V. Kelly’s Gastropub

We are very excited to announce that we have implemented and entirely new concept for V. Kelly’s Pub. The former irish american pub has been reinvented as a fun and exciting “gastropub”. I know the first question you will ask me is “what exactly is a gastropub”?? I would say that a gastropub is fun, approachable, hip food served in a casual atmosphere. We utilize regional and local ingredients and show that great food doesn’t have to be overcomplicated or expensive.  We emphasize products that are grown and crafted in our bio region. Some of the local artisans and farmers that  we feature on our menu are, tanglewood farms, cedar key clams, fullwood farms, bentons smokey mountain bacon, twinn bridges farms, fresh start hydroponics and berry good farms, just to name a few. I had a lot of fun creating this menu, exploring some unique regional cuisine that we hope will appeal to locals as well as our world traveling guests.  Our appetizers  feature Items such as alligator tail, house made corn dog “lollipops” , truffeled popcorn, and minorcan fish chowder. We also feature  a selection of hand crafted burgers and sandwiches including our massive “triple double burger”. This monstrosity of a burger is yours for free provided you can consume it in under 3o minutes. This is you chance to try to for you own “man vs. Food” experience. The triple double consists of  three grilled cheese sandwiches with two half pound burgers layered in between them each topped with 2 slices of cheese and 4 slices of bacon. Take this baby down with an order of fries in under 30 minutes and its all yours. We dare you…. If your not quite up for that challenge we invite you to come in and sample one of our selections of over 90 hand crafted beers. featuring local, national and world-wide hand crafted and microbrews. Our brews are available by the bottle, pint, growler and in some large format bottles. some of the local brews that we feature are intuition ale works, bold city and dukes cold nose. V. Kellys, Located inside of the Sawgrass Marriott golf resort and Spa is a fun place to hang out with friends new and old and offers an experience unlike any that you will find in Ponte Vedra Beach Florida. Cant wait to see you all here.

Cheers,

Chef David

What is local??

     Our signature  restaurant at the Sawgrass Marriott Golf Resort and Spa is the Augustine Grille. Our philosophy is to serve as much local food as we possibly can. Many people ask me “what is local’? So I have put together a litte bit of information for you.

What exactly is local food?
Talk of local food is everywhere. But what does it mean? How local is local? Local is shorthand for an idea that doesn’t have a firm definition. Unlike organic standards, which entail specific legal definitions, inspection processes, and labels, local means different things to different people, depending on where they live, how long their growing season is, and what products they are looking for.

Practically speaking, local food production can be thought of in concentric circles that start with growing food at home, another term for that is “hyper local”. The next ring out might be food grown in our immediate community – then state, region, and country. For some parts of the year or for some products that thrive in the local climate, it may be possible to buy closer to home. At other times, or for less common products, an expanded reach may be required.

People who value local as their primary food criterion are sometimes referred to as locavores. The term “locavore” was coined by Jessica Prentice from the San Francisco Bay Area for World Environment Day 2005 to describe and promote the practice of eating a diet consisting of food harvested from within an area most commonly bound by a 100 mile radius. With such excitement and momentum building in the local food movement, the New Oxford American Dictionary chose locavore as its word of the year in 2007.

While local is certainly a flexible term, the basic concept is simple: local foods are produced as close to home as possible. Buying local supports a more sustainable food system because true sustainability goes beyond the methods used in food production to include every step that brings food from farm to plate.

Local vs. sustainable
Sustainable agriculture involves food production methods that are healthy, do not harm the environment, respect workers, are humane to animals, provide fair wages to farmers, and support farming communities. Sustainability includes buying food as locally as possible. Buying local food does not always guarantee that it is sustainably produced. 

Small, local farms are run by farmers who live on their land and work hard to preserve it. They protect open spaces by keeping land in agricultural use and preserve natural habitats by maintaining forest and wetlands. By being good stewards of the land, seeking out local markets, minimizing packaging, and harvesting food only when it is ready to consume, farmers can significantly reduce their environmental impact. In fact, studies show that sustainable agricultural practices can actually increase food production by up to 79% while at the same time actively reducing the effects of farming on climate change through carbon sequestration.

We are strong supporters of the local food movement and have great working relationships with our local farm partners. Next time you are in Ponte Vedra please come and dine with us.

Regards,

Chef David

The Augustine Grille summer menu is here…………..

We are very excited to announce that our summer menu is now in place. For those of you whose career has not taken you into a professional kitchen you may be interested in knowing  how  a new menu is conceptualized, crafted and implemented. It is always a creative adventure . With our farm to table concept the creative process always starts with a trip to the farm. I chat with the local farmers to gain an insight as to what will be growing and when they think it will be harvested. We take a trip to Mayport and talk to fisherman to see what local fish will be in season. Talk to the pig farmer to see how the heat is affecting his farm. Talk to our purveyors and see what other local products that they can source for us. This is a great food information search. Armed with that information its back to the Sawgrass Marriott Golf Resort and Spa to play with our food (my mother would be so proud).

The culinary team at the Augustine Grille thrives on new ideas and products. We take everything that we have learned in our epicurean investigation and start to create dishes. The brainstorming begins.  What do you think of this combo? Do you think the guests will eat sweetbreads? Why aren’t we selling more pork belly? (It is my favorite thing on the menu….) This theoretical menu process goes on for a few weeks untill we finally commit to putting ideas down on paper for a menu first draft. After several rounds of writing and rewriting the menu we begin to put the dishes together. We run them as specials, get our valued guests feedback, and  tweak them some more untill we feel that we have the perfect dish.

At this point it is a waiting game. Being the chef of a farm to table restaurant really lets you appreciate the daily struggles that farmers go through in order to make their living. Are we going to get rain? Did we get too much rain? Is it hot enough? Did it freeze last night? Did the horned worm take out the tomato plants overnight? (Bad personal experience, I am not really that bitter!) All questions that keep a farmer awake at night and now directly affect our new menu. Then we get the call we have been waiting for from the farm, “we are harvesting, go ahead and roll out the new menu”.

There are some great new dishes on this menu and it has been very well received by our guests and staff. Some of my favorites are the pork belly with a fried hen egg, brioche and pea tendrils. Also the local snapper with baby bok choy (from fresh start hydroponic farm), red Thai curry sauce ( with herbs from twinn bridges) with carolina gold rice. And don’t forget to try  our in-house dry aged steaks, new york strip and ribeyes. I promise you will not find a better steak in the Ponte Vedra, Jacksonville area.

We couldn’t be more pleased with the new menu and invite everyone to come in and have a taste. As always thank you for supporting us and our local farmers.

Chef David Scalise

Bees are here……..

Our bee hives are alive and well at the

Marriott Golf resort and Spa. We are going hyper local by raising our own bees and producing our own honey. The honey is featured in our ten grain bread at The Augustine Grille. Keep an eye on this blog for continuous updates on our lovely bee colonies……