Back to Basics: Cooking on Fire by Nicolai and Eva Tram
What is more primal than fire? That enticing orange glow, destructive, and a bringer of comfort all at the same time. It is the base of cooking, and Nicolai and Eva Tram have taken their brand of local sustainable cooking right back to that basic element. Nicolai earned his stripes at El Bulli, a Michelin star restaurant in Spain, he brings this fantastic knowledge of micro gastronomy to a different level with cooking over and sometimes directly in the fire. One of the most impressive feats about this “Cooking on Fire” dining experience is that all of the ingredients that you are about to see were sourced right here in Florida, so local that many of the farmers attended the dinner. First in this seven course adventure of flavor was oysters from local Indian River Oyster farm topped with cucumber herbs from Bamboo Leaf Tea farm, apples and then cooked using flambadou, chicken fat that ignites itself in that small metal cone and dripped hot onto the oysters to cook them. Refreshing and a great start to the meal. Second course was burned leeks and goat cheese. I would like to point out that if you have never just charred the skin of your vegetables and eaten them then you are missing out on one of my favorite ways to eat vegetables, the flavor just changes and the veggies become juicy in the process so for the leek to sit on goat cheese allowed for such a delightful flavor. After that leek came ember toasted rapines which were again cooked to a delightful perfection. Now to cut to some of the meats, course number four was Golden Tile Papilotte so mushroom on golden tilefish. Served in a bowl with the mushroom, almost resembling coral, toasted just right we were quick to see these bowls empty. Course five consisted of Florida Caviar placed over some smoked beef which was great,
Ok guys I was just writing through all that to get to this. This was beautiful, it was art, I love it and it may be all I really want in life. Those are tomahawk steaks, yes those giant steaks you always see one person getting at the upscale steakhouse. So they just chucked them into the fire pit, no grill, no foil, nothing but wood and fire. I was so surprised with how this turned out, mind you not too surprised given the caliber of chef but regardless I was impressed.
This turned out so perfectly there really is not much more I can say about it. There was a perfect char on the outside and as you can see the meat is not at all over cooked and it was ever so juicy. Surprised at the ability to take another bite dessert was served, burned banana, served with ice cream and a banana champagne. Of course what would a fire be without smores? as a finale we were given marshmallows and got to partake in cooking over an open flame ourselves! An absolute delight to try all this food and experience it at none other than Boxi Park in Lake Nona with an amazing team and the people that made this local delight possible. Of course I had to include a picture of all the courses below so enjoy this feast for the eyes.
