Win Dinner for Two!
Main Line Dish is extremely excited about our launch this week and are thrilled to bring you the latest in food and restaurant news along Philadelphia’s Main Line in Pennsylvania. In celebration we will be giving away DINNER FOR TWO at Nectar.
Put your clicking finger to use and become our friend on Facebook by clicking HERE and on Twitter, by clicking HERE.
To win, leave a comment on this post telling us why you love Nectar and we’ll pick one lucky winner to enjoy a delicious dinner for two! Contest ends Monday, April 11th at midnight. GOOD LUCK!
Interview with Patrick Feury: The Chef and His Berwyn Restaurant, Nectar
While some chefs make focus mostly on what happens in the kitchen, Patrick Feury’s involvement with a dish starts from the ground up, literally. Chef and part owner of Berwyn’s popular Nectar restaurant, Feury can tell you the origins of the vegetables, fish, cheese and herbs on the plates he creates. Whenever possible, he uses local purveyors in Chester, Lancaster and Bucks counties, but sustainability is paramount. This is especially evident in his fish offerings – he works with Cleanfish, a company focused on connecting sustainable seafood producers with the chefs and restaurants serving up the ocean’s goods. (You won’t find swordfish or Chilean sea bass on Feury’s menu.)
“I couldn’t imagine being a cook in a restaurant and not having a relationship with the farms,” Feury said, and it’s easy to see why he feels this way. From a young age, he grew up raising sheep and chickens and was involved with 4-H. McDonald’s was not part of Feury’s young vocabulary, and his first job was in a butcher shop at the age of 13. It was an “old world” upbringing in northern New Jersey. “From a young age, I learned respect for animals and livestock,” Feury notes.
His interest in the kitchen continued, and after a stint in design school, he followed his passion for food and landed a job at the Waldorf, where he put his artistic side to use as an ice sculptor. With this talent, he hopped around New York City, eventually met Daniel Boulud, and worked out a trade: free ice sculpting for the chance to work for free at Le Cirque. Like many chefs in training, his path eventually lead to France, where using local and seasonal ingredients isn’t a restaurant concept, but is how restaurants run.
Now at Nectar, Feury cooks by that principle of seasonality, and the menu changes weekly as a result. Billed as “Asian-inspired-French-infused,” the ingredients dictate the menu, but Chef Feury adds the flair. “I like to use a classic French sauce with something whimsical,” Feury said. “It’s an eclectic menu.”
It seems that food might run in the Feury veins – younger brother Terence is the head chef at Fork in Philadelphia, Patrick met his wife when she was a sous chef, and their children have taken up the family interest in gourmet food as well, preferring oysters and pate over hot dogs and French fries.
When asked about his personal favorites in the area, Feury cited Restaurant Alba (“homemade, farm fresh food”), Savona (“I like to sit at the bar”) and Teresa’s Next Door (“a bar with much more than burgers and beer”).
Upcoming plans for Chef Feury include an artisan cheese course in Vermont – “the best in the country,” he said – to expand his knowledge of the culinary arts, and hopefully another project with Victory Brewing Company. Fists of Feury, the first collaboration between Victory and the Feury brothers, fulfilled a lifelong interest in home brewing.
Also some gardening is on the agenda. Many of the herbs used at Nectar come from a garden just steps from the kitchen, and Feury hopes to expand it this year by planting squash, chilies, herbs, mint and tomatoes.
It’s clear that Chef Feury’s interest in food is all encompassing, but he manages to keep his tenants of “simplicity and freshness” at the forefront of everything he does.
Find Nectar at 1091 East Lancaster Avenue in Berwyn or online at www.tastenectar.com.
41 Comments