Fresh Forage

FRESH FORAGE BRINGS WILD & LOCALLY GROWN MICHIGAN PRODUCE TO ANN ARBOR

When Andrew Sereno met his future wife, Rebecca, at the University of Michigan in a class on environmental stewardship in WHAT YEAR?, they bonded over organic farming and healthy lifestyles, and they thought hard about ways to live closer to the land. They discussed how they might build a life together in modern capitalist society yet get closer to nature and have a positive impact on the environment and society as a whole.

Out of that goal came Fresh Forage, a farm-and-forage-to-table restaurant launched in Ann Arbor in 2018. The concept includes a seasonal menu sourced from local farms, including produce from Sereno’s farm in Manchester, about 15 minutes southwest of the restaurant.

The menu also includes wild, foraged produce (hence the name and logo, which features a fiddlehead fern, one of Michigan’s premier foraged delicacies.)

“Beyond what is seasonally available from local farms, we also feature specials with foraged native plants and fungi like fiddleheads, maitake, golden oysters, chicken of the woods and even things like sumac for sumac lemonade and wild chives for our wild chive aioli,” says Sereno.

In 2020, Sereno began “kicking the Manchester farm into high gear” with farm manager Erin Dickerman taking command toward getting the farm up and running at production scale. This winter, Sereno and Dickerman will be building in-ground greenhouses (known as walipinis) and mushroom houses to supply greens and mushrooms to the restaurant year-round.

Sereno says he’s “been a foodie forever” and gets a lot of his menu ideas from Instagram and traveling to see what’s going on the East and West coasts. He says his menu ideas come from the ingredients themselves, not the other way around.

“Let me just source all the ingredients, and then say, ‘Hey, here’s this ingredient. What recipes can we make from that?’” he says.

In addition to sourcing locally, Fresh Forage continually considers its holistic sustainability profile, working to achieve clean energy goals by installing solar panels on the restaurant. He’s also careful about food waste and recycling.

“We compost as much as we can, serve everything in compostable containers and, after sorting the compost, bring as much back to the farm as we can to grow new crops,” Sereno says.

Some of the best-sellers include the Korean beef bowl with a sunny-side-up egg on top and vegan sweet potato nachos. “They are all awesome, and all plant-based,” Sereno says. Fresh

Forage recently rolled out a veggie panini featuring Zingerman’s farmhouse bread, which has quickly become a favorite.

Like every other restaurant, Fresh Forage has had to deal with the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic.

“COVID brought challenges in terms of changing our procedures to be even more sanitary, and also in terms of changing the pattern of business. Different days are busy now. Odd hours seem to be better for eating these days,” says Sereno. “COVID has also provided us the opportunity to really tune in and hone our craft such that we are providing consistent, quality food that puts the ingredients on display, front and center.”

Sereno is excited about the future of Fresh Forage and plans to continue serving the community in west Ann Arbor while possibly looking for a spot downtown.

Source: Andrew Sereno mifreshforage@gmail.com