Local Maker Spotlight: How Chicory Is Defining Farm-to-Table Dining

Since the beginning, Chicory’s mission has been about more than just creating amazing food. It’s about supporting local farms and producers who share their common value of sustainably feeding their communities.

You may think of “farm-to-table” as a culinary buzzword designed by restaurants to lure folks into their dining rooms with the promise of fresh ingredients and vegetable-forward cooking. But it’s truly much more than that. At Chicory, chef Elise Landry and her team are on a mission to promote a deeper connection between consumers and food producers by highlighting seasonal ingredients from local farmers and growers.

Opening their first restaurant in Olympia isn’t just a coincidence. Thurston County has an abundance of fertile land and hard-working folks who are willing to be good stewards of it.

Opening A Restaurant During a Pandemic

Growing up in Kansas, Elise Landry’s Cajun heritage naturally encouraged her interest in cooking. While in high school, she received an opportunity to attend a culinary program at the Broadmoor Technical Center and the rest, as they say, is history. Focusing on getting restaurant experience first-hand, she chose to forgo a traditional culinary school degree and instead landed a job in Massachusetts right out of high school, working in various restaurants and bakeries. After taking some time off to travel abroad in South America, she came home to Kansas City where she immediately began working in restaurants again. She met her husband, Adam, who was working the bar program at the restaurant next door to hers.

“Adam was one of the first partners who took my career seriously,” says Elise, “and his encouragement helped me realize the potential we had to open a restaurant of our own together.”

Tired of the midwestern climate and eager to experience a new landscape, Elise and Adam decided to move to the Pacific Northwest, searching for a location they could settle in permanently.

“Our decision to move to the Pacific Northwest had a lot to do with the abundance that is available here,” recalls Elise. “I’ve worked in kitchens all over the country, and a lot of those specialty ingredients were coming from right here in Olympia’s backyard. Being closer to those ingredients just made sense.”

Within a year of moving to Olympia, 111 Columbia Street became available for lease and they moved quickly to get into the space. And then the pandemic hit.

“We had just received the keys to the space, our business loan had been approved and everything else we needed to open Chicory was set in mid-February of 2020, a few weeks before the first shutdown. In other words, COVID was not a part of our business plan,” admits Elise.

Adam and Elise built out a lot of the space on their own with help from friends, and there was plenty of work to do, but by the time they were ready to open their doors in late July, they quickly realized that a six day a week dine-in restaurant was not going to survive in the current dining climate. People were being told to stay home, and as the “new kids on the block”, they were laying off their small staff by November.

“Adam became my sous chef, and we spent every day in the kitchen waiting for the phone to ring for take-out orders,” recalls Elise. “This is when the birth of our Nashville Hot Chicken Sandwich came to be which we still have on our menu today, and it helped us survive that dark winter. At one point the sales of that sandwich was paying the rent.”

Mending Broken Food Systems by Sourcing Locally

While opening a restaurant during a pandemic wasn’t ideal, it revealed to everyone how broken the food system is. When Chicory first opened, sourcing ingredients and working with purveyors prevented some challenges, but more commonly with larger purveyors operating on a regional or national level. As a small restaurant, meeting minimums wasn’t always possible and sometimes orders wouldn’t show up at all. As she began working more with local farmers and producers, Elise found she had no issue getting the ingredients she needed.

“Certainly, there can be some inconsistencies with naturally grown products, and availability changes depending on the season,” says Elise, “So working within those realms takes more experience and flexibility as a chef, but that has always been a huge part of Chicory’s identity.”

It takes time and patience to create connections with local farms to get specially grown ingredients for the restaurant, sometimes up to a year or more, but Elise feels the reward is worth it. This involves talking to farmers from the start of winter when they’re planning their growing season for the next year and learning with them while they discover how best to grow certain vegetables that will produce enough product to enable Elise to put it on their seasonal menus.

A farmer shows a group of people plants growing inside a hothouse

Credit: Photo courtesy of Chicory

It took two growing seasons, but Caleb Poppe, of Sundowner Farm, is now supplying Chicory with Caraflex cabbage, a tender, crunchy, vegetable with a sweet and mild cabbage flavor she’s long wanted on her menu. (The majority of the first year’s crop was obliterated by a wily herd of sheep who escaped from the lot next to his.) And this year, Ladyberry Farm near Boston Harbor and Five Hearts Farm in Olympia have successfully grown okra for Elise, a difficult crop to grow in western Washington as it loves a hotter, drier climate with lots of sun. “They’ve figured it out,” Elise shares, “and I am up to my ears in the stuff now!”

Every summer the Chicory crew heads out to tour the farms they work with, which gives everyone a chance to see how the ingredients they are cooking or serving begin in the fields. “It is important to us that our employees meet the people behind these beautiful products,” says Elise, “with the hope that they can re-tell that story to our guests and treat those ingredients with the care and respect it requires to make the best possible dishes.”

Chicory takes their commitment to local sourcing, sustainability, and supporting fair labor practices seriously. So much so that they were recently the first business in Olympia to be awarded the official Snail of Approval award by the Slow Food Greater Olympia chapter (in cooperation with Slow Food Seattle). The award recognizes food and beverage establishments that pursue and practice Slow Food values like committing to the environment, local communities, employees and purveyors, and their core values of antiracism and anti-oppression.

The Chicory Experience

“We try really hard to balance familiarity and nostalgia with innovation and exploration here at Chicory,” explains Elise when I ask her what makes Chicory an unforgettable experience. “You can expect to see things on the menu that are familiar next to dishes that might be completely foreign to you.” Elise goes on to explain they like to gain the trust of their guests through that familiarity and, at the same time, give them an opportunity to expand their experience with food.

“No ingredient is off limits for us,” says Elise. “If it grows locally and it is in season, we will find a way to use it and do our best to make it delicious.” When you come to Chicory, you’re not only supporting their small business and staff; you’re also supporting the farmers and producers they work with locally on a regular basis. It’s this chain reaction that feeds (literally and figuratively) the community here in Thurston County.

Chicory has come a long way since 2020. Brunch is the highlight of the weekend and they’ll soon be open seven days a week. They showcase a handful of collaboration dinners throughout the year with other chefs, winemakers, and brewers, and now have the opportunity to travel to other kitchens to share their talent in other communities.

“I am so proud of the menu we are executing, and I feel like we are becoming a better restaurant every day,” Elise shares. “It used to be a happy surprise to see every seat in the dining room full, but now it’s something that happens regularly. We are closer to operating like the restaurant I had always imagined. I am so proud of what we have accomplished and am excited for what the future holds.”