Chatham Bars Inn Farm impresses with dew-kissed produce, fresh-cut flowers, and community-focused events.
by Jennifer Sperry
Showing up to a farm dinner in late June, we take in the fields, glowing in the late afternoon sun. It’s impossible not to be charmed by the rows of veggies and flowers making their way into the world, punctuated by utilitarian greenhouses, hot houses, and tractors. It’s a working farm, but a beautiful one.
For our meal, curated personally by Chatham Bars Inn Executive Chef Andrew Chadwick, we head to a grouping of farm tables on an accommodating patch of lawn. The seating arrangements—decorated simply with bouquets of cut flowers (from the farm, of course), with strings of bistro lights overhead—complements the rustic setting perfectly.
A menu tells us what’s to come, with each course designed to utilize what’s prime for harvest. For this dinner, we are treated to a crudité of farm veggies, homemade breads and butter, broccolini Caesar, roasted swordfish filets with salad spinach, and strip loin with baby beets and fennel. Served family-style, the dishes are a sweet symphony of fresh, unadulterated flavors.
These weekly Farm-to-Table dinners, held June through mid-September, sell out quickly. However, the retail farm stand is open six days a week for those craving their own slice of harvested bounty. With crops sprawling in the background, you know immediately that the food here is as fresh as it can be. Local treats, cheeses, bouquets, and potted plants (don’t miss the exotic tomato varieties) round out the offerings.
Besides these in-demand farm dinners, Chatham Bars Inn Farm’s primary raison d’être is growing produce for the award-winning resort in nearby Chatham. “We ship over three to four thousand pounds of tomatoes, two thousand pounds of lettuce, and more weekly to Chatham Bars Inn,” says Farm Manager Josh Schiff. “We have constant dialogues with the chefs at the Inn in order to maximize what is growing best at the moment.”
Schiff has taken great pains to expand the eight-acre farm’s output each season without sacrificing the founding ethos of regenerative farming. “These days, a lot of hotels have gardens, but this is a genuine, high-production farm,” continues Schiff. “You hear farm-to-table bandied about almost everywhere, but when we say it, we really mean it.”
Out of the farm’s 125 vegetable varieties, tomatoes are perhaps its most popular. “We grow 42 kinds in all shades and sizes,” elaborates Schiff. “This year, we are developing a signature tomato for the Inn. At the end of the season, we will taste the flavor characteristics of all the different options and choose one winner.”
While the Cape’s sandy soil is much different than the rich fields outside Chicago, where Schiff’s farming career began, the upbeat manager is happy to find himself working in Brewster, fulfilling the culinary needs of a celebrated resort and hosting game-changing dinners and public events.
“The soil is much better in the Midwest,” notes Schiff, “but everything else is better here on Cape Cod.”
Chatham Bars Inn Farm
For more information, visit chathambarsinn.com/the-farm
@chathambarsinn
3034 Main St., Brewster
