22 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY APRIL 30-MAY 6, 2026 www.montereycountynow.com spill from the mountains, searching for good leaves and clipping with a pair of sharp scissors. He doesn’t mind getting wet; before heading out, Black slipped into a worn pair of “dad boots”—his term. Then he’s on to another brush of green against the gray rocks, inspecting the plant before setting to work. “Watercress doesn’t get any better than this,” he says as he begins to fill a crate. “This has become like my personal watercress farm. Don’t tell anyone.” Black forages almost every morning. Besides watercress, on this Monday morning excursion he collects New Zealand spinach, which he plans to use in a seafood dish, wild radishes, mild and nutty African daisies and other plants. Along a trail, Black points out other culinary gems growing wild, but if he is not intending to use a plant in the next few days, he leaves it untouched. Cruising through a neighborhood on his way back to the restaurant, Black spots an empty lot colored by nasturtium. The flowers are edible and he prepares capers from the seeds. “If you go to San Francisco, guys charge a ton for this,” he points out. The chef picks seasonally. Some menu items change nightly, much of the list is swapped out every five weeks. “The goal of Chez Noir is to represent the area,” he explains. Wild mushrooms are the only item he rarely forages for by himself. There are already dozens of skilled mushroom hunters in the area, each with knowledge of particular patches of woods, ready to supply local restaurants—although the nicest specimens do not come cheap. Porcinis, for example, cost $37 a pound. Later in the morning, back at the restaurant, Black—still in casual clothes; he will don his chef’s outfit in the early afternoon—sorts through rough shavings from a batch of porcinis that have been dried for later use in oils or stocks. “We use everything we can,” he says. Chef Black first began relying on seasonal ingredients while in college in New York, working at a suburban restaurant that had a garden. Since then he has poked through farmers markets—Black is a regular on Friday mornings at Del Monte Center in Monterey—working with small organic and sustainable farmers, venturing into fields and occasionally attempting to spearfish. Even though Chez Noir is a small restaurant, this ethic demands more from the team when it comes to planning a menu. “We work with so many different farmers on a weekly basis, and it changes through the seasons,” he points out. The restaurant is in contact with more than 50 different vendors. A chart tacked to the kitchen’s bulletin board keeps track of what is expected in the coming week—cilantro blossoms and favas from Borba Farms in Aromas; Bearss lime and Meyer lemon from the Santa Cruz operation Ocean 2 Table; Schoch Dairy is setting aside two gallons of raw milk; tarragon, chives and even wood for the oven are on the Greenleaf bill. The list goes on. Despite the morning’s haul, foraging is slowing. Purveyors and the farmers market will become more important as the rainy season comes to a close. “Winter is my favorite time here,” Black says. “There is a lot of good stuff.” Then he pauses. “The power failures—I could do without those.” He recalls an outage that threatened to disrupt a fully-booked New Year’s Eve service. By 3pm he decided to cancel the first turn (in restaurant terminology, a top is a table and a turn is each guest’s seating at that top) and the team began making phone calls. A half-hour later, power came back. “It was one of the days when I thought, ‘I don’t think we can do this,’” Black admits. “But that’s restaurants. It takes a lot of work and I love it.” Some of the prep work in the kitchen on Monday is dedicated to the next week. Chez Noir is closed on Tuesday and Wednesday during the winter months, so Monday closes out their week. Still, there are 47 covers booked for the night—a cover referring to each person to be seated at a top during the evening’s turns. Sous chef Gore came in at 6:30am with the three-person morning prep team. This morning he is assigned to pastry before turning to lamb tartare, among other duties. “Tyler is very overqualified for his role at the moment,” Black says with a laugh. Meanwhile, General Manager Nate Cohen, who joined the team a yearand-a-half before Chez Noir opened, sits at a dining room table, eyes glued to a laptop. He is finishing the staffing chart for the next few weeks—between the kitchen, bar and dining room, morning and afternoon shifts, there are 25 people to keep track of. But he also returns to Monday’s lineup. “Weather is coming in tonight,” he observes. “That affects the patio.” Yes, the quality of ingredients, the technique, the service matter. But it would appear from Chez Noir’s example that a Michelin star rewards organization. The day’s menu is in a binder, with recipe sheets for each dish. The morning prep list, tacked to the bulletin board, lists assignments. One prep staff is to shuck a quart of favas, chop a quart of sorrels (saving the stems), assemble 55 abalone and other duties. Another has a quart of peas to shuck, eight quarts of butter to dice and different fruits to juice. Gore put the list together after food service on Sunday night. It appears very orderly. “We do a lot of winging it,” Black says. “Whose fault is that?” Gore responds with a grin. Laughing, the chef admits, “We try to keep it to a minimum,” but it’s not always possible. Another log explains why. There are new dishes on for the night, including lobster and crab croquettes, green strawberry with verjus pickle, sorrel and elderflower, as well as brioche souljas—the latter to be plated at 4:55pm. There is a rhythm to the day, set to the clock. At 1pm the management team—Chef Black, Monique Black, Cohen and Operations Manager Katie Daugherty—sit down to finish planning next week’s special Springtime in France dinner. As the chef mentions each menu item, they discuss types of dishware needed. But Black is still considering additions. “We might do an avocado sorbet,” he says. “Oh, stop it,” Daugherty chimes in with an exclamation point. Far left: Front of the house staff Jetzemani Perez, Daniel Carmona and Lilyanne Correnti go over the night’s details while the kitchen begins to transition from prep to food service. Near left: Chef Black checks in with one of the cooks. “I touch every plate,” he says. “It has to be consistent.” Below: Sous Chef Tyler Gore minces lamb for one of the evening’s first course options.
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