Acclaimed chef moving in on Love Lane?
Acclaimed local chef Keith Luce is currently heading up a kickstarter page to raise funds for a smokehouse he said will help him develop his cured meats. But you’ll have to settle for reading between the lines if you want to know exactly where he plans to sell those meats.
“All of the pieces of the puzzle, including a storage and cutting facility are secured and two retail/wholesale outlets will be launched in the spring of 2013 to help sell and market the fabricated end product — Artisan cured meats,” Mr. Luce wrote on the kickstarter page for Love Lane Market Artisinal Curing.
While the name of the page certainly gives a large clue to where one of the two retail outlets might be, Mr. Luce said he isn’t ready to divulge too many details.
“It’s a project I’ve been working on and is an extension of my family farm,” the former White House sous chef told The Suffolk Times. “I’m working on being able to say more.”
The Love Lane Market, which has sold Mr. Luce’s products since it opened in 2011, has been closed following damage from Superstorm Sandy. A message written Dec. 2 on the market’s Facebook page said it would reopen after repairs to the store’s damaged refrigeration units are complete.
Mr. Luce needs to raise $50,000 before March 4 in order to receive his kickstarter donations. So far, 17 backers have donated about $2,000.
The chef has been making moves since stepping down as executive chef of the Jedediah Hawkins Inn in December. That month, he consulted on the menu for The All Star, the long-awaited bowling alley and restaurant that opened on Route 58 in Riverhead, near the intersection of Route 105.
Now, he hopes to take the farm-to-table concept to a whole new level on the North Fork.
His cured meat products, which he said includes ham, bacon and sausage, are from a small herd of Mangalitsa pigs he’s been raising on his family’s Sound Avenue farm.
According to his kickstarter page, the pigs are free ranging on five acres of farmland and are fed fresh vegetable scraps from his restaurant kitchen, spent grain from a local micro-brewery and cooked potatoes.
