Creating a Menu from the Ground Up

About 50 yards from the kitchen door, Fosnot can pluck little green mizuna leaves, red-veined sorrel, aromatic mint, and cilantro and toss them in an Asian-style salad. When pickers deliver a crate of fresh-from-the-ground cucumbers, the chef can whip up a soothing cucumber gazpacho. And as tomatoes ripen, he slices them for a salad paired with a chunky grilled corn and green pepper vinaigrette.

Fosnot, 37, who most recently led the kitchen at Rocca in Boston’s South End, and also cooked at Blu, Rialto, and Clio, joined Gibbet Hill Grill as executive chef in early spring. The opportunity to work in this idyllic, rural setting meshed with his cooking style, and his life (he and his wife, Ruth-Anne Adams, also a chef, have three children under the age of 5). “It was a unique opportunity to do the kind of simple farm-influenced cuisine I was interested in,’’ he says.

Gibbet Hill Grill, which opened in 2004, is part of about 500 acres that were purchased by Groton natives Steven and Nancy Webber four years earlier for the primary purpose of protecting the land from residential development. Today, most of the property is designated as conservation land. The Webbers’ two sons, Josh, 40, and Jed, 38, and daughter Kate, 35, returned to the town they were raised in to build the restaurant and adjacent event venue, the Barn at Gibbet Hill. (Their company, the Webber Restaurant Group, also owns Scarlet Oak Tavern in Hingham and Fireside Catering of Burlington.)

The vegetable farm came a few years later. On about 3 1/2 acres, they grow tomatoes, beets, radishes, peppers, beans, many kinds of squashes, greens, and herbs, and other crops. Except for a small, 50-person CSA started this summer — “to get the community interested in the food that’s grown here,’’ says Josh Webber — it’s all for the restaurant. The Webber brothers take great pride in what the farm has accomplished in just two years. “We’re able to grow some unusual heirloom varieties because they don’t have to be packed and shipped very far,’’ says Jed Webber.

Working with a farm’s bounty can be both a culinary blessing and an occasional curse — when, for example, the kitchen is overrun with zucchini or kale. “This year, kale grew really well, so we’re trying to use it in different dishes,’’ says Fosnot. The hardy leaves appear braised, sauteed, and tossed with garlic to accompany roasted chicken. When zucchini piles up, Fosnot prepares the vegetable for one of the rotating “farm sides,’’ available each night. Oversupplies of beets, parsnips, carrots, and turnips are rarely a problem because they can be pickled or put in the root cellar for the winter.

For the chef, inspiration comes easily from what’s grown. “The products are so fresh,’’ Fosnot says. “It’s a different feeling than seeing [the produce] at the supermarket or delivered in plastic bags.’’ Every Friday, he gets an e-mail telling him what they’ll be picking the next week. “It’s a nice challenge to have to plan how to use the crops that are harvested.’’

Right now, the chef is making kohlrabi slaw to accompany sauteed trout and he is braising the bulb’s greens along with collards to serve with bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin. Salmon and green beans are served with a French lettuce sauce. Pan-roasted duck breast comes with cabbage puree and house-made honey infused with lavender. “I’m into more traditional and simple flavor combinations,’’ Fosnot says.

The restaurant’s design suits both its surroundings and the cuisine. A former barn renovated by designer Peter Niemitz, the room has a New England-rustic feel with walls of reclaimed barn board and a stone fireplace as the centerpiece. Windows around the back and side of the building offer views of lush green hills and grazing Black Angus cattle.

Although Gibbet Hill Grill offers a steakhouse-style menu, the meat from these animals, owned by nearby Springdell Farm of Littleton, isn’t used here except for special farm dinners, says Fosnot. “There aren’t anywhere enough cattle to service the restaurant.’’

Come fall, Fosnot will puree butternut squash, onion, garlic, and Gibbet Hill honey into a creamy soup, and roast pumpkin to toss with fresh pasta and golden pancetta. He’ll have plenty of uses for Brussels sprouts, celeriac, and broccoli.

Next season, the chef can help decide what’s planted. For now, it’s the farm’s harvest that dictates what’s on the menu, not the other way around. And when there’s too much kale, it’s time to start braising.