- [Samantha] So, the name Cadence is a reflection
of the sort of natural rhythm that we see
in every facet of the restaurant.
We see a sort of a natural movement of dishes,
where it flows through savory bites into dessert,
where flavors are not necessarily overwhelming others.
No matter what you're eating,
you should want to take another bite
because your palate is stimulated.
So, that's kind of always the goal.
- [Michael] We all, having been working together
for the past six years,
have kind of similar ideas about food.
And that kinda lends to the creative process
where things kind of find their way naturally.
- [Jon] We all view this as a very personal project,
so with that I think the food can lend itself
to different styles, and different cultures,
different types of cuisine.
Because it's all things that are very personal
to us as cooks.
The choose-your-own four course
was definitely like a happy medium for us.
Keeping a strong identity per category is important.
The first courses are gonna be fresh vegetable,
mainly raw or fresh preparations
of fish and seafood tartars.
- [Michael] The second course
being something a little more
on the lines of a pasta course.
Heartier, filling.
Third course, the entree course,
being more protein driven.
A lot of that is gonna be a beef dish,
fish dish, or poultry.
And then after that, dessert.
We don't wanna have somebody walking out
feeling like, bogged down.
And Sam does a really great job with that.
- [Samantha] One of the biggest crimes
that a pastry chef can do,
is to load you up with sugar and fat,
and leave the guest feeling dissatisfied.
I naturally like more savory flavors and less sweet.
It's a natural finish to what they've already
been building up to.
- While we don't have necessarily
a traditional pasta on the menu.
So we do a fried cauliflower,
but it's gonna look like
you're getting a bowl of pasta with ragu, almost.
We do a fermented pork sausage with pork
and a ragu atop this cauliflower
that we hit with lemon juice, and pickled peppers,
a lobster bottarga, which is poached lobster roe.
It looks really intense on the plate,
and we grate it to cover the whole thing.
So when you get it,
it's this big blanket of bright red lobster roe.
It looks almost like grated cheese, in a way.
But as you eat through,
it's gonna create a really interesting salinity.
A really deep flavor.
You get the familiarity of a bowl of pasta,
but as you eat through it,
it's gonna be something very different
from what your mind kind of processes.
- [Jon] We're not just looking to, you know,
put dishes on the menu
that are so out there and progressive
that someone looks at it and they just,
they don't really know what to think of it.
So, I think playing off that idea of like,
this is something that's familiar to you.
Something that people see
in their every day dining experience.
But then, we also benefit by
exposing them to a new technique.
The duck is definitely one of the dishes
that I think, kind of, represents what we do.
The duck is, it's an alina duck.
Alina ducks are really cool
because they are a cross breed of peking and muscovy.
So the peking is gonna help give it a clean,
more tender flavor.
The muscovy's gonna bring a little bit of
game to the table.
So the ducks, we age them here for about seven days.
We roast them on the bone, in our oven.
So, they're roasted in a wooden, charcoal oven to mid-rare.
They get carved off the bone.
We render the skin so it's nice and crispy.
The legs are confit and then they get fried,
so nice crispy skin, topped with a really nice streusel
of sunflower seeds, a bunch of spices.
The breast is sliced and served with a spiced duck jus.
The accompaniments along side of it change.
We're still definitely hitting off
of some really great high summer flavors.
So, we have really beautiful baby squash
from a good farmer friend of ours,
and blistered shishitos.
We're just simply charring all of that
on our French top.
Finishing it with a little bit of that streusel.
A nice chili oil inspired by like that
chili oil condiment you get on the table
at a Szechuan restaurant,
and then a bunch of fried garlic.
So, you're getting that like,
sweet, spicy, savory, really umami chili oil
over the top of everything.
- [Samantha] The rice milk shaved ice
is kind of a play on Philadelphia water ice.
But using a very practical tool
for making kakigori, which is Japanese shaved ice.
The challenge with the shaved ice
is that it has to be as complex,
impactful, and satisfying as the other desserts.
It just requires finding bold flavors
and trusting textures that work
in a vegan context.
So really, the initial inspiration
was the sake lees.
I just pureed sake lees with cooked rice grits
to make what we call rice pudding.
So, a little bit of black currant puree,
and then spoon the shaved rice milk,
which has been shaved on the kakigori machine,
and then kind of douse the ice
with the concord grape syrup,
and then sprinkle more of the streusel,
and then fresh grapes.
We've got fresh tart green grapes
from one our foraging friends.
It's kind of this, almost kind of haunting flavor
that's just very interesting.
- [Jon] Our goal is to really put the experience first.
As three chef owners, I would love to say
we don't wanna come across as incredibly chef driven.
We want it to be experience driven.
- We all sort of have the same basic vision,
which was to just source good products.
Not really like, make it too complicated.
Just execute it well through like,
really good technique.
And be really honest about what we're trying to do,
which is just really give people a very like,
true representation of who we are
and what the food is.