She immediately fell for Stewart, whom she called “crab cake guy,” since she didn’t know staffer names and because he was the only one who nailed the oil-and-butter ratio for perfect pan browning. Duskie Estes picking curry blossoms that she uses for roasted cauliflower from her garden near the entrance to zazu kitchen + farm in The Barlow in Sebastopol, California. “Shove in, dig in, figure it out,” she said. She worked in three Douglas restaurants, each with menus that changed nightly. It was sink or swim in Seattle, when she was hired to cover for a sous chef headed into a recovery program - he had fallen in a deep-fat fryer after drinking a pitcher of lemon drop cocktail. “Survival,” Estes said, with her hallmark laugh that expresses constant joy. (Photo by Erik Castro)Ĭall it artisanal, or survival, the couple has done the heavy lifting needed to create what is now a successful operation featuring hearty restaurant dishes such as pork belly and Liberty Duck cassoulet, cocktails including a Black Pig bacon bourbon sour with maple and Madeira, and signature porky delights such as Black Pig bacon caramel popcorn and maple bacon donuts.
ZAZU RESTAURANT HOW TO
We had few resources for butchering, so we had to figure it out, and then to make money, we had to learn how to use all the parts in a restaurant way.” Duskie Estes with one of her rabbits at her home in Forestville.
Except at zazu, farmers came in with whole pigs. “Tom worked with farmers, and we liked that. “We’d been chefs in big cities who just ordered food,” said Stewart, who catered Bill Gates’ wedding in 1994. Stewart had grown up in New York, Estes in San Francisco. (Photo by Erik Castro)īut flash back to 1997, when Stewart, now 48, and Estes, now 47, met while working together at the acclaimed Tom Douglas collection of restaurants in Seattle. The potbelly pig known as “Lucky Precious Piggy Pop Nugget” at the home of John Stewart and Duskie Estes in Forestville. (Photo by Erik Castro)Īnd they’re constantly experimenting, from a new lip balm called Lip Lardo (made with their own pig lard, grapeseed and avocado oils, beeswax, avocado and shea butters, and almond extract), to a Lard Lather soap, to a prototype of bacon Pop Rocks, which Estes acknowledges may die a snap-crackle death because “they smell like feet.” Wood-fire roasted pork loin from Front Porch Farms and Santa Rosa plumbs served with a arugula and squash blossom salad next to an iron skillet of wood-fire roasted shishito peppers with Marcona almonds and shavings of Pennyroyal Farm Boont Corners cheese at the home of John Stewart and Duskie Estes in Forestville. In fact, Estes was a vegetarian for 23 years until zazu came along. After so many years, it’s still the stuff of wonder for Estes and Stewart, who admit that before moving to Sonoma in 2000, their pork came from packages delivered by a food-service company. Step three: Build a “pig palace” in the backyard (complete with a rain shower to keep the piggies cool), raise the creatures on a luxury organic diet, then humanely slaughter them and butcher in your very own USDA certified kitchen. Step two: Cut through red tape to procure the animals. Step one: Find some rare, European heritage-breed Mangalitsa piglets. Yet sketching one of their recipes actually goes like this: Duskie Estes tasting her wood-fired roasted shishito peppers with Marcona almonds and shavings of Pennyroyal Farm Boont Corners cheese alongside an arugula salad at her home in Forestville. It’s soul-warming fare in a rustic, California-Mediterranean style.
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