a break the week of September 12 for a tour with the Crux Culinary Collective, an itinerant, co-operative dinner series Baltzley founded in 2011. They have four Midwestern stops planned, collaborating with chefs like Indianapolis’s Jonathan Brooks (Milktooth) and Ontario’s Kyle Paton (The Black Lodge, Grow Kitchen & Cafe).
“Some of the dishes we will be doing when we go on the road we will be using as a sort of R&D kitchen for the fall menu at the Buffalo Jump,” Baltzley says. “The menus at the Buffalo Jump have been very seafood-heavy, and we are looking forward to things like bay scallop season, squid season, etc. that come when the weather shifts cooler, however we are really looking forward to cooking some meat this fall. Our menu has been basically meat free and that will change starting this October.”
In Chicago, Baltzley is offering smoked corn and lichen porridge with fermented grasshopper and grilled flatbreads, and Higgins-Baltzley will serve roasted cauliflower in sour carrot and fish broth with lamb floss in Indianapolis.
The Buffalo Jump returns to Falmouth on Monday, September 5, and there are currently tickets available for dinners through November 12.
