Peruse Gardner's Uniquely Vegetable-Focused Menu Before Their Monday Debut

Ranch-to-table restaurant Contigo is known for their great burger, their rabbit and dumplings, and their house charcuterie -- in other words, for their skill with meat. When Ben Edgerton and Andrew Wiseheart planned their second restaurant, they wanted to do something new. Instead of adopting a different cuisine, the partners decided to focus on a different ingredient: vegetables. Chef Andrew Wiseheart and his team have developed a menu of refined vegetable-focused dishes, without being a specifically vegetarian restaurant.

Eater spoke with Wiseheart about developing Gardner's unique menu. He says there's still structure, but now it's focused on putting vegetables front and center, rather than meat. The menu will offer a set number of vegetable, meat, and seafood dishes and will change seasonally with "the best available" ingredients. Often, that will mean vegetables from local farmers. But the team at Gardner is also open to serving great ingredients grown further away.

The menu is broken down into four sections: snacks, first, second, and dessert. The snacks section is the home of the restaurant's most experimental dishes; Wiseheart hopes the small size will encourage diners to "step outside their comfort zone." Take a look at their initial friends & family menu below, including their wine and beer list. It will change a bit when the restaurant officially opens Monday.

GARDNER Friends And Family Menu