Jeremy Kean
Chef/Owner, Brassica Kitchen + Cafe | Boston
September 2020
For Jeremy Kean, Brassica is the culmination of a lifetime of hard work and inspired chaos and creativity. And the kitchen within, represents his chosen family. Kean first earned his chops while working on the line at Barbara Lynch’s flagship Boston restaurant No. 9 Park. There, he discovered a sense of camaraderie and community that propelled him forward, helping him to overcome a rocky past of drug addiction and jail time. He went on to work and train around Boston, most notably cooking for James Beard Award-winning Chef Jody Adams at Rialto, and later at Parisian bistro Aquitaine with Kevin Kielbasa.
Before teaming up with Chef Philip Kruta, Kean temporarily relocated to Bali to teach Western cuisine while studying the island’s native one. He also took a detour to Northern California to help manage a cannabis and vegetable farm and to cook for the employees during the trimming season. Upon his return to Boston, Kean and Kruta established a Jamaican Plain-based, travelling pop-up series called Whisk in 2012, offering guests a tour de force tasting menu. By 2013, the popular dinners found a regular space on Hanover Street in the North End, before moving to incubator Wink & Nod in the South End in 2014.
After a cross country motorcycle trip together (in which Kean didn’t make it all the way because his wife was pregnant with their first son), Kean and Kruta partnered with Kean’s sister Rebecca (CFO/GM/brains/all around boss) and Noah Toderoff, Beverage Director, to begin the fermentation forward, French-inspired cafe and restaurant, Brassica Kitchen. Kean has refined his unruly, big-flavored cuisine with an eye toward being a closed loop, zero waste restaurant, which feeds back into and enriches Kean’s continuously evolving fermentation program and dynamic menu.
