Ensuring the best ingredients from our farmers
Every dish on our menu tells a story of the collaboration between the talented hands of our chefs and the hard work of our dedicated farm partners.
For over 50 years, Juaquin has been designing and creating magnificent ornamental and edible gardens, as well as bringing the knowledge and work ethic required to build highly productive gardens to communities all over North America.
In the last 6 years, Juaquin has turned his home property in Healdsburg into a fully producing biodynamic farm.
He works with 25 schools for their garden projects, focusing on growing 16 different kinds of kale.
Juaquin only works with 1 restaurant: Troubadour Bread & Bistro.
Originally from Brooklyn, NY and of Polish & Austrian descent; his family opened the first bakery above ground in the US: Famous Bagel Bakery.
His work has taken him to Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, New York, Mexico and Baja, where he taught, managed large projects, created community gardens, and started a compost business.
“Lawrence is my birth name, in rural Guatemala, I was teaching bio-diversity and dry-land farming where the locals gave me ‘Juaquin.”
Juaquin apprenticed for two years in California with Peter Dukich, then West Coast President of Bio-Dynamics, the underlying philosophy of Agriculture as found in Steiner’s last book. Juaquin also apprenticed for two years with Grand Master Gardener, Alan Chadwick in a fourteen acre Bio-Dynamic, French Intensive farm/garden in Covolo, California. Chadwick’s vision was to bring the world a magnificent display of fruit, flowers, herbs and vegetables, grown to perfection and totally integrated, producing health, vigor, vitality, and taste through Bio-Dynamic concepts and French Intensive techniques. His result was unequaled in our time. Students from this project went on to become teachers of Horticulture throughout the world.
For Troubadour: Juaquin grows us culinary floral, rainbow Swiss chard, herbs, figs, celery, lambs quarters, and of course...kale. We feature all of these in our lunch sandwiches and throughout the Le Dîner menu.