Stages Brings Local Flavors from The Farm to Your Plate

Jim Czack and Annette Young, owners of Loudonshire Farm in Loudon, raise heritage breed animals, including Pekin ducks, Embden geese and the Black Welsh Mountain sheep, pictured here.

Restaurants sourcing ingredients directly from farmers and other producers has become a common practice that has spread from fine dining settings to craft beer pubs. What does an authentic farm-to-table relationship look like in practice?

Evan Hennessey, the award-winning executive chef at Stages at One Washington in Dover, has developed and nurtured longstanding partnerships with New Hampshire farmers and fishermen, including NH Mushroom Company in Tamworth, Fox Point Oysters of Little Bay and the Rye-based tinned seafood company, Gulf of Maine Conservas. 

Perhaps the most notable is the relationship Hennessey has sustained with Jim Czack of Loudonshire Farm in Loudon since the restaurant’s opening in 2012. 

“We’ve created a great understanding as far as what Jim and the animals and the farm and the land are able to produce, what I can do, and how those two things work together,” Hennessey said during a visit to Czack’s farm last July. “In order to get it from his farm to my table, we have to have that core understanding there. And, to me, that’s the epitome of what farm-to-table should mean.” 

Hennessey and Czack’s relationship has evolved. In its current form, Hennessey pays into the farm each month — almost like a community-supported agriculture membership — which provides Czack with the money up front to raise the exact number of animals needed to serve in the restaurant. This model arose during the pandemic, offering a strategy for both businesses to survive.

Chef Evan Hennessey of Stages playfully rubs the heads of Black Welsh rams at Loudonshire Farm in Loudon.

“And now we’ve created this interesting little microcosm of how the whole thing works,” Hennessey said from a crouched position inside a pen of sheep, rubbing the thick coat of an ewe as if it were a pet of his own. 

The two first met at a collaborative barn dinner, where Czack’s heritage-breed Chocolate turkeys — a large variety named for their brown feathers — were featured on the menu. 

 “I was just blown away by all the thought that went behind what it was,” Hennessey recalled from that evening. “It was not what I was used to hearing.” 

Loudonshire Farm, tended to and owned by Czack and his wife, Annette Young, is a 70-acre property nestled in the rolling green hills of Merrimack Valley. The pair raise only heritage-breed livestock, primitive animals once bred for their ability to adapt to their environments and their status as the standard in quality. With the advent of industrial agricultural practices, these animals were eventually replaced by modern, commercial breeds celebrated for their rapid growth. The pillar of Czack’s farming practices, these traditional livestock breeds — such as Emden geese, Rouen ducks and Black Welsh Mountain sheep — are rare to find. 

“I think what works for me and Evan as a team is we’re both on the exact same page where nothing else matters except for ultimate quality; true genuine quality without sacrifice or skirting around edges,” Czack said, leaning against the wooden slats of the pen, his brown tweed cap shading his eyes. “That quality involves a lot more expense and a lot more labor. But I actually have someone to sell that level of quality to, who appreciates it and demands it.” 

Czack’s slow-growth method is a major appeal for Hennessey. For example, the White Pekin ducks Czack raises are different from the hybrid Grimaud ducks commonly found in hatcheries, developed specifically for how quickly they can be raised. 

“That level of quality is the quality of finances. It’s cheaper to produce,” Czack said, referring to the commercial breeds.

Quality, for Czack, has a lot to do with the animal’s flavor profile. Instead of slaughtering his Pekin line at 42 days, Czack waits until the bird molts for the second time, which ends up being somewhere between 13 and 14 weeks. 

Chef Evan Hennessey examines grilled peach halves he is prepping for a dish at Stages in Dover.

“And that creates a totally different experience of what duck meat can be,” he said. “I think most people say they don’t like duck because they’ve never had a real duck. It’s just a different level of quality that you’re not going to get somewhere else. Even if you buy them from most local farms, they’re still raising Grimauds. That’s just the way it is.” 

From the pen, Czack and Young pointed to a flock of Rouen ducks taking refuge from the afternoon sun in the shade of a parked tractor; their plumage, with its striking purple accent, resembles that of a mallard. 

“Those are his babies,” Young said before explaining how they were raised specifically for Hennessey and required upward of two years of work before they’d be available at the restaurant. 

Similarly, the Black Welsh rams Czack breeds will overwinter, requiring two seasons on the farm before they go to market. 

“When you take a breed that’s developed to grow fast, they put on their muscle and then they put on that fat layer. That’s when you want to slaughter them, at that prime,” Czack said. “But if you miss that window, the muscle is still aging, and now it’s working muscle, and that’s when it starts to get tougher.” 

But with the slow-grow method, Czack doesn’t face that problem. Each year, the rams lose their body condition. During the summer, they rebuild their muscle while retaining the flavor from the old muscle. “I could plate an 8-year-old ewe for you, and you’ll say, ‘That’s the best lamb I’ve ever had. I can’t believe how tender it is!’” Czack said. “And we’ve done this at the restaurant. It’s insane.”

