• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Fermenting for Foodies

Health, Taste and Tradition

  • Fermentation
    • General Information
    • Beans, Nuts & Seeds
    • Beer, Wine, & Cider
    • Dairy & Cheese
    • Fermented Fruit
    • GF Sourdough
    • Trad Sourdough
    • Probiotic Beverages
    • Vegetables
    • Supplies
  • Healthy Meals
    • Appetizers
    • Baked Goods
    • Breakfasts
    • Condiments
    • Main Dishes
    • Sides & Salads
    • Soups & Stews
    • Desserts
    • Gluten-Free
    • Vegan
  • Fruit-Sweetened Treats
  • Cookbook

Fermentation as a Culinary Dimension: An Interview with Agrius

How to make fermented foods part of your menu.
An interview with Agrius about how to bring fermented foods into the restaurant kitchen.
The wall of fermented vegetables.

Agrius is a farm-to-table restaurant on Vancouver Island that features fermented foods in many of its dishes. I recently met with the owner Max Durand to talk about why they brought fermented foods into their kitchen.

Fermentation at Agrius

It all began with sourdough at their associated bakery, Fol Epi. Now their fermented larder includes:

  • A wall full of fermented vegetables and fruits.
  • Tempeh made in an industrial-sized bread proofer.
  • Koji ferments, particularly bread-based miso.
  • Kombucha.
  • Sausages and other cured meats.

The only type of ferment that Agrius is unable to make is dairy ferments. Which is due to local government regulations and not a lack of interest. Though I don’t know why a restaurant would be allowed to add a bacterial culture to raw meat (for making salami) but not make yogurt.

Here is a plate of fermented vegetables that Max sent me home with when we met in November. Clockwise, starting from the top: purple pickled turnips, jalapeno fermented corn, watermelon radishes, carrots with koji brine, kohlrabi and cucumber pickles.

Why restaurants should use fermentation, an interview with Agrius and Fol Epi

The Importance of Fermentation

There are a number of reasons why Agrius includes fermented foods as part of their menu.

  1. It is an important form of cooking that should be part of every cook’s skill set.
  2. As a farm-to-table restaurant, fermentation gives them bigger buying power and the ability to preserve in-season produce.
  3. They follow in the Noma (affiliate link) tradition, using fermentation to add flavour and complexity to their dishes.

Unlike home cooks (and fermenters), Agrius has the ability to maintain precision at every step of their fermentation process. All of the ferments are done in their restaurant kitchen, with the exception of sourdough, which is kept at their off-site bakery.

Agrius fermented vegetables, meats, kombucha, koji, miso and more
Curing meat.

They have a number of tools to maintain the perfect temperature and humidity for curing meat, making tempeh and miso. Sanitation is always important in a restaurant, so cross-contamination of cultures hasn’t been an issue.

The vegetable ferments are mostly made in 20 to 40 Liter containers. And the salt to vegetable ratio is calculated by weight.

All of this precision doesn’t just prevent failures, it also allows them to store their ferments for long periods of time. For example, the cucumber pickles and string beans are both over a year old. Our favourite ferment though has to be the corn on the cob. It was so delicious!

Filed Under: Travel

Previous Post: « Recipes for Homemade Fresh Cheese
Next Post: The Simplest Mincemeat: No-Cook & Sugar-Free »

Reader Interactions

Related Posts

Lait Ribot, a French style buttermilk beverage
Lait Ribot: A French Buttermilk Beverage
Bean and cheese pupusas are perfect for cooking with your kids. Easy and delicious!
Salvadoran Bean and Cheese Pupusas
Chickpea flour and rice flour fermented khaman. A lightly spiced, steamed bread.
Khaman Dhokla – Indian Steamed Bread

Learn about apple based alcoholic beverages from a traditional chouchen maker from Brittany
Chouchen and Cider in Brittany
How to make a sweet and spicy fermented piccalilli for a zero-waste, no-cook alternative
Fermented Piccalilli: A Mixed Vegetable Condiment
Loaves of sourdough bread.
Tracebridge Fermentation in Somerset

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Hi, I'm Emillie, an island-dwelling fermentation enthusiast. Fermenting For Foodies features healthy recipes designed to feed your microbiome.
Read More →

Check Out My Cookbook!

Fermenting Made Simple Cookbook

Want healthy recipes right to your inbox? Subscribe to our mid-month newsletter!

Thank you!

Please check your inbox to confirm your subscription.

Affiliate Disclosure

In order to run this site, Fermenting For Foodies sometimes earns an affiliate commission on the sales of products we link to. We only feature items we genuinely want to share, and this is an arrangement between the retailer and Fermenting For Foodies. Readers never pay more for products. Thank you for reading!

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Affiliate Disclosure
  • Sponsored Content
  • Contact

Copyright © 2023 · Fermenting for Foodies