Death by Fork: Mushrooms & Grits

I’ve been to two restaurants by Chef Daniel Patterson: Haven in Oakland and his new restaurant Alta CA in San Francisco. After experiencing the style of food at both restaurants, I have to come to the conclusion that Chef Daniel is a genius with food. I remember watching an episode of “Mind of a Chef” where he made popcorn grits and I nearly lost my mind. I was yelling at my television, “Is he serious?! Popcorn grits, what the what!”

His approach to food is organic and cleanly elevated, subtle and yet pops with in your face with flavor. They are making such exciting food that I as I am writing this, I can feel my excitement bursting.

I visited Haven as part of my half-birthday celebration (yes, you’ll come to read that I take my half-birthday and birthday seriously and it usually involves a lot of food, go figure). When it comes to food, there isn’t a lot I will discriminate against, unless it’s something of the offal persuasion – that takes some doing on my end. That being said, I’m always open to trying everything, including vegetarian dishes. There was a dish that I had eyed when we first made plans to go to Haven and I knew I had to have it.

DxF, meet Haven’s mushrooms, grits, farm egg and nettles. At first look, all I could think of was this is the epitome of what comfort food means. The earthiness of the varied, perfectly cooked mushrooms, laying scattered along a buttery mountain of grits, soft and flavorful, and let’s not forget about the egg. A farm egg with a yolk, when broken, ran down the aforementioned mountain of grits like a yellow silky river of indulgence, carrying with it the deep, emboldened flavors of an egg not bastardized by commerce. No, this egg was cared for, starting with it’s mama being fed well and was treated with the same respect when placed atop my dish.

And the nettles, oh those nettles! A thorny thing that when cooked lends a meaty quality that further highlighted those perfect mushrooms. This dish screamed comfort, satiating the deepest parts of me, and as my cousin so quoted that evening, it was indeed like “rolling around on a bear skin rug in front of a roaring fire.” All I could do in my little pea brain was stop, close my eyes, breathe that earthy dish in and let it take me. It was sexy and simple at the same time. And then it struck me - my sexy vixen of a dish was vegetarian. And not one thought came to me that if this dish had been paired with some protein would it be better because it was already better, in fact, it was BEST.

Haven. You killed me dead with this dish. It was precisely what my soul needed, what comfort food should be, easy and not heavy handed. What was executed in that dish reflected the name of this restaurant, it was a haven in an all too frenetic landscape of wanting to out do the next dish with bolder flavors and ingredients for the sake of being bold. This boiled everything down to it’s simplest, common denominator and rocketed into the stratosphere with its execution. It was sublime and even though I had this dish a couple months ago, it’s left an indelible mark on me.

Since my last visit to Haven, there’s been a chef shuffle in the Daniel Patterson Group. Chef Charlie Parker is back at the helm, having been the opening chef of Plum, a sister restaurant. Chef Charlie is a Bay native and while at Plum, earned the SF Chronicle’s Rising Star nod back in 2011. I am all the more stoked to get back to Haven to see what this team is up to!

Now go fork that!

Wanna go?

Haven

Address: 44 Webster St, Oakland, CA 94607

Phone: (510) 663-4440

www.havenoakland.com