Imagine:
You sign up for a cool dining experience. Your instructions are to meet at a set location. You’re given a bag filled with an exotic appetizer and a local cider. You have no idea where you’re going, but you know it’s going to be delicious.
You board a bus with approximately 40 people. The atmosphere is fun, there’s an exciting anticipation as you crack open your appetizer and begin to guess where the bus is taking you.
Fifteen minutes later you arrive at a local berry farm. You exit the bus, and you’re greeted by the “Tres Hombres”.
Kevin MacKenna, Mike Sterpin and Brad Watt,
These boys love to cook, they all have full time chef gigs. When I asked Brad how the idea started he said “Honestly, we do it for shits and giggles”.
Three friends inspiring each other to outdo the other. Six incredible gourmet courses, wine, an adventure of exploring the land while enjoying the fruits it has to offer; This is the Tres Hombres experience.
The first course was prepared by Brad Watt: A magnificent apple and arugula salad with brussels, kohlrabi, sun choke chips, puffed wild rice plated and served on top of a hay bail paired with Kawartha Winery’s off dry sweet wine.
Next we board a tractor with a wagon and drive to a corn field for the second course prepared by Kevin McKenna: Incredible fresh smoked McLean’s corn on the cob with a corn wild leek sausage skewer and roasted cross wind farms chèvre & yogurt.
The rain was falling but the mood was all fun and love! The passion of the experience created was infectious.
When you asked around about how people knew about the Tres Hombres you quickly learned it really is an underground group. Everyone knew someone who knew someone connected to the Hombres.
Brilliant marketing, brilliant concept.
Next we load back onto the tractor and travel even further into the fields of McLean Berry Farm. We arrive to an illuminated canopy with an open fire and a blazing black cauldron.
We are greeted with Kawartha Winery Pumpkin Wine. We take our seats, and we’re served a beautiful hot bowl of smoked broth with butternut squash tortellini with the most delicious clove, nutmeg, allspice and cinnamon seasoning, alongside McLean’s beans and chili’s and crisp sage. This course was prepared by Mike Sterpin.
Next up, a dish I never thought I would eat, but loved every bite: haggis. Mike also served this dish, an all Ontario haggis with wild apple mostardo and confit turnip.
The main course was of course dynamite prepared by Brad Watt and paired with Kawartha Winery’s rhubarb wine: Apricot, golden raisin and belly stuffed pork loin with blue potato smash and a very wild mushroom demi glaze. (I forgot to take pictures of the main course, I was busy eating;)
I hate to play favourites, but I have to say dessert really was my fave. Kevin McKenna blew my palate’s mind and prepared goat cheesecake raspberry maple swirl ice cream with a ground cherry on top, on a bed of fresh McLean berries and maple candy floss! Dessert was served with Kawartha Winery’s raspberry cider.
For me, the Tres Hombres experience is so much more than just amazing food. It’s what happens when passion and collaboration with true partners collide. Success is passion. Success is collaborating and sharing ideas. Success is bringing a great idea to life with people who believe in the idea.
There’s no set date for the next Tres Hombres experience, and it is never the same location. Each experience is set at a new and unknown venue, with a whole new menu. The chefs draw numbers out of a hat to see who who will create each course.
I suggest liking their Facebook page and following them on Twitter to stay in the know.
MF
