Nimbus restaurant’s constant search for sources
STORY AND PHOTOS BY TIM NEWCOMB
In the heart of downtown Bellingham and soaring 14 floors above street level, Nimbus boasts commanding views of Bellingham Bay, downtown, the surrounding countryside and Mount Baker. With such a far-reaching view, you can see almost everywhere your dinner has come from.
Nimbus opened in 2003 and Josh Silverman came to work at the restaurant while finishing his culinary degree at Bellingham Technical College. After training in a Michelin-starred restaurant in Spain and then working in Seattle’s Earth & Ocean, Silverman, at the age of 30, bought Nimbus in April 2006.
While Nimbus was serving local fare at the time, Silverman took the idea to new heights. He changes the menu monthly in the summer and every six weeks in the winter, all hinged around available local ingredients. It was in Spain where he really learned the art of working with ingredients so specific to a region. And his two years in Seattle helped him hone his skills for sourcing in a Northwest city.
“While traveling in Spain and working in kitchens there, translating ingredients was a nightmare for me because every ingredient was so specific to that particular region,” Silverman says. “But it gave me a great respect for sussing out the local ingredients and sourcing the artisan local producers.”
But getting those ever-changing local ingredients for his five cooks is all about “making the connections,” Silverman says. It was a chore to make those relationships in the beginning, since Whatcom County didn’t have a solid local sourcing foundation. It has since become a breeding ground for connecting with farmers. “I started to dig around and the doors opened from there,” he notes.
Working with Sustainable Connections—a Whatcom group focused on connecting the community through business and farming—he has been able to meet local artisans, fishermen and ranchers.
“I would go nuts if I had to cook the same thing month after month,” he says. “This is so much more fun, but a lot more work. It keeps you on your toes and it seems more natural to me to eat seasonally.”
Forming relationships with fishermen is important at Nimbus, especially in the summer months. He works with Jeremy Brown, a local fisherman off the Washington coast, to get Washington salmon and halibut as much as possible. “It’s awesome,” Silverman says. “He goes out, hits his quota of salmon and halibut and calls me from the boat. I get first pick and it is the best possible product available.”
It is with that product that Silverman is then able to gain inspiration for his menus. “It is very inspirational and I really respect the product,” he says. “I want to create beautiful, creative dishes. I look at a 25-pound king salmon on the cutting board and I don’t want to mess that up, so I treat it as delicately as possible.”
Once known as a special-occasion restaurant because of its high-end menu and location, Silverman is trying to get out from under that by changing things up constantly. But since Nimbus will always remain a destination for out-of-town visitors, expect salmon on the menu all year round, complete with seasonally appropriate preparation.
In the winter, Desire Fish Company, run by a Bellingham family, catches Silverman salmon in Alaska, which is then flash-frozen on board. Then, Silverman heads to Bellingham’s Squalicum Harbor every Saturday to pick up his meat.
While salmon is a staple all year and Washington halibut is available at Nimbus all summer, it is that relationship with Brown that allows Silverman to keep random creations on his menu. From fresh anchovies to black cod, Brown is always offering Silverman new twists (he utilized those anchovies for a sauce he hadn’t tried before).
To spread the wealth, Nimbus uses spot prawns from a local on Lummi Island and gets all its oysters from Taylor Shellfish Farms just a few miles south in Skagit County’s Bow.
But you can’t serve just fish. Nimbus has been working with Island Grown Farmers Cooperative to get local meats. “I finally found pasture-raised organic chickens from Osprey Hill Farm in Acme, so we have that on the menu now, which is awesome.” To go along with the beef and chicken, there are plenty of new things that Silverman finds “exciting,” including duck eggs and heritage turkey from Osprey Hill, which he cooked up last Thanksgiving.
To go along with the proteins, Cloud Mountain Farm of Everson is providing plenty of interesting fruits and vegetables. Heirloom melons, which aren’t common in Northwest Washington, are an adventure for Silverman. “Cloud Mountain Farm has a lot of crazy different varieties,” he says. “All 10 to 20 varieties of melons are delicious and I don’t ever know what I have until I open them up.”
But making sure he has a few mainstays on hand is a good idea too. Silverman loves tomatoes and gets numerous varieties from Cloud Mountain. Cascade Cuts grows micro lettuces and herbs specifically for Nimbus, that Silverman clips right off the still-growing plant when they are needed to finish a dish or create a mini-salad.
It takes a lot of energy to learn about different foods, but Silverman is also able to connect with customers, answering questions and educating them when they’re curious. The locals have come to expect surprising ingredients. “People have come to trust that the cooks here will give them something new and creative every time they come,” Silverman says.
“The ‘buy local’ thing is becoming a cliché and people are saying they are doing it,” Silverman adds. “I am hoping that through osmosis, once they experience ingredients at the heart of freshness and in season, they will come to expect that and then when they go somewhere it won’t taste the same because it isn’t fresh. They will recognize the quality difference.”
Nimbus Restaurant
119 North Commercial Street, 14th Floor
Bellingham, WA 98225
(360) 676-1307
Tim Newcomb is a newspaper editor and freelance magazine writer living in Lynden.