Thirty Acres - CLOSED

[glx]

Blah blah blah bullshit we got so high on our own supply that we drove ourselves out of business

FTFY

[jc_insomniac]

Screw Thirty Acres. I haven't been there in over two years when I took my best friend there for her birthday dinner. Admittedly we were very late for our reservation (BFF is a nurse and the end of her shift is very unpredictable), but our friends who were there kept the hostess and server abreast of our arrival. When we got there, I apologized profusely not just to the hostess, but to the server AND the chef/owner, whatever his name is. Hostess was meh. Server was very understanding and sweet. Chef/owner was downright rude. We could've easily walked out at that point but we decided to stay. Food was great as expected, we tipped our server very well, but haven't been back since. And A and I used to eat there frequently and *always* brought visiting friends/fam there. Now I just snicker when I walk by and see the dining room completely empty.

[MÇA]

Chef interviewed by Grubstreet: Another Acclaimed, Ambitious Restaurant Is Closing — Here’s Why. Some highlights:

"Once we had our daughter, and she’s almost 16 months old now, we just started really thinking about what we want to do, how we want to do it, and where we see ourselves settling down. To be honest, she was really the catalyst for a lot of it, and it became a lot about where and how we want to raise our daughter.

After that, we started to reevaluate where Thirty Acres was at, how it was doing, and where we saw that it needed to be to keep it running. Ultimately, it wasn’t the place that was going to be a sustainable mom-and-pop shop for our family here in New Jersey, at this time right now. It was both a financial decision as much as a personal decision. Everything came together, and it seemed like we had an opportunity now to move on or let this thing run itself into the ground. We didn’t want to have to deal with it: We wanted to make a cohesive plan and make sure it was the best plan for our family.

Thirty Acres had a really good run. As a first restaurant for first-time owners, it provided us with so much, and it was the ultimate learning experience. We really feel like it was a place that was a product of the time that it existed in. This is what Thirty Acres was supposed to be: a restaurant that lasted four years, and we’re really, really cool with it. It’s hard because — people like to compare it to children, and it’s in no way like our child — but it is our firstborn, and we wanted it be healthy and running properly. Ultimately, there was a point, perhaps, where Thirty Acres and Jersey City maybe weren’t seeing eye to eye. That’s fine. That’s totally cool. It’s not a big deal. Maybe we weren’t in the right place at the right time, or maybe Jersey City wasn’t the right place, at this time, for us."

"We’ve done our best to provide Jersey City with a restaurant that’s unlike anything else. We tried to do something different. We saw it, originally, that we’d move out to Jersey and somehow escape the New York City press and escape the restaurant life. It was super naïve. But then it did get press, and that was sort of nice, and then we reveled in the accolades. At this point, now, we’re actually trying to get away from New York City. The environment here is so hypercompetitive and of-the-moment. It was great for me as a cook, but as an owner, and as someone who’s growing a family, it sucks."

"What we tried to do at Thirty Acres is always, at base level, just make it different. And not different than the rest of the world, but different than what’s happening in New Jersey. Honestly, my wife and I talk about this all the time: I don’t want to push the envelope anymore. I don’t want to tell people they need to learn this or just have an open mind: That shit’s pretentious as fuck, and I don’t want to do it anymore. I don’t want to tell people how they should eat. The truth is, people go eat a slice of pizza or a burger and they’re happy as shit — and so am I when I do that. It’s so fucking condescending and pretentious to tell people that this is different and this is how they should eat."

"People have asked, “Why not try to do something in Jersey City?” We just feel that Thirty Acres has put us in a light — and we need to extinguish that light and move on. We need to really refresh. We don’t want to have any bad feelings toward the city; we don’t want anyone to have shitty feelings about us. We just want to recognize what happened and move on."

[MÇA]

Acclaimed Jersey City restaurant closing its doors, report says
By Ron Zeitlinger | The Jersey Journal
on October 06, 2015 at 9:57 AM, updated October 06, 2015 at 11:36 AM

Thirty Acres, the Jersey City restaurant that opened to rave reviews and critical acclaim in 2012, is closing, New York Eater reported.

"I opened a restaurant with my husband, it didn't work out, we had a kid, and now we're moving across the country," tweeted Alex Pemoulie, who co-owns the restaurant with her husband, Kevin.

