Tag Grandgeorge, now the chef at Terrace Hill, brings back his tomato dinner
Chef Tag Grandgeorge brings back one of his favorite dinners that he first started serving in 2001.
The former chef and owner of Le Jardin, the French bistro he owned with his wife, Megan Grandgeorge, in Beaverdale that closed in 2018, took over as the executive chef at Terrace Hill, the 18,000-square-foot Victorian Second Empire home built in 1869 that now serves as the official governor’s residence and a National Historic Landmark, back in February.
Now Grandgeorge is adding his touch to the home by reintroducing Des Moines to his tomato dinner, this time an intimate affair at Terrace Hill.
On Sept. 6, he serves an eight-course tomato dinner for $200 per person that starts with a gazpacho shooter and ends with a chocolate truffle and candied black cherry tomato.
“I’m just going big on this,” Grandgeorge said. “I wanted to go big with it and make it a really unique event, and then hopefully we can continue to keep growing.”
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Why celebrate tomatoes?
Grandgeorge started his tomato dinners back in 2001 at the former Arthouse on Ingersoll Avenue as a way to showcase Iowa’s summertime staple. Each course includes heirloom tomatoes and comes with wine pairings.
The garden at Terrace Hill inspires the dinner. Grandgeorge spent a portion of his summer pickling beets, processing sweet corn, and canning tomatoes, all grown in the Terrace Hill garden. First gentleman Kevin Reynolds, who worked as a soil conservationist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture until his retirement in 2017, grows everything from carrots and radishes to purple Russian kale and Brussels sprouts in the garden.
“We have a great garden,” Grandgeorge said. “Kevin does a great job growing stuff.”
Reynolds even taught Grandgeorge how to make his salsa that uses tomatoes and jalapenos from the garden.
“It’s everything I’ve done in my career in one way or another,” Grandgeorge said of his new job.
After closing Le Jardin, he worked at restaurants such as The Machine Shed in Urbandale. At Terrace Hill, he does everything from a night of light appetizers for 60 to rentals of the entire first two floors, which are open to the public.
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What’s on the menu for the tomato dinner?
For the tomato dinner, the intimate group will start with an appetizer and spritzer in the drawing room and then have a chance to tour the historic home. Guests will then be seated for dinner in the formal dining room for the other seven courses.
“It’s still a work in progress,” Grandgeorge said of the menu about two weeks ahead of the event. Tomatoes are just coming into season for the dinner and varieties should be plentiful to make each course special.
To create the menu, he’s culled through old cookbooks, including those published with Terrace Hill recipes, to come up with some of the dishes, such as a tomato aspic for the soup course. Grandgeorge said he wanted to go back to the basics. “Remember when molded salads were all the rage?” he asked with a laugh.
Other interesting choices include a chow chow — a tart relish made with green tomatoes — as well as crab Louie for a salad course. “I mean, where can you get a crab Louie, literally anywhere?”
Some courses, such as the gazpacho, he’s done before (he called it “gazpacho on overdrive”), while others are pretty straight forward, like the smoked flank steak with a chimichurri and marinated Brandywine tomatoes on the side. Even two dessert courses — an olive oil cake and the chocolates — have tomatoes incorporated.
This year marks the 20th time Grandgeorge has focused on tomatoes for a dinner. Even after Le Jardin closed, he held the dinner at Plant Life Designs until the pandemic in 2020. This is the first tomato dinner since then.
This isn’t the first dinner Grandgeorge orchestrated at the governor’s mansion. In August, he worked on a barbecue held by Reynolds.
Ticket sales for the tomato dinner close on Friday for the dinner. Proceeds from the event will benefit the Terrace Hill Partnership, the nonprofit organization that supports conservation and restoration projects for the Terrace Hill building and grounds.
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Where to find more information on the Terrace Hill tomato dinner
What: An eight-course dinner using tomatoes and produce from the Terrace Hill garden.
Where: Terrace Hill, 2300 Grand Ave., Des Moines
When: Sept. 6 at 5:30 p.m.
Cost: $200 on Eventbrite at tomatodinner.eventbrite.com or by calling the Terrace Hill office at 515-281-7205.
Menu: Gazpacho shooter with a sweet black vinegar and blue cheese puffs with tomato preserves, a tomato verrine with garlic fromage blanc and grilled zucchini, tomato aspic, a sweet corn cake with green tomato chow chow, smoked flank steak with chimichurri and marinated Brandywine tomatoes, crab Louis, olive oil cake with a goat cheese frosting and Sweet 100 tomato coulis, and Chocolaterie Stam chocolate truffle and candied black cherry tomato.
Susan Stapleton is the entertainment editor and dining reporter at The Des Moines Register. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, or drop her a line at sstapleton@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Terrace Hill hosts a tomato dinner from chef Tag Grandgeorge
