Kevin A. Roberts
When Michael Gallina was chef de cuisine at the renowned Blue Hill at Stone Barns, in Pocantico Hills, New York, it’s likely that he sourced the ingredients for a summery salad on that idyllic working farm. In St. Louis, where the James Beard Award–nominated chef operates Vicia and Winslow’s Table with his wife, Tara Gallina, he’s had to extend his reach, but the results are just as impressive. Gallina begins with fresh local beets—baby yellows, whimsical Chioggias, and the crunchy Badger Flame from Row 7 Seed Company—and fills in gaps with red “storage” varieties. The beets and fresh berries are marinated in a vinaigrette touched with local honey. The chef acknowledges that he and many others don’t care much for beets, so the challenge is to “sweeten them up and balance them out,” which he does with toasted seeds and such herbs as purple-green fennel and mint, grown outside the restaurant. The binding ingredient: a mild local goat cheese. The Beet & Berry salad is “a home run in all seasons,” Gallina says, “and there’s nothing more fun than seeing a beet hater come around.”
