At Topsoil in Travelers Rest, Chef Adam Cooke turns local farm vegetables into delectable works of edible art
Adam Cooke has long been enamored with cooking vegetables—the colors, the textures, the endless flavor combinations. “I think that came out of my time at Blackberry Farm [the posh resort in Walland, Tennessee, which boasts an extensive farming program],” muses the executive chef of Topsoil restaurant. After he worked his way up to the meat station at Blackberry and became proficient at it, he found he was bored, so he asked to return to the vegetable station. “It’s a bigger toolbox to work from,” Cooke says with a smile. “You can only roast so many medium-rare steaks before you start pulling your hair out.”
As a teen growing up in Montana, he started out washing dishes in chain restaurants. He hustled his way into a prep cook position and never looked back. He credits his mentor, Martha Buser—who worked in Alice Waters’s celebrated restaurant, Chez Panisse, in Berkley, California—with schooling him in classic recipes. His time working at Buser’s bakery in Missoula, Montana, gifted him skills he uses to this day.
From Blackberry Farm, he found his way to Travelers Rest, where he was executive chef at Restaurant 17. From there, he moved briefly to Montana, but eventually ended up back in the Upstate. Topsoil, Cooke’s restaurant in TR, evolved out of his partnership with Patrick McInerney at Due South Coffee Roasters and the plant-based Topsoil Supper Club dinners they hosted. It was at one of those dinners that they met Wendy Lynam, and the three teamed up to open Topsoil in 2019.
“Super vegetable-forward” is how the James Beard Award semifinalist (Best Chef: Southeast, 2020) describes his “improvisational” menu, which changes constantly depending on the produce he sources from Topsoil’s own farm as well as ingredients he gets from other growers within a 10-mile radius of the restaurant.
Cooke pours his love of vegetables into dishes such as lion’s mane mushroom piccata and a chilled cucumber, asparagus, and almond soup—a riff on Spanish green gazpacho. Recently, the chef added a three-course prix-fixe menu at dinner, which features the likes of chive blossom tortellini; North Carolina black bass with sauteed green grapes, capers, Topsoil radishes and cauliflower; and a Brasstown short rib with green garlic peppercorn jus.
True to his experience at Blackberry Farm, Cooke has stayed firmly planted in local fields. “As I’ve grown as a cook, it’s been a joy to mentor younger cooks in the way that we work.” he shares. “We’ve taken a small restaurant that used to be a hardware store and put a really high level of service in it and stayed focused on the food. And we’ve been able to do that without tablecloths, keeping it casual. I really like where our vibe is right now.”
Topsoil Restaurant, 13 S. Main St., Travelers Rest, 864.610.2281, topsoilrestaurant.com
Topsoil Chef Adam Cooke Recipe
Asparagus and Escargot with brown butter aioli, green garlic, and smoked guanciale
from Chef Adam Cooke, Topsoil
Ingredients
- 8 oz butter
- One egg yolk (reserve the white for another use)
- 2 bulbs green garlic—don’t substitute regular garlic
- 8 oz escargot
- 2 oz smoked guanciale, speck ham, or aged country ham
- Chive blossoms, optional
- Lemon, for juice
Instructions
For the Aioli:
In a saucepan, cook the butter over medium heat, whisking constantly to keep the milk solids from burning, until the butter is fragrant and the color of light caramel. Remove from heat.
Finely mince an ounce of green garlic and add it to the butter.
Whisk the egg yolk with a little lemon juice and salt. Slowly whisk in the brown butter a little at a time so that the yolk can emulsify with the butter. If it’s a little thick, add some grapeseed oil until you have a mayonnaise consistency.
For the Escargot:
Buy the best quality escargot you can find (available in local groceries). It’s important that they are poached in a seasoned broth, so look for higher sodium content on the ingredients.
Mince the remaining garlic and simmer with the escargot in some butter, parsley, and lemon juice. Place thin shavings of the ham over the snails and keep the mixture warm.
For the Asparagus:
Trim the base and peel a strip from each side of each asparagus stalk.
Fresh asparagus doesn’t need much cooking. Heat a cast iron skillet on high heat. Place the asparagus in a dry pan, then drizzle with a little oil and salt. Cover and turn off the heat. Let the asparagus cook just through very gently.
Assemble the Dish:
Spoon the aioli onto the plate and arrange the asparagus over it. Use the escargot mixture like a sauce, making sure to spoon some of the cooking liquid over everything when you are finished plating. Serve with homemade croutons and garnish with fresh chives and their blossoms.
