Ny Haven: A Nordic Inspired Pop-up with Chefs Marcell Davidsen & Tommy Juliano at 116 Crown

Photos: Signe Birck

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A 13 course Nordic-inspired menu is the inspiration for Ny Haven, a one-time pop-up dining collaboration between chefs Marcell Davidsen and Tommy Juliano, that will take place at 116 Crown on March 3, 2014. Ny Haven is a play on words. In Danish, Ny means New, and Haven means garden. In Copenhagen, Nyhavn is a main gathering point for people to meet at cafés to eat and drink. 

The chefs, best known for their culinary risk-taking and locavore approach at Community Table in Washington, CT, will descend upon the kitchen of 116 Crown in New Haven for a single night for 25 lucky gourmands. 

"We are very excited to showcase our style of new New England cuisine, and Nordic influenced cooking, to New Haven," said Davidsen. "With my Danish background and Tommy's New England approach on desserts."

The set menu (no substitutions) will run about 13 courses, including snacks to dessert. Each course will be paired with a beverage, ranging from low alcoholic drinks to juices and cocktails, curated by 116 Crown owner John Ginnetti. With a game plan described as "intricate and innovative, while still keeping the integrity of the product," the evening's menu will take no prisoners in both its planned use of ingredients as well as its original execution. For example, Davidsen shared the details on a particular dish he envisions with venison, blueberries, reindeer moss and butter milk. The reindeer moss is foraged (by Davidsen), who then soaks it in water for minimum of 12 hours before cooking and then preparing it, maintaining the natural shape and form of the moss on the plate. 

This evening represents a convergence of two of the most creatively talented chefs in the state. Davidsen is a native of Denmark, has worked in Greece for five years, and recently in the kitchens of Heirloom in New Haven, Whelk in Westport, and Community Table in Washington. Davidsen has staged at Acme in NYC, run by Chef Mads Refslund co-founder of Noma, as well as Luksus in Brooklyn run by Chef Daniel Burns, the former pastry chef from Noma. Modern constructions that celebrate natural ingredients in their purest form, Davidsen's dishes rarely stray far from his Nordic roots.  

Tommy Juliano is the pastry chef at Community Table, formerly of On20 and Food Network's Sweet Genius, where his desserts resemble works of abstract art that both appear to both defy and celebrate the laws of nature in their often elaborate construct. Juliano has staged at Alinea, wd50, Eleven Madison Park, Daniel, and was executive pastry chef at the James Beard-winning restaurant Arrows in Ogunquit, Maine. He has also been one of the featured pastry chefs at Autism Speaks celebrity chef gala in NYC two years in a row.