Chef Ernest Foundas hopes to put Pearlington on the international map of culinary inventiveness.
Chef Ernest Foundas hopes to put Pearlington on the international map of culinary inventiveness and have chefs from around the world come to his Mississippi food lab to collaborate and experiment.
That’s a lofty goal for Foundas’s Tiki Food Lab and Fermentation Learning Center, a South Pacific-themed food farm and learning and research center overlooking a bayou in Hancock County.
Powered by Coast Electric, Foundas, 56, uses the farm and food lab to explore and create new flavor profiles as well as grow unique and unusual produce that supplies his New Orleans restaurant, Suis Generis. The restaurant changes its menu weekly.
Suis Generis is a zero-waste restaurant, Foundas said.
“The idea came to me when I was working at various restaurants in Boston in the early 1990s, when I saw the excessive amount of waste caused by static menus. I thought it was irresponsible, and it had a negative impact on food costs. I also did not want to cook the samething every week, because that is not challenging. So, I decided that I wanted to create a restaurant with a constantly changing menu to maintain constant creativity and to minimize waste and focus on foods in season,” Foundas said.
Foundas grew up in New Orleans and started out working in French Quarter restaurants. Legendary New Orleans chef Paul Prudhomme taught Foundas to create all kinds of special dishes.
Foundas went to college in the Boston area and worked at restaurants there. He wound up going to law school at Mississippi College. Although he earned a law degree, his dream was to own and operate his own New Orleans restaurant.
Foundas considered Mississippi a second home. He visited theMississippi Gulf Coast often as a child and spent time in the state for law school.
Because of those connections, Pearlington wound up being the perfect spot for his farm and food lab.
“As years of weekly changing menus passed, we felt limited by the available produce. My partner Adrienne and I were on vacation in Fiji when we visited an organic farm that was a garden of Eden with almost unlimited unusual edible and medicinal plants. On the flight back, we decided to look for a property where we could create our own little food paradise. That was about 2017 when we were on the trip, and we bought the Mississippi farm in 2018,” Foundas said.
Because Foundas’s restaurant focuses on zero waste cooking and complex flavors, fermentation is a key aspect of the process.
“For example, at the end of a weekly menu, we may have extra brussels sprouts and roast corn. So, we might make brussels sprout kimchee and roast corn miso,” Foundas said.
The Tiki Food Lab and Education Center is not just about fueling the menus of the restaurant. There are food experiences open to the public at the Pearlington facility, including a farm tour, cooking classes, and chef-curated meals based on different topics.
“We have done classes on miso making, introduction to fermentation, wine and vinegar making, and barbecue techniques from around the world. We have also had events featuring well known neurologists discussing the synergy between the micro biome and brain function — and then prepared a meal that provides food for thought! Another event is the poetry menu, where the guests prepare an eight-line poem that turns into their eight-course menu,” he said.
The reaction from the public has been positive.
“People seem to be really interested in foods that make you healthy and boost your immune system, which is what fermented and organic foods do. Plus, an evening at the Tiki Farm is like being on vacation in the South Pacific, but just a short drive from New Orleans, Biloxi, or Picayune,” Foundas said.
Although Foundas spends most weekdays at the restaurant, his weekends are spent in Pearlington at the farm.
“I’m originally from New Orleans and have been visiting the Gulf Coast since I was a child, so I have an affinity for the area. We love the proximity to the coast, the beauty of the bayou, and the interest in business development from Hancock County.”
