Markeshia Ricks Photo
Oak Haven Chef Kevin Wolcott inside the new mobile kitchen.
The farm-to-table dining experience Oak Haven Table & Bar brought to Upper State Street six years ago will be pulling up to farms, festivals, and fairs this summer.
That’s because the restaurant, which specializes in craft cocktails and modern American cuisine, now has a new roady-ready beast of a “mobile kitchen.”
“It’s not just a food truck,” said Albert Greenwood, who owns the restaurant and the truck with Craig Hotchkiss. “It has big capabilities and can do a lot of stuff.”
Since March, Oak Haven Chef Kevin Wolcott and crew have been testing those capabilities by catering events and hitting the road for farmers markets, corporate events, and breweries. The truck allows the restaurant to provide full-service catering using the same farm-fresh ingredients for which Oak Haven is known.
“It’s a really great time and we really enjoy doing it,” he said on a recent tour of the truck. “It’s one of the bigger food trucks in the area. This is 28 feet long, a traditional food truck is probably 18. So we have an 18-foot kitchen.”
The Oak Haven truck is tricked out with full refrigeration, freezer, microwave, two fryers, and a flat cooktop.
“It has a little of everything,” Wolcott said. “It’s just like a regular kitchen without an actual stove.”
The restaurant on State Street offers upscale dining similar to what you might find downtown, with tapas-style small plates and over 160 different bourbons and whiskeys. The food truck’s menu skews more toward fun comfort foods like meatballs, veggie fritters, poutines and burgers both beef, and veggie.
Wolcott said depending on the event, the mobile kitchen can provide whatever an event requires.
“We can do anything,” he said. “It’s not just set in stone. This is just our take on a food truck.”
Greenwood said the truck gives Oak Haven an opportunity to do large-scale events such as fairs and festivals. Plans call for the truck to pull into the Muddy Roots Farm dinner in Wallingford, the Sailfest in New London, and the Apizza and Eats Fest on the New Haven Green. It also is scheduled to hit the International Festival of Arts & Ideas and the summer concert series.
Oak Haven will celebrate six years on State Street this summer. Greenwood said he’s still pretty happy with the choice to open up in the neighborhood. Greenwood said he would like to open another outpost of the restaurant in another part of the city that would be a spin-off the original, similar to how the owners of Da Legna’s have spun off Nolo’s and Caseus has given way to Olmo. He sees that future restaurant in another neighborhood similar to East Rock with its year-round neighbors and more plentiful parking and other businesses.