The grass-roots rise of Farm & Haus from meal delivery service in 2014 (it was Farm-Haus back then) to East End Market stall to full-scale restaurant hasn’t been meteoric but, rather, biscuit-like. By that I mean it’s been a slow rise over the food operation’s 10-year span — a span that also saw owners Patrick and Brittany Walsh Lyne welcome three children into the mix, their youngest during the midst of a pandemic, no less. But after taking the plunge into brick-and-mortardom, the pair seem as relaxed and self-assured as ever and, hey, why not? They’ve got a fetching restaurant on one of the toniest strips in the city and a following as healthy as their menu.
Healthyish, rather.
I mean, that banana bread with honey butter ($8) isn’t doing anyone’s waistlines any favors, but palates across Winter Park are raving about it. Just as noteworthy are the restaurant’s servers — they aren’t just delightfully competent, they know the menu inside and out, dropping recs as well as the names of local purveyors whose ingredients make up F&H’s dishes.
Dishes like the harvest hash ($18), a well-composed breakfast bowl of sweet potatoes, farro and, among other things, soft-boiled eggs from Lake Meadow Naturals, seasonal greens from Everoak Farm and mushrooms from Play of Sunlight. In fact, I saw a guy carry in a white box of ‘shrooms on my last visit and gave the man a nod for doing his part in crafting a pretty gratifying meal.
On my first visit, I scarfed down a fresh and gorgeous Mediterranean breakfast bowl ($18) highlighted by house-made falafel, which were more like soft patties than crispy orbs. But this is a breakfast and lunch spot (hours are 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday) so eggs, as you can imagine, are a much-spotlighted ingredient, particularly in such worthwhile plates as the “OG” breakfast sandwich ($11) with sausage and gouda on an English muffin (from Olde Hearth Bread Co.), and the bacon breakfast sandwich ($15) with co-starring rashers. The latter comes with fries, which we chose to forgo in favor of hash browns for $2 more.
On a previous occasion, those hash browns looked more like fat potato pancakes, which had us re-scanning the menu to see if we received the fried carb in error. But on my last visit, the hash browns resembled hash browns — cooked in duck and bacon fat, to boot. I’m also a big fan of the Farm & Haus burger ($19) comprising an 8-ounce, grass-fed patty from Lake Meadow, caramelized onions, lemon aioli, Little Gem lettuce and a soft cow’s milk cheese they make in-house, all sandwiched into a brioche bun.
If I had an issue (apart from the blown bulb on one of the brass light fixtures), it was with the consistency of the biscuits — sometimes they’re fluffy and flaky, and sometimes they’ve been dry and crumbly — and it’s an issue Brittany is well aware of. She cites kitchen heat as the culprit and is considering taking them off the menu.
Other menu tweaks are in the works too. “I’m the sort of person who won’t rest easy until everything we offer is the way it should be,” she says, “and that includes the bulb.”
The Lynes just launched a seasonal wine, beer and beverage menu, and patrons can look forward to a seasonal dessert menu in the coming weeks. Until then, the aforementioned banana bread or a trio of buckwheat pancakes ($14), with their savory and slightly bitter finish, will do just fine. The pancakes are served with orange curd, house-made granola and fruit — oranges, grapefruit and berries on this occasion. Ask for maple syrup and you’ll be served an elegant bourbon barrel-aged amber handcrafted in Grand Rapids by BLiS.
Look, there’s no shortage of breakfast and lunch spots aiming to loosen the purse strings of punters along Park Avenue — from Briarpatch and Barnie’s to Financier Bistro and Croissant Gourmet, not to mention New York City import Fresh&Co right across the street. So, if you were to ask me whether the restaurant will succeed on this über-competitive strip in Winter Park, I’d tell you the Lynes have nothing to worry about. And you can bet the farm and the haus on that.
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This article appears in Mar 8-14, 2023.
