Krim Boughalem and Andrea Sims were planning National Provisions on Walton Avenue even before they opened Wine + Market back in early 2008. When they sold the Jefferson Street shop a little more than two years ago, it was to concentrate on their popular wine bar and restaurant, Table Three Ten, and to get Provisions off the ground.
“Two years was our goal to open everything,” Boughalem said Monday evening after the opening day of National Provision’s first phase, National Boulangerie, a bakery and high-end coffee café.
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Boughalem said his initial goal was to get the market offering fish, charcuterie and other meats, and cheeses up and running first, but when plans changed calling for a bakery that would supply their current restaurant and planned ventures, the schedule got pushed back.
The back of the building on the corner of National and Walton avenues contains a massive kitchen with the ability to cure meats, bake large quantities of breads and pastries, rotisserie chickens and service a large menu. “That took longer because it was more advanced,” he said.
Everything that will be served in what will be the National Brasserie, phase three of Boughalem and Sims’ plan for the building, will be made in-house, using as much local supply as possible.
It will be open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, according to Sims. “Fancy lunch, casual dinner, basically same menu throughout the day.”
The National Brasserie, which should open in the spring, according to Boughalem, will follow the standards of a “brasserie,” which can be a French type of brewery. Boughalem said they will brew small batches of beer to be served while his wife, Sims, said patrons will be able to enjoy family-style dining such as “shared platters like whole chicken or leg of lamb for the whole table and family style sides.” Individual servings will also be on the menu, which will include daily specials based on current stock of fish and local produce and meats.
Within a couple of months, the couple expects to have the wine shop portion of National Provisions open, complete with a front beer garden. The wine shop – positioned on the side of the building along National Avenue – will have its own entrance while red metal acting as the store’s walls is already up awaiting the installation of glass shelving and back wall to allow a view of the kitchen.
“We wanted to have a bakery for a long time, we wanted to have a larger market,” Sims said while standing on a second level mezzanine that will provide seating and private dining for the restaurant directly above its café entrance. “We’ve just keep looking at this building and wanted this building, and once we got in here, we started deciding everything that would go in it. It’s so big we just started adding more things to it.”
The fourth phase, the market, is expected to open later in 2014.