A Schoolhouse Field Trip

The first rule of The Schoolhouse Restaurant: there are no rules.

Chef Tim LaBant, 35, had one goal when he opened his restaurant in historic Cannondale nearly three years ago: he wanted “to make food that would turn people on their heads.” That meant LaBant had to put convention in detention.

“In culinary school there are a bunch of rules,” LaBant said during a recent trip to Wilton’s Millstone Farm.  “You’re told you always have to have a chicken dish.  You’re supposed to make sure there is something for everyone on the menu.  You’re never supposed to repeat an ingredient in different dishes.”

LaBant decided to break these rules and then some. Instead of gravity-defying tomato towers, simple seasonal food graces his plates. And, rather than plan menus six months ahead, LaBant creates a new menu every day.  At the Schoolhouse, farm-fresh is the focus.

Every Wednesday, LaBant, a father of three, heads to Wilton’s Millstone Farm. After pulling into the winding drive, he checks in with farmers Annie Farrell and Emma Kirwan. Farrell’s two Jack Russels, Pinto and Lassie, compete for attention as LaBant eyes the morning’s harvest.

Millstone Farm also supplies the Dressing Room in Westport and Barcelona in Norwalk. In addition, Wilton’s Village Market gets Millstone greens and vegetables.

“We get rid of our second harvest when Tim comes mid-week. He’s really flexible and that’s really important for farmers,” Kirwan said, adding that Millstone does its major harvest on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Teddy Roosevelt once said: “Do what you can with what you have.” Although TR wasn’t referring to farming and food, LaBant adheres to this philosophy when it comes to cooking.

Recently LaBant picked up collard greens, bunches of kale with colorful stems still attached, small beets, and enough peppers to make Peter blush.

Afterward, LaBant will head back to the restaurant and hash out a menu with his staff. The menu will typically include five appetizers, five entrees, and five desserts. Yet, even when a menu has been finalized, it's not a fait accompli.

“A dish will evolve over the course of a night,” LaBant said.

A salad of Millstone greens may mean lettuce adorned with rice paper-thin slices of beets in the early evening.  But as the night progresses, that same salad might have a few more root vegetables sprinkled on top.

The same applies to how he incorporates ingredients through the week.

“Tonight I might fry a few of these green beans and serve one on a dish.  But by Saturday they’ll be used in a soup,” said LaBant, reaching for a handful of the crisp legumes.

LaBant, born and raised in Wilton, hadn’t intended on being a chef when he graduated high school.  After graduating Wittenberg University in Ohio he headed to Boston.  There he donned a suit and worked for IBM in dot-com sales.

“I began three months before the dot-com bubble burst. I’d show up to these places and they’d be having tag sales of office furniture,” LaBant said. Still it wasn’t until after 9/11 that LaBant traded his tie for a toque.

The event compelled him to realize his passion.

 “I always really liked cooking, even though I knew the pay was terrible and hours were terrible,” LaBant said.

With his wife’s support he enrolled in Rhode Island’s Johnson & Wales. He apprenticed at L’Espalier in Boston and also did a tour at Le Bernardin in New York City.  Then in 2007 LaBant occupied a renovated post-Civil War one-room schoolhouse.

LaBant’s facility for flexibility comes in part from his mother.

“She was a great cook, she made different stuff every night,” he said.

That might explain why the restaurant's much lauded gnocchi has been incognito for the past several months. LaBant said he embraces both the challenge of incorporating whatever Mother Nature yields each week, and trying different dishes.

“The best chefs learn to make do,” Farrell said. “He doesn’t know the menu beforehand, which is extraordinary.  It’s really cool how he takes a bunch of discombobulated group of vegetables and turns them into something. Tim makes it beautiful and extraordinary.”