ARTISANAL

12 Forest Street,
New Canaan

It’s not unsual to see Chef Robert Ubaldo unloading the day’s produce—bags and bags of fresh greens, odd squashes, Chinese long beans and heirloom tomatoes. These organic vegetables don’t travel far; he picks them early in the morning in the raised bed garden at his mother’s house in Pound Ridge. Later, they get paired with the poultry, pork and beef that his brother raises at John Boy’s Farm in Cambridge, New York. All of it enhances the food his restaurant is known for: good, clean and healthy. Specials change each day depending on what was just picked or foraged. Ubaldo had a long history in the restaurant business when he found himself between jobs and baking homemade bread to sell at farmers’ markets. “We were standing there freezing one day in November and I said, ‘You know it’s possible to do this with a roof over our heads.’” He moved to a little spot on Forest Street where they sold the family produce with his bread. When customers bought produce, Ubaldo offered to cook it for them in his store. Pretty soon, he outgrew the tiny storefront and moved across the street. He took with him the sourdough starter to keep making that homemade bread.