British chef opens Beacon eatery
Michael Johnson consulted with his taste buds when deciding what dishes and desserts would fill out the menu of Moreish, his British-inspired eatery at the Hudson Valley Food Hall in Beacon.
The native of southern England said he started with the meals he craved but could not find in the U.S. and asked other British expats for suggestions. “People think British food is just fish and chips,” he says. “There’s other bits as well.”
Those bits have proved popular since Johnson opened Moreish on March 2. He borrowed the name from a British word that, according to the Cambridge English Dictionary, describes food “having a very pleasant taste and making you want to eat more.”
One of Johnson’s classic British dishes is an English breakfast with British sausage, smoked back bacon, black pudding, hash browns, mushrooms, tomatoes, Heinz baked beans, eggs and toasted sourdough. There is also a vegetarian version.
Other imports include bangers (grilled British pork sausages) with mashed potatoes; a Cornish pasty made with beef skirt steak; meat pies with mashed potatoes; and desserts such as the banoffee pie, crumpets and sticky oaty flapjacks.
Because some ingredients are hard to find in the U.S., or more expensive, Johnson and his wife, Shey Aponte, filled a suitcase with golden syrup from a company called Lyle’s and digestive biscuits from Mcvities during a trip to England before Moreish opened.
That haul was depleted three weeks earlier than expected. “I didn’t know there were many British people living in Beacon,” Johnson says.
Johnson arrived by way of Brighton, a resort area in East Sussex, 50 miles south of London, that overlooks the English Channel. He found his passion at age 13 after being hired to wash dishes at Blackboys Inn, a pub that dates to the 14th century. Aponte said the pub takes its name from from the stained faces of the workers who burned charcoal in the local woods.
Johnson fell for the “chaos” of kitchen work. “I gravitated to the flames, the shouting, the theatrics of it,” he says. “And I found I was quite good at it.”
By 16, he had enrolled in culinary school, the next step in a career that included short stints at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle after winning a college competition, and jobs cooking for Michelin-star restaurants and high-end hotels and creating menus for British Airways.
His travels took him to London, Oxford and Scotland, and overseas to Colombia, Costa Rica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. He met his future wife in Nicaragua, and they decided to settle in the U.S.
They moved to Beacon in November. “We wanted a bit of countryside and some nice walks, so we thought Beacon made a good middle ground,” he says.
The couple had always planned to open a restaurant. At this stage of Johnson’s career, he says working for people with less experience is challenging, and the chance to make unilateral decisions about food was appealing.
At Moreish, Johnson uses the same “elevated” cooking techniques he employed at high-end restaurants. He says those techniques will be applied to additional menu items he is considering, including fish and chips and deserts like sticky toffee pudding, apple crumble and Eton mess.
Johnson also plans to add another British staple: the roast dinners served on Sundays at homes and pubs and restaurants. The traditional dinner combines roast beef or another type of roasted meat with Yorkshire pudding, roasted potatoes, gravy and stuffing.
“What I want to do is start adding bits and having specials,” he says.
Moreish, inside the Hudson Valley Food Hall at 288 Main St. in Beacon, is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday and 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. See instagram.com/moreishnewyork.
I suspect that the headline writer intended the word ‘flair’ unless it was intended as a ‘visual’ culinary warning.
Thanks, you are correct. We have fixed.