Hennessey went on to explain this exact moment in the restaurant, sharing with guests that they were, in fact, eating an 8-year-old sheep and watching their mouths drop in disbelief.

Diners at Stages sit at a six-setting bar overlooking the kitchen while chefs prepare a multi-course meal.

“But it is breed-specific,” Czack was quick to add, a gaggle of Emden geese honking nearby, disrupting the conversation. 

In a few weeks, six of the farm’s 12 rams would be slaughtered for Hennessey, while the other six would remain with Czack for breeding purposes.

“Evan doesn’t call and say, ‘I need 35 pounds of chops.’ Instead, he asks ‘What do you have?’ He works with what is available,” Czack said. 

“Right now, we have tuna on the menu, because a buddy of mine caught the tuna,” Hennessey continued. “When the sheep come in, the sheep come on the menu. So, we flex and flow with what we have versus the standard menu mix of like, ‘we have to have the meat, we have to have the fish, we have to have the chicken, we have to have this. We have to have that.’” 

“We have an understanding,” Czack began. “Evan actually comes and picks up his order. I’m not just delivering it. Evan comes to the farm. Evan is a part of the farm. He’s here with the animals.” (At that exact moment, a sheep standing beside Hennessey bleats and he responds with a cordial “thank you.”)

“For us,” Hennessey added, “it’s taking out all the middlemen and putting the people that should be together, together.” 

At Stages later that fall, Hennessey and his sous chef, Yundi Li, moved around the kitchen stirring sauces on the stove, pulling fresh biscuits from the oven, and tweezing edible flowers and herbs onto dishes just before placing them in front of guests, their movements seemingly choreographed like dancers performing a ballet. 

Hennessey’s menu changes often to fit what’s available, and when guests arrive, they don’t know what they’ll be eating until they sit down. On this particular evening, the menu included confit tomatoes in a broth of lobster accented with bright yellow flowers and served in a warmed earthenware pot; a dish of grilled peaches over hatch hog mushrooms — supplied by a local forager — corn, and a warm vinaigrette of sheep jus and black truffle; and grilled sheep loin from Czack’s farm paired with sweet cantaloupe, the mild spice of Jimmy Nardello peppers, and a light foam of razor clam juice. 

“Everything we do is about the food that’s around us versus hand-picking a couple of little local items to highlight,” Hennessey said between courses while guests at the single six-seat bar that overlooked the open kitchen savored every bite. “Everything we do is like that. Take the sheep, for example. We’ll showcase a bigger dish with the loins now. And we’re doing that with the cantaloupes. They’re a ‘right here, right now’ thing. And then as the seasons go on, that cut in the dish will change with maybe some other vegetable or something that we’ve preserved to go along with it.” 

When Hennessey receives animals from the farm, he relies on a variety of culinary methods to use every part of the animal. Bones might be used to make stocks while certain cuts of the animal might be spiced and smoked to use on the preservation trays in The Living Room, a cozy, cocktail lounge separate from the dining area that serves small bites to patrons looking for a more casual experience. 

Yundi Li places red Jimmy Nardello peppers next to a slice of grilled lamb loin from Loudonshire Farm.

Hennessey and staff have also learned the ancient technique of garum-making to use parts of the animal that might otherwise be thrown out. Although garum is traditionally made from small, salted fish, Hennessey inoculates sheep organs with koji rice — an ingredient that aids in the fermentation process — to create a dark, rich sauce used to season various dishes.

This evening, Hennessey cooked the backstrap of Czack’s Black Welsh sheep in grilled oil. He then briefly grilled the loin over an open fire, small pieces of birchwood ignited below, before glazing the meat. 

“Understanding how the animal grows and how it changes as it grows is key to, at least on my end, how to cook,” he said, checking the bottom of the meat before turning it over with a pair of tongs. “My portion of this is tiny. I mean you’re looking at hundreds, or thousands, of years of animals, of life and how it got to be here. And my job is to not screw it up.” 

As they served each dish across the bar, Hennessey and Li described the components to their guests, including where the ingredients were sourced. 

“I think in terms of the education of our guests, this is when the magic light comes on, and we get to go into this beautiful story about these slow-growers, how the muscle works and how the fat happens, and how we’ve learned to change our cooking methods in accordance with the animal,” Hennessey said. “This has shaped how we cook.”

This awareness informs the people who dine in his restaurant as well as staff, interns and other guest chefs. 

“I won’t be here forever. My hope, our hope, is that all this is handed to the next generation of chefs,” Hennessey said. “And the best way for them to understand it is to see it.”

As the dinner service came to a close, Hennessey went on to share a fond memory of such a visit: eating freshly baked bread with raw butter in Czack’s red barn, brown Irish Dexter cows in green fields under a blue sky, the idyllic pastoral setting, in view. 

Moments he knows his staff can appreciate.

“I think they’re able to slow down and actually see how things should be,” Hennessey said.