Photography by Aaron Leitz for Gardenista.
With five other Seattle restaurants to run, award-winning chef Matt Dillon chose the ingredients for the menu of his Capitol Hill wine bar, Bar Ferdinand, with a simple goal: “The whole idea at Bar Ferdinand is that we don’t buy anything.”
Dillon bought Old Chaser Farm in 2010 with business partners Jennifer and Christopher Roberts; it was an organic “U-Pick” blueberry farm he found in a real estate listing.
The property has a main house, shown here, plus a “cookhouse,” an all-purpose space that can be rented for events (featured on Remodelista today).
The gardens in front of the main house and cookhouse were collaborative efforts with Jennifer Roberts, said Dillon. The two kept a good deal of what was already growing on the property, but uprooted and replanted it.
A small patio behind the cookhouse serves as an outdoor dining room for events.
Dillon and Monnat built the arbor bordering the cookhouse garden.
Both gardens, at the cookhouse and main house, are planted mostly with ornamentals and herbs.
“Bar Ferdinand gets first dibs on all of that,” says the restaurateur.
A concrete patio off the cookhouse has rows of string lights hanging above for use during events.
The hardworking part of the property is the farm, which supplies almost all of the food served at Bar Ferdinand.
A Scottish Highland cow, raised for meat.
“Plus, since we use the whole animal, one cow will last us a really long time.”
Old Chaser has laying chickens for eggs, plus other chickens and pigs raised for meat. The chef rides the ferry from the city, carrying buckets of food scraps from the Seattle restaurant to the Vashon Island farm once a week.
The farm’s orchard produces plums, cherries, quince, apples, and pears. Dillon keeps some of the apples and pears whole, but most are juiced to make cider vinegar for the restaurant’s larder.
When he bought the farm, says Dillon, the understory beneath the berry plants was out of control.
Sun Gold tomatoes thrive in the hothouse.
A makeshift greenhouse with trays of seedlings protected from the sun on shaded worktables.
Both the cookhouse and main house have large west-facing lawns, says Dillon, “but the summer sun can be brutal” so the grass goes brown seasonally.