Why is it so important to you to source from local farmers and purveyors?
González: Having a connection with them is very important. Sourcing from local, small producers gives us the opportunity to make sure that we are bringing the best ingredients we can to the table, and also support small farms and producers.
We’ve always had this mentality that we’re going to go with the flow, and that applies to our menu, too. For example, at Emelina, we don’t think about a dish and then go out looking for the ingredients. Since we work with small farms and local producers here in the area, we contact them first. We see what ingredients they have, and depending on what they have available, then that’s how we put the menu together. The farm and the season are telling us what to cook, not the other way around.
Tell us about a favorite dish on the current menu that you’re excited about and the inspiration or ingredients behind it.
González: The salad dish has been fun to come up with because it’s all about the summer fruit. We have mango, sapodilla, lychees, dragon fruit.
We use local milk from Florida to make ricotta cheese and turn that into a smoked ricotta cream to go with the fruit. And we turn sapodilla into a barbecue sauce. We brought in some country ham from Benton’s Hams in Tennessee to balance the sweetness of the fruit, and pecans from North Florida as well. Then we add local herbs and a guava preserve that we made last summer [during guava season]. Before we even opened Emelina, we were preserving a lot of ingredients.
Salazar: I really like the Yuca & Oyster dish. It’s so well balanced and delicate, but at the same time, so flavorful. That for me is just perfect, also while highlighting everything from here in Florida.
We pickle Treasure Coast oysters and then poach them. We use the yuca three different ways: perfectly crisp fried yuca, a yuca cream with herbs and preserved lemon, and finish it with a yuca foam.
We use a technique we learned back in our time at SingleThread. There, they do it with potatoes and uses an enzyme to eat all the starch to become super creamy and delicious. I remember our faces when we first learned this technique. We looked at each other and were like, “Oh my god, this would be perfect with yuca,” because yuca has a lot of starch. So when making a purée, it becomes gummy, almost like mochi. Once all the starch disintegrates from the yuca, it becomes this creamy, beautiful purée.
It comes with a side of boniato bread because people want something to scoop up every inch of the sauce at the bottom. Boniato is one of the most important roots back in Cuba, but it can also be found in Colombia. It’s really easy to plant and cultivate there.
People just love that dish. For me, it’s my absolute favorite. It’s just so well balanced. Initially, it’s acidic, it’s creamy, it has a lot of flavor. At the same time, it’s a little bit sweet, it has crunch, it has a foam. It’s just delicious.
Dining and Cooking