“I’m trying to be the change I want to see” — the chef paraphrases Gandhi.
At least for now, Brendan McGill’s not talking about world peace.
He’s talking about a new restaurant.
Verjus — loosely, that’s “green juice” in French — is McGill’s fourth island venture, after Hitchcock, Hitchcock Deli and Bruciato, the pizzeria that’s slated to debut in the Old Hardware Store this summer.
Unlike the latter three, which celebrate the indulgent side of eating with seafood, well-raised meats, grains and farm-fresh veggies, Verjus will spotlight clean and mostly raw plant-based cooking, with cold-pressed juice as the leading lady.
It’s an emphasis that stems from McGill’s own diet. Last year, his doctor told him to cut out refined carbohydrates and refined sugar.
“It was because I had been almost strictly pumping those things into my body,” McGill said. “It was causing an imbalance on my skin.”
He traded his daily bread for his daily juice and found a well of energy.
“The exciting thing about juice and vegetable-based cuisine is that you can so proactively nourish yourself,” McGill said. “When you go into the deli, you see cookies and bread and beer and wine. I like those more than the next guy — obviously, I’m drowning in them — but you need that balance. It tastes good, but it doesn’t do much for your body.”
For the record, though, healthy can taste good, too. McGill swears his 4-year-old is on board, despite the picky palates usually associated with eaters of his age.
“I watched him slam a delicious little shake — spinach and kale from the garden, organic fruit frozen from last year, mint — and he’s licking his lips, saying, ‘Yum, I like that,’” McGill said. “If you have a 4-year-old you know they just want to eat chicken strips and oatmeal.”
It’s hard to sneak in nutrition, he added.
“And I think a lot of people don’t ever really grow out of that.”
On launch day — May 1 or earlier — the main bill will be cold-pressed juice. You’ll choose your juice by the color.
“The concept being there’s different nutrients in different colored foods,” he explained. He’ll offer five lines, with a handful of juices that follow those colors, and eventually, nutritional pairings to help customers who are deficient in certain vitamins load up.
For those that like a little more heft in their morning meal, Verjus will have creative protein-rich smoothies and superfood bowls (pureed berries/veg/nuts plus chia or oatmeal).
In the afternoon (tentatively, hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.), McGill will add soups and salads and preservations – “vegetable side dishes that take sort of a Japanese-style” — to the menu.
He’s also dreaming of lemonade popsicles with suspended nasturtium or blue button flowers and frozen amazake, “basically like a very young sake that is pureed and churned into ice cream,” he explained.
The produce will come straight from the family farm, plus via partnerships that McGill’s built over the last six years.
“I’m going to try to build a place that would stand up to any juice bar anywhere,” he said.
Which, for McGill, means that the nutrition is key, but taste comes first. In other words: Verjus isn’t the type of place where you’ll be expected to plug your nose and just take the spinach ginger kale shot with garlic and wheatgrass like a champ. Ideally, you’ll actually enjoy it.
His first step in that direction has been to lure Michasia Pawluskiewicz from the other side of the water. Her kitchen credentials are ooh-worthy — she’s worked at Bar Sajor, Lark, Taylor Shellfish — and will prove critical in her role as Verjus’ general manager.
“We’re doing this as chef-driven,” McGill explained. “Nutrition is really important, but the cuisine and the flavor are the most important part to us.”
The other secret weapon on McGill’s team is his wife Heidi, the project’s creative director.
Using her background as a fashion designer, she’s filled the space, Intentional Table’s former digs at 124 Madrone Lane, with lightness and color.
“She’s done a ton of research and has fantastic concepts,” McGill said. “It’s exciting. Instead of me trying to bring the full creative vision of what we’re doing in our restaurants, I get to work with someone I love, who is so passionate about this concept.”
