The chefs cooking Foxfire.

What a farm-direct account looks like in practice

A standing order, adjusted on a Thursday phone call, delivered between services on a set day. First call on both weekly harvests, three weeks of forward notice on what is coming, and a named person to ring when a menu changes. No warehouse in the middle and no substitutions on the invoice — if a species fails, the conversation happens days ahead.

How kitchens use each species

Centre of the plate

King trumpet is the workhorse here: scored coins seared like scallops, or split and roasted whole and carved. Maitake wedges roasted at 450°F give the best crisp-to-dense contrast of anything on the list. Lion’s mane pressed and seared reads as shellfish to almost every diner and does the heaviest lifting on a vegetarian tasting menu.

Volume and depth

Blue oyster for pasta, pies and anything that needs mushroom mass at a sane cost. Pioppino is the one cluster species that survives a braise intact, so it carries ragù and stew. Shiitake for umami, with the stems going to dashi and XO rather than the bin.

The ones that get talked about

Pink oyster crisped as bacon or shredded for carnitas — impossible to source through a distributor, which is exactly why it lands on a menu with its name on it. Chestnut for the crunch. Golden oyster for the colour, in the two days it has.

The pattern across every account: one named species doing something a diner cannot get elsewhere, and one high-volume species quietly making the food cost work.

Menu language chefs actually use

“Foxfire Mushrooms, Longmont” is cleared for use on any menu, and so is naming the species and the harvest day. The provenance sheet in the chef kit has copy that is accurate — no claims we cannot stand behind, which matters more than it sounds when a diner asks a server a follow-up question.

Menus change, so the forecast is public

Every account gets the same four-week forecast that appears on the harvest board. A menu written against a forecast rather than against a hope is the practical benefit of buying from a grower, and it is the thing chefs mention first when they explain why they switched.

Adding your kitchen

Start with the free sample box: three species, one of them unusual, dropped between services on the next run, no pitch and no obligation. Most accounts begin with one species on one dish. Request a box, or read how an account gets set up.

Kitchens currently cooking Foxfire are listed here with their permission. If you are an account and would like your restaurant and a dish added, tell us on the next delivery.

Common questions