Ground Provisions is a delicious new start for the team behind Vedge

Chef Rich Landau, invigorated by the fresh country breezes of his new West Chester market and restaurant, Ground Provisions, likes to say about his new project, “We didn’t want to reinvent the carrot here, we just wanted to open up a little store and cook from the farm.”

That’s a modest thing to suggest when you’ve actually already reinvented the carrot, as Landau has done multiple times at Vedge. At thatpioneering vegan fine dining restaurant he owns with wife Kate Jacoby in Center City, he transformed the humble root into a satisfyingly smoky and complex riff on a Reuben. Or the molasses BBQ-lacquered carrot asado that he created as a staple for the now-closed V Street.

So one cannot underestimate the impact of encountering something like Landau’s carrot pastrami, scented with wood chips and Montreal spice, sliced into thin ribbons over a buttery schmear of melted onion “schmaltz” atop crusty excellent house-baked sourdough. Served alongside a warm shooter of spring herb and ramp sipping broth, it’s a dynamic opening gesture of contrasting flavors, textures, and temperatures for a five-course plant-based tasting menu that will remind you why Landau has been such a major figure in the local dining scene for the past quarter century.

At $75, the tasting is a fair bargain for the quality of the food. And the dining experience, set behind a retail market in the rustic wood-trimmed bones of the former Innkeeper’s Kitchen at the historic former Dilworthtown Inn, delivers a comfortable balance between the feel of a special night out and relaxed country charm. That’s in large part due to the efficiency of the set tasting menu format. But it also allows well-informed and cheerful servers like Nora Wilson, who doubles as a prep cook, to gracefully communicate any details of the meal or natural wine list a customer may ask for — how about a sip of that rare wine from Vermont before committing to a glass? — without a shred of pretense.

The cooking, too, has a deceptive sort of ease. With an understated confidence, it transforms vegetables into heightened flavors on a plate by using well-honed techniques to embrace the blooming waves of seasonal produce from small local farms that drive the ever-changing menus. An elegant take on hearty colcannon for March, for example, with smoked mashed potatoes wrapped inside a local rye flour crepe over creamed cabbage, makes way for the vibrant spring greens on the menu in May, where green garlic béchamel, a medley of rabes, and herbal stridolo energize a lasagna for two.

There’s some notable innovation in play, especially with the vegan fresh pasta recipe chef de cuisine Brandon Beringer figured out by subbing reduced aquafaba (the liquid from canned chickpeas) in the place of eggs with a blend of local flours. The resulting hand-cranked noodles are supple, cut into wide fazzoletti infused with fennel pollen and black pepper before they’re glazed with the vibrant green of a minty and capery salsa verde with sautéed chanterelles.

But Ground Provisions definitely is about another kind of reinvention. In particular, it’s an opportunity for Landau and Jacoby to reimagine their company and reputations following a dramatic flameout at V Street, which closed under the pressures of the pandemic amidst a staff revolt complaining of a toxic work culture. The employees’ list of grievances ranged from pay issues to poor communication and dissatisfaction with the couple’s tone-deaf response to calls for social justice following the police killing of George Floyd.

“There’s not a day goes by that I don’t think about what happened and why,” says Landau, 55.

He says V Street was already in trouble as a business by late 2019, both in terms of revenue and staffing, and that a deal to sell the restaurant fell through with the onset of the pandemic. They attempted to keep it going with federal emergency funds, but tensions with staffers only increased, so the couple opted to return the government funds and close V Street with little public comment.

Looking back with three years of perspective, former V Street line cook Sam Mayer says he still feels frustration over the issues that led to the conflict. But as one of the facilitators, Mayer, who’s since moved on to the music industry, now also feels guilty: “The whole thing wound up feeling more like a witch hunt than I’d hoped for ... it snowballed into a cancel culture thing that felt in some ways a product of the internet and where people’s heads were at the moment ... Rich and Kate are not bad people ... I hope that people can like … forgive? I hope that their reputation is able to heal.”

