How one chef incorporates sustainable practices at his Ridge Spring restaurant

We hear the word “sustainable” a lot these days.

But what does the word really mean? Sustainability means operating in such a way that puts less of an impact on the environment while giving back and helping to grow the community.

For Brandon Viele, the co-owner of Juniper restaurant in Ridge Spring, sustainability is inspiring experimentation with local ingredients for dishes on the restaurant’s dinner menu.

Viele is a chef ambassador in a program set up by the S.C. departments of Agriculture and Parks, Recreation & Tourism to promote South Carolina cuisine, tourism and locally grown produce.

On Thursday, Viele is scheduled to be one of the dozen or so chefs cooking during the Palmetto Palate fundraiser at 701 Whaley. Chefs compete to make the most out of locally sourced food.

It was quite a circuitous route that brought the Vieles to Ridge Spring. Brandon started cooking as a teenager growing up in Maryland. While in the Marines, he did a cooking apprenticeship and eventually wound up in New York where he met his wife, Jeanne. The couple moved to Raleigh and then to northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., where he worked in various restaurants before moving to South Carolina.

While in D.C., Jeanne worked in children’s school gardens, making sure youngsters understood the process of growing food from the planning and planting stages to preparing harvested fruits and vegetables for the table.

Brandon worked for a chef who allowed him to experiment with ingredients and different methods of cooking (want to try using larding needles to lace tougher cuts of meat with fat, anyone?). After a couple of lessons learned, some more successful than others, his boss set him loose one Sunday at the farmers market near Dupont Circle with money to buy ingredients for a Sunday brunch dish.

That trip to the farmers market inspired Brandon to persuade his boss to start an herb garden on the roof of the club. The freedom and creativity Brandon felt at the market and later, in the rooftop garden, have carried on to this day.

When the Vieles moved to Aiken for his job at a private club, Brandon again wanted to grow some of his own ingredients on site and tap into the local farmers markets for inspiration.

Part of his job as a chef ambassador has been to tour the state, going to farmers markets to do cooking demonstrations and promote South Carolina cuisine.

Brandon will show up at markets with nothing but the most basic seasonings and shop for the all of the fresh ingredients for the cooking demonstrations. In doing so, he’s proving to folks that you can shop area markets and create a meal from what is available.

Juniper, which just passed its 10th anniversary this month, operates on the same philosophy. His creativity has played a big part in the formation of Juniper’s menu. A sandwich and salad venue for lunch, Juniper transforms into a white linen dining experience at dinner.

Jeanne also is very aware of the environmental impact Juniper has on the area. The restaurant recycles soda cans and tabs and glass and bottles; corks from wine bottles go to crafters; any food scraps go to an employee’s pet goats.

Farmers still show up at Juniper’s door with produce for sale. Jeanne and Brandon love to cultivate the relationship between farm and restaurant. The Vieles try to visit all of the farms they deal with on a regular basis. With new relationships, the Vieles might go out and pick up their orders. Farmers also come in and drop their produce off around midday and stay for lunch. Sometimes, Jeanne says, during their talks the farmers might reveal that they have been coming to Juniper, as diners, for a while and consider themselves regular customers.

Jeanne is spearheading the couple’s new project: asking area farmers to grow crops specifically for Juniper. One of the first to try this experiment is Ken Gravatt, of Gravatt Farms, who is in the first stages of planning a farm on the Gravatt Camp and Conference Center site near Aiken.

And after 10 years, Brandon is still amazed at the variety of produce and goods available in and around Ridge Spring. On one of his market visits, he found a woman whose family has been growing Jerusalem artichokes for over 40 years; she now is selling to Juniper. That’s one of the reasons why the restaurant’s dinner menu changes weekly – to tap into what’s changing seasonally and Brandon’s creativity.

The regular tasting menu – one of the few offered in the state –allows the chef to show off his culinary skills. It is a five-course series of small plates that Brandon creates each night with the ingredients he has on hand.

Jeanne tells the story of how the tasting menu came about:

In the early days of evening service, the restaurant would start running out of customers’ favorite menu items. Being located in Ridge Spring is not like being in Columbia or Lexington where you could just run out and pick up extra ingredients for a dish. During one of these times a server, who had a particular reputation for being able to sell anything to just about anybody, ran back to the kitchen and told Brandon to “just make something up” with what you have left. The diners were so happy that they suggested that he put the dish on the menu. The server suggested to the chef that he continue to be creative and offer “the tastings,” and so “Chef Brandon’s Five Course Tasting Menu” was born.

The only restriction for ordering is that if one person orders, the whole table must order the tasting menu ($40 per person, $50 with wine). Brandon will work around allergies and food preferences. “One table of six had requested no dairy, no gluten and wanted vegetarian dishes – on a busy Friday night. It was a fun curve ball to get thrown,” he said.

“Definitely gets your brain working and creativity flowing,” says Jeanne.

This story was originally published July 21, 2015 at 10:46 AM with the headline "How one chef incorporates sustainable practices at his Ridge Spring restaurant."