What is going on here?
Is this a restaurant? A house? A private chef?
None of the above. All of the above. The best quick summary I can think of is that it’s a Private Dining Experience, but if you’ll indulge me a few more words, I can do better with an explanation.
Homard was born out of my love of cooking and entertaining. While it’s great to cook for myself, family, and friends, I wanted a format to continually push my food to a new level. I wanted to cook for new people with more of a 4th wall in between the kitchen and the diner. To be fully honest, just like my kids, I wanted to “play restaurant.”
So, I extended a broader invitation to come to my house and eat in the fall of 2021. I’m lucky to work at a company full of bright, creative, kind, encouraging, empathetic people, and I felt confident inviting fellow food enthusiasts to my emerging concept, even if we didn’t know each other (yet). As you’ll see elsewhere on the site, the setup was simple: diners get the best food I can provide over 10+ courses, and in return, diners reimburse me for raw material costs and tell me what they liked and didn’t like.
After 5 dinners in the fall of 2021, I’m excited to continue this grand experiment, cook for more people, and continue to learn and grow.
Oh - I’m Gardner by the way. If you’re reading this, you almost certainly already knew that. I have no professional bio in cooking beyond what you read here and a voracious appetite (literally and figuratively) to learn more about food.