A Treasure Trove of Greens
Chef Jason Robinson
In addition to its perfect union of 300 acres of rich Texas soil and a temperate climate, The Inn at Dos Brisas boasts a passionate commitment to sustainable farming and to the personalities behind the finest produce. The individual who most sets it apart from the growing trend of farm-to-table is Chef Jason Robinson, who literally walks the refined, simple but sophisticated, seasonal ingredients from his organic garden to the table: three o’clock in the afternoon will find Jason prowling the fields, orchards, and greenhouse to gather organic heirloom tomatoes, micro greens, wild mushrooms, and his choice of 95 other fresh herbs, fruits and vegetables to prepare the evening’s stunning display of nature’s best.
At age twenty Jason was a highly unlikely character to be “tip toeing through the garden.” For then, he was gulping Slurpees as a 7-11 store cashier. Four years later, he was preparing the mise en place for an evening dinner shift. This now-distinguished chef has charge of the kitchen at The Inn at Dos Brisas, which, with its Mobil Five-Stars, is indeed one of the best of 17 restaurants in the country.
“When I told my dad I wanted to go to culinary school, he wisely suggested I get a job in a restaurant kitchen first,” Jason recalls. Before long, he found himself manning the grill at the Fog City Diner in Las Vegas, where his sister hosted and his soon-to-be wife, Kimberly, worked as sauté chef. No more microwave popcorn for this California kid who began to climb to the profession’s top ranks without ever returning to school. From Vegas, Jason and Kimberly moved to Illinois, where they helped open a Fog City Diner in Chicago. After a year, Jason was ready for more challenges, so he applied for an opening in the city’s ultra haute-cuisine four-star restaurant, Tru.
“I walked into the bar and thought, ‘No way I’m getting a job here,’” recalls Jason, who was in fact not only hired as a meat-and-vegetable cook, but became the chef-de-cuisine in just a few years. During his tenure of six years at Tru, Jason learned the formula for sophisticated seasonal cuisine and became more conscious of the product itself. He ambitiously planned menus with products sourced from close-by farms in order to get the very best in just a day’s drive. Jason’s fascination continued to bloom over the course of his fascinating career which included time working at Goodfellas, a respected Minneapolis restaurant that focused his mind on the farm-to-table concept.
One day an aspiring epicurean, Doug Bosch, a true Texan who owns Dos Brisas, called to speak with Jason. “All that came to mind about Texas, when I took the call, were hundreds and hundreds of cattle roaming the countryside and dinner coming from a massive barbeque pit,” chuckled Jason. This was far from the case – Dos Brisas’ hundreds of acres are dominated by rows of vegetables, not cattle. Doug found Jason a committed chef and a tenacious personality, and persuaded him to come for a visit. Jason discovered a wealth of passion in Doug, evident in the ever-expanding palette of colors of vibrant organic vegetables and fruits painted across the land. He had created a sustainable farm that would service the restaurant and four casitas at The Inn at Dos Brisas.
“My assistants and I go out in the afternoon and harvest whatever we need for dinner,” says the chef, who works closely with the Inn’s horticulturist, Johnnie Boyd Walker, to plan each season’s plantings. “I give Johnnie a list of what I want to cook with, and she plants eight or nine varieties to find out what grows best and works for the kitchen,” he explains. The two have experimented with wild ramps, planted in moist soil along a creek bank, wild asparagus, and 150 heirloom tomato varieties. Ten of these showed up in a single dish last summer.
“I’m not a ten-thousand-ingredients-on-a-plate kind of guy,” says Jason, “but I do like mixing several varieties of one product together, because each one has a different color, texture, flavor, or size.” All the same, Jason does get a kick out of saying the improbable name of one of his signature breads: Organic Garden Bread and Butter Pickle, Banana Pepper, Cheddar Beer Roll. “It’s a mouthful to say, but every morsel is distinctive.”
When Jason is not inventing recipes like “faux-gras,” made from Texas avocados, or eggplant ice cream (try it, you’ll love it!) for his daily eight-course tasting menu, he might be smoking baby back ribs, paired with crawfish coleslaw, for an upscale barbecue or tweaking his fried-chicken recipe – a favorite with picnicking guests of The Inn at Dos Brisas. “I thought I’d never do it, but I did break down and absconded with my boss’ custom-made pit and smoker, and there is no going back.”
And while freshness is ‘key’ to his kitchen, Jason is always exploring new ways to preserve each season’s flavors for year-round delight. This year, in addition to fresh fruit, the citrus orchard yielded orange fleur-de-sel, lime salt and grapefruit powder made by pulverizing crystallized grapefruit peel. And the vegetable garden produced three-alarm, five-chili golden tomato salsa and pickled olive-green tomatoes for the chef’s signature martinis. With canned goods like these presented as farewell gifts to guests of The Inn at Dos Brisas – no wonder they keep running back!
To experience a dish by Chef Jason Robinson – or even a taste, smell, or sip – fashioned in the spirit of the sustainable agricultural movement, is one of the most memorable moments to be had at The Inn at Dos Brisas. A little compassion goes along way with ingredients, and there is no shortage of devotion to the farm and the kitchen at this luxurious Texas escape.