In April 2013, the Downtown restaurant was named a semifinalist for a prestigious James Beard Award in the best new restaurant category. Later that year Thirty Acres was featured on the Travel Channel's "Bizarre Foods America" with Andrew Zimmern.

New York Eater said Nov. 28 will be Thirty Acres' last day and that the couple plan to move to Seattle, where they "eventually" hope to open something up.

"It wasn't financially stable, or the type of thing where we could sustain our family life with our new daughter," Kevin Pemoulie told New York Eater.

"That's probably for a lot of reasons. Maybe the timing wasn't right. Maybe Jersey City didn't want us, or we didn't want them at the right time. There's no negative here whatsoever. We're really, really happy to move on."

The website noted that earlier this year Thirty Acres converted to a 10-course, $75-a-plate menu. Read more

[moelissa]

I love Thirty Acres, but miss their old menu. The tasting menu is really expensive especially when you add the booze pairing.

[MÇA]

http://munchies.vice.com/videos/chefs-night-out-thirty-acres

[AmbushBug]

"a veritable sixth borough"   

I like the phrase "sixth borough" — it's an incredibly helpful way to identify hacks. Without it, how would I have known not to bother reading the rest of this pablum?

[Rabelais]

"a veritable sixth borough"   

[MÇA]

Jersey City's Thirty Acres Shows Bright Future of America's Tasting Menus
by Ryan Sutton, Apr 1, 2015, 11:13a

So if Brooklyn, the land of thirty-course tasting menus, is the new Manhattan, and if Queens, hawking $120 ramen feasts, is the new Brooklyn, it’s tempting to think of Jersey City, teeming with $2,000 studios and panoramic views of New York's financial district, as the next geographic parvenu on that list, a veritable sixth borough that’s just a 10 minute train ride from Midtown. Try getting to Staten Island that fast.

Thing is, the hip kids have never really flocked to Jersey City with the same gusto that's propelled them toward Williamsburg, Bushwick, Greenpoint, or other too-cool-for-school neighborhoods. And while New Yorkers are generally happy crossing the Hudson to watch the Jets lose, see Springsteen play, or hit up the state’s gorgeous shoreline come summertime, those same folks don’t typically travel to JC for dinner —the city's fine South Indian hangouts notwithstanding.

So this is why it’s worth paying attention to the three-year-old Thirty Acres, run by two Momofuku vets who are working hard to change our perceptions of Garden State gustation. And part of that change involves increasing the price of admission.

When wife-and-husband team Alex and Kevin Pemoulie opened their 40-seat, BYO venue in 2012, they packed the space with locals and New York "tourists" alike, all chowing down on affordable small plates packed with strong, salty, in-your-face flavors. In the early days, Kevin, the chef, sent out maple syrup-spiked pastrami (better than Katz's), grilled cod collar (nicely fatty), and best of all, raw hamachi with trout roe and jalapeno — a dish imbued with so much oil and heat it tasted like what would happen if a Michelin-starred chef took over Guy Fieri’s test kitchen. The menu, of course, was always la carte; a meal for two — two appetizers, a shared pasta, two larger plates and dessert — would run about $125 after tax and tip (but before wine).

Then Thirty Acres switched to a tasting menu-only way of life in February. Cost: $75 for ten courses, which means a Friday night date would run no less than $190. Add on full wine pairings at $55 each and you're at $330. That’s a heck of a hike, though you quickly forget about prices when the grilled poussin with spicy lobster sauce arrives. The combination is so startling that David Chang could serve it at Momofuku Ko and watch a flurry of think pieces roll in on the blogosphere. The pairing is a seamless surf and turf; each component bursts with such concentrated funk it’s hard to tell where the shellfish flavor ends and the poultry flavor begins.

As Thirty Acres transforms itself from an ambitious local venue into a special occasion, destination restaurant, some will dismiss it as another example of the tristate area becoming increasingly inaccessible to everyday eaters. And no matter the cost, most diners wouldn't splurge on a two hour, 10-course menu too often. But this critic will argue that a long set menu is precisely what Jersey City needs. High-end options are lacking here. And restaurants, like communities and the people living in them, deserve a chance to evolve in unexpected ways, even if that means the institution becomes pricier for all. Read more

[CeeDub]

Been pondering the wine/beer list.  Seems like a win win. 300% markup is standard; most restos charge the cost of the bottle per glass. And with a limited selection, the $20 per bottle corkage fee will def. bring in some profit.  Everybody's happy!

