Farm Partner Profile: Inside Nourish’s Partnership with Acabonac Farms
Nourish by The Roundtree Staff
Acabonac Farms is the name that comes up when a Hamptons restaurant says “grass-fed” and means it. It is also the name on the delivery that arrives at the Nourish kitchen door, week after week, since the doors opened this spring.
The farm
“Acabonac” is an Algonquin word for “root place,” tied to a part of East Hampton’s history that predates every restaurant on Main Street. Acabonac Farms took the name on purpose. The operation is part of a small effort to bring working agriculture back to East End land that, over the past several decades, mostly gave way to lawns and second homes.
The farm raises 100% grass-fed, pasture-finished cattle on the East End of Long Island, along with pastured lamb, pork, and chicken. None of it passes through a feedlot. The pasture-first model isn’t a label added to a conventional operation. It’s the operation.
How the cattle are raised
Acabonac manages its pasture in two halves that work together. Roughly half is planted in perennial grasses, rye, timothy, orchard grass, chosen for how well they hold up in East End growing conditions. The other half is a mix of clovers, which feed the cattle and feed the soil, pulling nitrogen from the air so the farm doesn’t need synthetic fertilizer to keep the ground productive.
The cattle rotate through these pastures on a schedule, which keeps the grass from being grazed down and gives the soil time to recover between passes. No antibiotics, no added hormones, no grain finishing. What the animal eats is what grows on that ground, and what grows on that ground is shaped by East End soil and salt air. The flavor of the beef follows from that, the same way a wine carries the character of the vineyard it came from.
How it reaches the Nourish kitchen
Nourish has sourced its grass-fed beef from Acabonac Farms since opening, a farm-to-table relationship built on proximity as much as anything. The farm is close enough that what arrives in the kitchen hasn’t traveled far or sat long.
Acabonac’s reputation on the East End is well established. It’s the name behind the beef program at several long-standing Hamptons restaurants, and the kind of supplier relationship a kitchen tends to hold onto once it finds it.
On the plate
The Acabonac beef at Nourish currently anchors the burger, a dish where the quality of the meat is the point rather than something to dress around. Grass-fed beef behaves differently in the kitchen than grain-fed. It’s leaner, it cooks faster, and it rewards a lighter hand with heat and seasoning rather than a heavier one.
That restraint is consistent with how Chef Dewa treats every ingredient that comes in this good. The beef doesn’t need much done to it to be the best thing on the plate.