Vedge has remained open, and, at least based on my last visit in 2021, still sets a high bar for vegan dining in a city now bursting with other talented plant-based kitchens. The couple remains involved weekly in maintaining Vedge, though leaves the day-to-day to trusted longtime employees (including four V Street alums). But the movefrom Center City to Chester County was born of an effort to start something anew and be closer to the farms that inspire them, including a half-acre “farmette” of their own where Jacoby grows tomatoes, squash, okra, and grapes, which, for the sommelier behind the restaurant’s excellent natural wine program, is a persistent goal.

Jacoby also says they’ve done plenty of “soul searching” after the pandemic, and realized their ambitions had changed, turning away from previous efforts to build a vegan restaurant empire to instead downsize and focus more on the daily joys of hospitality. They sold their third restaurant, Fancy Radish in Washington, to employees, and shrank their company from 150 full-time employees prior to the pandemic to 21 full-timers now between their two restaurants.

Two of the key employees at Ground Provisions keeping its daytime grab-and-go market and tasting menu dinners going are also V Street alums — Wilson and Beringer — and both report happy working conditions.

“It feels very different here. Much more of a mom-and-pop situation, more relaxed, very family-oriented and close-knit,” says Beringer, 30. His return to the company lands him in a more intimate situation, with two seatings for just 28 guests three nights a week. Compared to a 92-seat destination restaurant like Vedge where much of the menu is static with classics, this menu feels more fluid and spontaneous. “We’re just cooking by hand, tasting and feeling our way, with no recipes for 80% of the stuff we do.”

The experience has been equally invigorating for Landau, who says Beringer is responsible for at least a third of the menu and that their collaboration — “the best working relationship of my career” — has helped him relax: “I was always a very, very controlling chef,” he concedes.

The resulting dishes feel like more natural showcases for vegetables than the inventive gastronomic constructions of Vedge. But that doesn’t mean less flavor.

Among the most memorable bites I experienced was a smoked celery root tart starter served with a warm shooter of vegan dashi steeped from celery leaves and French kombu. Also on that March menu were thin-sliced sweet rounds of salt-roasted golden beets brightened with dabs of smoked mustard and fronds of dill, while a similar root carpaccio presentation on the May menu had a completely different profile: snappy rounds of purple-skinned daikon shimmering with lemon oil over red zhoug.

Ground Provisions turns to West Africa for inspiration to bolster braised local greens with the addition of gluten-free fonio, a couscous-like grain, and the aromatic pulse Berbere-spiced oil. A beautiful Hickory King polenta grown at Green Meadow Farm, just 30 miles west, is another stellar starch put in a starring role, slow cooked to creamy tenderness, splashed with fennel-scented tomato broth, and then topped with sweet pepperonata and crunchy plumes of roasted maitakes glazed in black garlic, sherry vinegar, and sage.

As always, Jacoby’s sophisticated desserts are a highlight, from a dense dark chocolate mousse paired with yuzu and sweet potato chips to a stunning rhubarb tart with pistachio frangipane and vivid pink rhubarb ice cream.

The dessert was even better alongside a fruity, honeyed and funky glass of Iapetus Substrata, a natural unfiltered white blend from Shelburne, Vt., that paired perfectly with perfumy rhubarb. It was a prime example of the kind of obscure-but-excellent wines that fill the always progressive Jacoby’s drink list and market shelves — and also help make a meal at Ground Provisions a distinctively personal and sophisticated new experience in suburban dining.

More importantly, perhaps, for one of the region’s most important restaurant duos over the past two decades, this feels like a welcome fresh start that’s taken root and is ready to flourish.

1388 Old Wilmington Pike, West Chester, 610-355-4411; groundprovisionspa.com

Market opens for grab-and-go, Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Five-course tasting menu dinner served Thursday through Saturday in two seatings, beginning at 5, 5:15, and 5:30 p.m., then two hours later.

Five-course fixed price tasting, $75. Wine pairing, $40. A la carte porch snack menu, $8-$12 a plate.

Wheelchair accessible.

Gluten-free needs and some allergies can be accommodated with advance notice.