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The Crescent Duck Farm on Lengthy Island’s north fork is 117 years outdated, the final of the island’s duck farms — a area that was as soon as the duck capital of the nation — and the provider that most of the metropolis’s prime cooks use for their very own duck dishes. “Particularly, for me, and I had a restaurant referred to as Geese, all the pieces else turned unusable,” says the chef Will Horowitz. “It acquired to the purpose the place, if we couldn’t get it from them, we simply wouldn’t serve duck. There was nothing else we might use.” However now, Crescent’s future is in jeopardy. Because the RiverheadLocal reported this week, a bird-flu outbreak had pressured Crescent to close down operations, and its proprietor, Doug Corwin, should cull his whole flock of almost 100,000 geese.
The Suffolk County Well being Division says that the danger to public well being is “minimal,” however the outbreak is devastating for the farm and the various eating places they provide. Corwin defined to RiverheadLocal that the subsequent step to restoration is months of cleansing adopted by, basically, beginning over utterly. That course of will not be almost so simple as getting just a few geese: Crescent’s fame is constructed on the genes of its geese particularly, which have been bred over generations to develop birds which can be meaty however not overly fatty.
There are different duck producers within the space, however Crescent is the popular possibility for any variety of restaurateurs. “I feel they’ve an distinctive product,” says Karina García, who serves Crescent’s duck draped with mole negro at Cocina Consuelo in Washington Heights. Different manufacturers she tried, she says, simply couldn’t evaluate. “Not solely that, however the truth that they’re household owned, it’s an incredible achievement. We’re really devastated by the information.”
Eating places like Bowery Meat Firm, Gabriel Kreuther, Junoon, Soogil, and Le Jardinier have all served it. Jean-Georges Vongerichten has used it. Daniel Boulud is a fan, too, and it was whereas working for him that the chef Emily Yuen first cooked Crescent duck. Now, she serves it at Lingo in Greenpoint. There, she confits the legs for a katsu and dry-ages the breast. “I attempted different duck breasts from different corporations, and this one simply had that excellent meat-to-fat ratio,” she says. “It simply makes a very crispy pores and skin, and the duck is all the time juicy. As soon as I used it, I didn’t sway away from it.”
There may be hope that Crescent can proceed, however it’s going to take a very long time to get again to enterprise as standard. Corwin informed RiverheadLocal that Crescent nonetheless has eggs laid from earlier than the outbreak and that the state authorities is working with the farm to protect genetic materials. “That is perhaps the idea of with the ability to begin up once more —would possibly, would possibly,” Corwin informed the positioning. “I can’t say that but as a result of — I’m speaking like a 12 months or two down the highway.”
Horowitz, who says he grew up with and “went to the identical podunk bar” as Corwin’s sons Blake and Pierce (who additionally run Crescent), says that he hopes metropolis cooks rally across the Corwins: “They’re the one recreation on the town, they usually’re motivated. They actually take their observe critically. They’ve spent God is aware of how a lot cash,” he explains. “They’re unimaginable, and the entire thing is so fucking heartbreaking.”
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