Among Blaine’s intimate community of distinct businesses and restaurants, The Vault Wine Bar is a stand-out for their focus on charcuterie, locally sourced fine dining, and wine. Their wine list has been described as “a novel,” offering 30 pages of carefully sourced selections (including hard to find regional varieties) at the time of writing. (That’s not even considering their beer, cider, and spirits!) To complement your experience sipping new wines or reveling in old favorites, Chef Kenny Florczak works hard to create seasonal, inventive, and delicious food.
Meet the Chefs
Florczak is a 29-year-old chef from New Hampshire. Although he’s been cooking his entire adult life, his focus isn’t on lengthy and elaborate ingredient lists– it’s on bringing out the fantastic flavors of fresh, local foods.
To this effect, Florczak and the Vault work with over 40 local vendors to source with sustainability in mind. He describes the food menu as “an evolving entity” which reacts to availability and their experiments as they try new things. Through it all, Florczak wants most to provide a delicious diversion, an immersive moment with the food and wine that lets diners get away from it all.
“My inspiration to cook is mainly driven by the idea of providing a little escape from the world to people who come to eat,” he says. “Experience is the real factor.”
The recipe provided by The Vault is for honey gels, a sweet accompaniment that you can add to charcuterie boards, desserts, warm drinks, or just keep around for a sweet treat.
Ingredients
200 grams of high-quality honey
600 grams of filtered water
1 gram of agar agar
Flakey salt to taste
Instructions
• Combine your honey and water in a small saucepan. Warm on low heat until the mixture is uniform.
• Add in the agar agar and stir.
• Bring the mixture to a boil.
• Pour mixture into a small baking dish or sheet with a high enough lip to keep everything contained.
• Cool in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
• Gently pry solidified honey gel up from an edge and place onto a cutting board.
• Cut the honey gels into your preferred shapes.
• Apply flaky salt to taste right before serving to retain the textural crunch.