[MÇA]

'Bizarre Foods America' features Jersey City restaurant for upcoming episode
By Rafal Rogoza / The Jersey Journal
on June 01, 2013 at 8:23 PM, updated June 01, 2013 at 11:52 PM

Andrew Zimmern has traveled extensively as host of Travel Channel's "Bizarre Foods America" and has tasted hundreds of exotic dishes but for the first time earlier today he and his production crew chowed down delicacies that can only be found at Jersey City's 30 Acres restaurant

"I think it’s interesting to see a chef who’s introducing Jerseyites to a taste of their state that they didn’t otherwise think of," said Zimmern of 30 Acres owner and chef Kevin Pemoulie, who since the opening of his restaurant in April of 2012 has been busy cooking what he describes are seasonal American meals made with local ingredients.

"I have these visual images, I think of him always reaching behind him into this giant bevy of New Jersey ingredients: local fish, local farms, supporting local, local, local," said Zimmern, noting that nowadays cooking will local ingredients isn't rare "but there’s very few people that stay committed to that."

“He does that here, and by the way he does it in an extremely clever modernist way with a modernist's sensibility. And I find that's spectacular as well,” Zimmern added.

Around 6 p.m., Pemoulie went to work in the kitchen of his small restaurant, near the intersection of Wayne Street and Jersey Avenue, while Zimmern and his crew filmed the Cranford native prepare locally caught fluke fish for an upcoming episode.

"I’m going to be doing most of the eating," Zimmern said. "If he wants me to chop a scallion I’ll be happy to."

It all began with a spontaneous email about a month ago, said Pemoulie's wife Alex, when the couple was contacted by the show's producers who wanted to feature 30 Acres.

"We watch the show, we really like it," said Alex, who is a chef herself and met her husband Kevin while the two worked at a Manhattan restaurant.

Just moments prior to taping, 30 Acres was a buzz with activity with its 11 staff members finalizing preparations before the arrival of the "Bizarre Food" crew: the floor was swept, the bar stocked, and latest menus were neatly folded.

However, those won't be the last menus to come off the printer so if you're eager to try the fluke fish Pemoulie shares with "Bizarre Foods America" you better hurry, because this veteran chef does not limit his food options but instead he says he makes changes "whenever I want to."

He adds, "We want to keep things fresh and offer variety."

[MÇA]

Eater just did a long-ish interview with Thirty Acres owners Kevin & Alex Pemoulie on their first year in JC. Here are some highlights but go read the whole thing.

On getting a liquor license: "Hopefully we're going to get our liquor license really soon. Once we do that, we're going to have to do some construction on the bar, to make it more useable; right now it's really just a counter space, because we don't have any liquor. But we're going to turn it into an actual bar, replace some equipment. Nothing major, just stuff that's currently not working for us."
"I don't think there's any mystery why a business would want a liquor license over not having one. You generate much more income through having the sales of liquor… and it makes a lot of sense for a restaurant to do it because food margins are so small. It's hard to be a sustainable business and to make improvements and to do all the things we want to be able to do for our employees and for our customers — to do all that stuff without have that extra boost from liquor sales."

On opening night: "It was the worst night of our lives. We opened in sort of a flurry. Because construction was so delayed, we were running out of money. Really, really running out of money. We were definitely writing checks that we were hoping were going to take a while to…"
"I think we had $33 in our bank account the day we opened the restaurant."

On Kickstarter and JC: "It was something I thought about doing earlier on… towards the end, we were starting to pinch pennies in a silly way, Kevin and I were really thinking what money we could get in any sort of way. And Kickstarter came back in our minds, like, "Wow, this could really be a way to gain a lot of connections in Jersey City." Which is actually the main service it's given us, more than the cash. The cash was amazing, it definitely got us to the finish line. But really, almost all the people who donated money have come in to redeem their prizes, and now they're regulars, and they're people we know, they're friends. One of our best friends, a regular at the restaurant, is a guy we met through Kickstarter. We met so many people through it; so many strangers donated money and showed their support, and it really gave us a huge boost of confidence. It just felt really nice to experience that support from Jersey City. Jersey City is just incredibly supportive, and Kickstarter was one of the first ways we felt that."

