Chatting with a chef and forager

BY NINA RANGEL

Name: Ian Lanphear

Job: Chef of Naibor, a foraging-forward pop-up

Birthplace: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Industry Experience: A former chef at innovative San Antonio eatery Restaurant Gwendoyln, Lanphear now shares his love of homegrown foods via fine dining-inspired pop-up Naibor.

Wild food abounds in San Antonio, but not all of us have the skills, patience and time to identify it and prepare it for the table. Lucky for us, Ian Lanphear, proprietor of the pop-up Naibor, has made a name for himself gathering ingredients in the wild and using them to create beautiful food.

Let’s start with where you came from, maybe a Cliffs Notes version of your experience leading up to Naibor and where you are now.

I got my first job in fine dining at [Restaurant] Gwendolyn, and that’s where I was exposed to all the local food scene, local farmers. From there, I kind of decided that I wanted to start doing my own thing in terms of pop-ups, and I decided that I was only going to do local food. So that’s when I got into foraging, and even though I had already dabbled in it as a kid, I just decided to teach myself via online and YouTube and books. I’ve always been into hiking and the outdoors, so it kind of made sense. It was two things that I loved, and I was just able to get out there and bring them together. And then when COVID happened, I lost my job, and I ended up working at a farm, and I learned how to farm through that.

What do you think is the most valuable thing you learned during that time on the farm?

Honestly, just how to grow vegetables in an efficient manner. I’d never really been exposed to that other than visiting farms — touring the property for the day but never really actually doing any of the handson work. So, in that experience, I learned everything from row spacing for different kinds of crops to how to manage rotating animals throughout the pasture. We had chickens, ducks, pigs, turkeys. I’ve also since started gardening at my house, where I’ve kept rabbits and all kinds of stuff. So, I think really just learning how do that on my own is the most notable.

Recently, Denmark’s three-star restaurant Noma closed down, and people were like, “It’s the end of an era. This place paved the way for beautiful, foraged food.” I’m curious about your thoughts on that sort of style of dining having a place like San Antonio.

I know there are several people in Austin who have worked for Noma, and I know there’s also one chef from San Antonio who actually went to Noma and worked in their fermentation lab. I think San Antonio could potentially get to the point of sustaining a restaurant that’s not necessarily in the same exact vein but something similar. There are some things in Austin that are getting close to emulating that, and I’ll say it’s only expanding this way.

What was your first foraging ‘Aha!’ moment? This will actually tie everything nicely together. I remember before I was actually a cook in fine dining, when I was just a dishwasher, one of my mentors had me watch No Reservations, and it was the Noma episode. I remember they ate a salad with wood sorrel and were talking about it, the flavor of it, how it’s just very lemony, and I was just like, “Oh, shit! I’ve been eating that since I was a kid. Why can’t I forage it and

serve it to people?”

That perspective is so interesting, because through this collection of stories, we’re trying to open doors for people to forage in their own neighborhoods.

This is something that I’ve already known … but I’ve definitely experienced [uncertainty] with trying to teach myself about edible mushrooms. I’ve picked a mushroom, and I’m nearly positive it is what I think it is, but I don’t have the skills to make a positive ID. So, I’m sitting there with this luxury ingredient and debating on whether or not I should eat it. Fortunately, there aren’t really many mushrooms in Texas that’ll kill you. But they’ll make you sick enough to wish that they had. But, you know, I’m actually waiting on getting a delivery of mushroom compost from a local farmer, and then I’m going to convert my front yard into garden space … so it all comes around, I guess.