Freemans Restaurant in downtown Manhattan recently started serving La Colombe coffee. Freemans Chef Preston Madson found our Louisiane blend to be a perfect fit for the earthy flavors on his menu. Madson took some time to answer a few questions about the restaurant and his food.
8 Rivington Street New York, NY 10002
http://freemansrestaurant.com/
@Chefbigbird
@FreemansAlley
How does Freemans fit in the downtown restaurant scene?
Freemans is at the end of an alleyway in lower east side so you kind of have to know about it to know where it is. A lot of the bartenders have their regular customers and then regulars who come in to eat once a week. A lot of people come in and when they leave they had a good time and then they tell their friends who are either somewhere in the city coming back or visiting from somewhere else. So we get a lot of word of mouth. It’s an inexpensive form of advertising.
Do you get a lot of tourists because of the press Freemans has been receiving?
We do get a lot of tourists. It depends on the season when people go on their holidays for the most part. We get a lot of locals as well who live in the neighborhood. It’s a good mix of tourists and locals.
How do your customers affect your choices for the menu?
There’s a lot of stuff on the menu that we don’t take off because that’s why people come to the restaurant. The artichoke dip, the devils on horseback, the brownie, banana foster, the filet… If you took one of those out people would be very upset.
The chocolate brownie is pretty standard of the menu. It’s nutty and has some buttery notes to it. Same with the coffee. It’s very complimentary and not distracting from it. It blends well together with the food.
Can you tell us a little bit about your process creating recipes?
It’s more like taking the raw ingredient and then thinking about flavors and textures and then putting that together. My mom was a really good cook. I like doing the things she used to do when I was younger.