On good reviews: "Well, we have an extremely strong base of customers, that I really don't think even care about those reviews. They come all the time, they support us, they give us their criticism now matter what, and they don't really care what somebody in New York City is saying about the restaurant. But I do think some people who are in the neighborhood like the restaurant, but then reading those reviews kind of gave them a feeling of, "Hey I was right." I think they feel proud — we're friends, so they feel proud of us like they would feel proud of a friend having some sort of accomplishment."
"I think that's it more than anything. After any kind of review, or anything having to do with New York City or on a national level, we'll have a bump in business for maybe the rest of the week after that was published: Noticeably people that we don't recognize or people coming from the city. But that always goes away. [...] I think the local support, like Alex was saying, I think every time we get reviewed there's a sense of Jersey City pride. It's like a nice warm blanket."

[CeeDub]

thank you!

We'll be back when you take reservations!

Next time, invite US, Binky!

[MÇA]

Agreed. With a place this popular, you wouldn't be able to get a table for at least a week. This way, you can gauge the wait by the time and size of your group, or go early (or late) to ensure no waiting. Though I don't have a problem for allowing reservations for big groups.

I prefer places that do not take reservations on parties less than 8.

thank you!

We'll be back when you take reservations!

[jehu]

I prefer places that do not take reservations on parties less than 8.

thank you!

We'll be back when you take reservations!

[TheFang]

thank you!

We'll be back when you take reservations!

I'll be back again soon.

Indeed. We were there Saturday night and will probably be back sooner than our wallets would prefer.  But oh man, that new Choucroute dish is real good.

[Rabelais]

thank you!

We'll be back when you take reservations!

I'll be back again soon.

[Binky]

thank you!

We'll be back when you take reservations!

[thirtyacres]

thank you!

[MÇA]

Congrats to Thirty Acres on making the long list for James Beard Foundation's best new restaurant award.

http://www.jamesbeard.org/sites/default/files/static/additional/2013-jbf-semifinalists-blog.pdf

[CeeDub]

Two Stars awarded by Pete Wells of the New York Times

 

Previous review from Fran Schumer

[JCConfidential]

We dropped by Thirty Acres with two friends on Sunday night -- they are normally not open on Sundays, but added an extra day to their schedule to lift the spirits of neighbors who were still recovering from the hurricane. We brought a backpack full of wine bottles just in case ...

I had a very good first impression of this place -- in fact, I'd venture to say that this is the best fine dining option in Jersey City at the moment. The place has character and is comfortable, but manages to raise an "above casual" atmosphere that I think is reflected in the seriousness of the food. The dining room is attractive with enough space between tables and has a small bar at one end. It extends lengthwise across a couple of storefronts on Jersey Ave., which means that all of the tables have light and/or exposure to the street, which is something I like.

Service was friendly, confident and welcoming.

The kitchen was serving an abbreviated menu because of the storm, so between the four of us we probably ordered everything on the menu:

* Oysters: Good -- they came with a beet puree, which I didn't taste. I just like a plain Oyster on the half shell.
* Arctic char belly: This was a delicious fatty raw fish belly in sesame oil and a touch of sour cream on the side -- amazing!
* Cavatelli: A nice pasta -- simple, well executed.
* Pork chop: A big, thick chop served with apples and pears -- reports were very good on this.
* Atlantic char: A nice thick cut of fish served with Brussels sprouts and chickpeas.

I'm not a huge fan of grilled sprouts -- these little cabbages can turn into balls of sulfur with this treatment. And I'm not sure that chickpeas go with char exactly -- or sprouts. But the fish itself was a magnificent work of art. I'm really glad that I ordered it.

All said, this was a great meal -- and again, I think this is probably the best option for fancy dining at the moment in Jersey City. We will definitely be back. We had a great time.

[CeeDub]

Chef/owner Kevin Pemoulie will be live on the air this morning on This Is The Modern World with DJ Trouble on JC's own WFMU 911.1 FM.

You can listen/chat at wfmu.org http://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/47898

[Bobblehead]

Big difference between what glass to use and what temperature water. It was really the only thing they failed at. I want them to be perfect.

[CeeDub]

I know from tea, I'm a born Yankee. I was making an comparison. I think you are setting yourself up for disappointment if you expect tea service; they don't even use wineglasses.
You're right about two things--Tepid water is fail on any level. And I am a huge dick.