Photo Credit: Claire Ciccarone
On August 1, Eden left Chicago for the rolling farmland of Winslow, Illinois, joining Outstanding in the Field for an evening at Oriana’s Orchard.
The setting was more than a backdrop. It was the reason for the dinner.
For more than 50 years, Oriana Kruszewski has cultivated fruit on this patch of northern Illinois, growing Asian pears, black currants, pawpaws, and other varieties that have adapted alongside her to the realities of Midwestern soil and weather. After leaving Hong Kong for Illinois decades ago, Oriana built an orchard through patience, experimentation, and persistence.
For one summer evening, Outstanding in the Field set its signature long table among the trees, inviting guests to experience that work at its source.
Photo Credit: Claire Ciccarone
Joining Oriana were Chef César Murillo of Michelin-starred North Pond and our own Chef Devon Quinn.
For Devon, cooking in an orchard felt especially connected to the way we think about food at Eden. Our menus begin with what is growing—whether harvested steps from the kitchen in our greenhouse or sourced from the Midwest farmers and producers we work with throughout the year.
That relationship between growing and cooking has always shaped Devon’s approach. At Eden, the greenhouse functions as an extension of the kitchen: a place to experiment, observe the seasons, and ultimately let an ingredient help determine what ends up on the plate.
At Oriana’s Orchard, that philosophy expanded beyond our own garden beds.
Here were trees that had been tended for decades. Fruit shaped by a particular piece of Illinois ground. Ingredients that carried the story of the person who grew them.
It was the kind of setting that asks a chef to listen before deciding what to cook.
Photo Credit: Claire Ciccarone
Chef César brought another layer of connection to the evening. His relationship with Oriana extends beyond this dinner; some of her trees now grow at North Pond in Chicago. For the Outstanding in the Field menu, his refined technique and Mexican heritage met Devon’s greenhouse-forward, Midwest-rooted approach.
Rather than feeling like separate culinary perspectives sharing a menu, the collaboration found common ground in the orchard.
The meal moved from pastry with whipped ricotta into a cantaloupe gazpacho brightened with Oriana’s own pear vinegar. Pickled cornelian cherries became “olives.” Coal-roasted beets brought smoke and earth to the table. And for dessert, buckwheat shortcake was finished with a berry-pear gastrique.
Across the courses, Oriana’s harvest appeared in different forms—fresh, pickled, fermented, roasted, and reduced—allowing the orchard to tell its story from beginning to end.
Photo Credit: Claire Ciccarone
There is something clarifying about preparing a meal where its ingredients are grown.
In a restaurant kitchen, even when we know our farmers and understand where our ingredients come from, produce arrives at the door ready for its next chapter. At the orchard, the story starts much earlier. You can look beyond the cutting board and see the tree. You can walk the ground that produced the fruit in your hand.
That proximity reinforces something we believe deeply at Eden: good cooking begins long before an ingredient reaches the kitchen.
It begins with healthy soil. With knowing what is in season. With farmers willing to experiment. With cooks willing to adapt. And, often, with years of work that a guest will never see when a plate arrives at the table.
Outstanding in the Field gave us the opportunity to celebrate all of that in the place where it began.
For a few hours, a long table stretched through Oriana’s orchard, surrounded by the result of more than half a century of cultivation. Chefs, growers, and guests gathered in the same landscape, eating food shaped by the ground beneath them.
Then the plates were cleared, the table came down, and the orchard remained.
Still growing.
