Across the Tracks, Roselily’s Eamonn McParland Presents a Chef’s Tasting Experience
In a previous life as a fast-food barista, I quickly learned each customer had an order as unique as their fingerprint. The Customer is Always Right was the mantra playing through my mind as I over-steamed the milk to a precise 205 degrees, scalding any flavor left in the already watered-down nonfat milk and killing a small piece of my soul along with the skin cells on my palm.
This isn’t an accident—chain restaurants and fast-food establishments have spent countless dollars promoting that you should have it your way.
Just across the tracks in downtown South Bend stands Roselily, home to Chef Eamonn McParland’s chef’s tasting dinner, in stark contrast to the have it your way culture. Eamonn has worked in kitchens since the age of thirteen, up the ranks of many fine dining restaurants. It was during his time as a chef at Lasalle Grill when he began visioning a tasting restaurant for South Bend that would invite customers to journey through a meal at the direction of the chef.
When Roselily opened in the fall of 2020, Eamonn’s vision came into view, however, very few people were familiar with the idea of a chef’s tasting experience. “I finally had the nerve to do it during the pandemic when we weren't getting many people in the door,” he shared with me. “If people are going to risk their lives to come out to eat, let's give them something really special. People would come in, and the servers would talk them into it. Then, boom—they did five courses. Now they know what a chef's tasting is.”
The concept is actually quite simple: a progression of small plates guided completely by the chef and served alongside an expertly selected wine pairing. Picture the ideal date, one where your partner perfectly executes a beautifully planned day. Similarly, the concept of stripping away decisions from the guest must not be cruel punishment, but rather an invitation to trust the artistry of the chef. As a guest, the only decision one must make is yes.
“There's no one editing you, so if I'm excited about something or I want to play with a certain ingredient, I’m grateful there are people who trust me to feed them something that's going to taste good. It’s definitely a learning curve for people, especially considering we’re, to my knowledge, the only place in South Bend that does chef’s tastings.”
During my first Roselily tasting dinner, I discovered there was no menu provided to guide me through the evening, instead it was a blind trust fall at the mercy of a team of highly trained chefs, servers, and sommeliers. This decision to keep guests a bit in the dark throughout the experience preserves an element of mystery and keeps guests open minded.
“I don’t give the menu before the tasting, it is delivered at the end,” Eamonn explained. “People have certain expectations. If you put chili on the menu, they have an expectation of what a chili should be—should it have beans, should it not have beans, that’s how my grandma made it, or this is how my dad made it—but if you go in a little ambiguous, you have a much more open mind. Whether it was chili or not, you may end up liking it.”
With any chef’s tasting experience, progression matters: each dish and wine pairing building upon the next like the crescendo of an orchestra. Roselily’s seven course tasting begins gently with a light dish intended to slowly wake up the palette.
“We're not going to start a first course with a big slab of wagyu beef. We start with lighter, colder dishes first and then progress from there.”
Locally sourced produce is one of Eamonn’s inspirations for designing new dishes. “I work with a lot of farmers who bring in unique produce, so whenever I get something I’ll put it on the menu. The chanterelles are locally foraged in Indiana, so I immediately put those on the menu.”
Throughout the two-and-a-half to three hour meal, guests will encounter ingredients and combinations foreign to their palette. “I've been writing menus for years,” Eamonn shared. “There's certain ingredients that people just steer away from. I know the food is good. And I know if people step outside their comfort zone, they are going to like it.”
With each course presented at the table, the beautiful ingredients, artful plating, and irresistible flavor sing in perfect harmony to excite all of the senses. This requires a team of highly skilled culinary professionals. “It gets pretty intense,” Eamonn shared, “But we've got a lot of practice. I obviously conceptualize the menu, but I couldn't execute it without my team.”
Our server’s energy and expertise elevated the experience with stories of the winemakers, education about the winemaking process, and tasting notes to identify that paired perfectly with the upcoming dish. By the end of the evening, we had fallen in love with ingredients that we were otherwise hesitant to try: rare beef for some, octopus for one, and sweetbreads for another. Despite our personal preferences, we each took the leap to trust that the chef, who has dedicated his life to perfecting this craft, would not lead us astray.
“The ultimate purpose of the tasting menu is for people to step outside of their comfort zone and realize food doesn’t always have to be about sustenance, it can be about experience. I wanted to be able to take people on that journey.”
Since the inauguration of Roselily’s chef’s tasting, Eamonn has seen an incredible response from guests who have said yes, explored ingredients they previously avoided, and returned multiple times to try it again. Roselily’s chef’s tasting experience is a petition for customers to release control and trust the artistry of the chef to shine rather than insisting on having it their way.
This trust fall is one worth taking.
