VISTA, Calif. — A local chef is using fresh honey to add something special to his menu at the Beeside Balcony.
In this Zevely Zone, I traveled to a bee farm in Vista to see what the 'buzz' is all about.
These days we hear a lot about farm-to-table cooking. We suited up in protective bee suits to watch the magic happen.
"This is my home. We are in the backyard," said Chef Christophe Cevasco. He has been cultivating bee hives for five years in the hills of Vista.
"I am very excited about this," said Chef Christophe. "Listen, first of all, the origin of why I have bee hives is important."
When Chef Christophe bought the Beeside Balcony, he wanted to walk the walk and talk the talk with real farm-to-table honey.
"It went from one hive to six hives to now twenty-one hives," said Chef Christophe.
With the assistance from beekeeper Tyler Whitmarsh from The Honey Bee Family, this was the day, they harvested honey for the first time. "Look how beautiful those combs are," said Tyler.
"To me, there is still a little bit of that nervousness," said Chef Christophe. He watched as Tyler used smoke to calm the hive.
"I am right now lighting up smoke," said Tyler.
We were about to step into the world of one-half a million bees.
"That's correct, one-half a million bees," said Chef Christophe. As you probably know, without bees, most of the food on the planet would be in jeopardy.
"They are the reason that we enjoy our foods, our fruits, our vegetables everything," said Tyler. "Bees pollinate the majority of everything."
Chef Christophe uses fresh honey to flavor his signature meals, cocktails, and desserts. "You have to taste the honey, local fresh honey, it's something else than something you buy at the store," said Chef Christophe.
"You can taste the difference. This is amazing look at this." To their surprise, these bee boxes were filled to the brim with hundreds of pounds of honey. "Oh, look at that!" said Tyler. "Let's go to location number two, extraction, extraction, extraction," said Chef Christophe.
Honeycombs were then placed in a large cylinder. "Right now it's spinning at a high velocity," said Tyler. The honey dripped down into a bucket that served as a honey pot to later be filtered and jarred. It was time for a taste test. "It's like heaven on earth," I said.
Chef Christophe wants to invite you to his restaurants to see and taste what his busy little bees have been up to. "They are my girls. Look how gorgeous they are," said Chef Christophe. "It's like liquid gold."
Every element in Chef Christophe's restaurant, from meat to seafood, is sourced sustainably.
However, what truly sets Beeside Balcony apart is the honey, meticulously harvested from the beehives on his farm. The chef and business owner curates dishes with sustainably sourced ingredients but also cultivates his honey, integrating it into signature dishes like the honey goat cheese on the Bee's Board or Roasted Beet Salad and the Baklava Ice Cream Cake drizzled with honey-cinnamon syrup.
Chef Christophe has two Beeside Balcony restaurants; one in Del Mar, the other in La Jolla. For more information, click here.