With an opportunity to “stretch his legs and get a little creative,” Chef Eric Korn is bringing Westchester residents his vision of dining out as an experience with his Elephant Tree pop-ups.

Pop-ups have been growing in popularity, allowing chefs to go beyond brick and mortar, cook in a wide array of settings and offer diners something a little different each time. The tagline of The Elephant Tree sums it up: “Who wrote the rule that a pop up can’t be a great restaurant?”

Korn, Executive Chef at Monteverde at Oldstone, a wedding and private party venue overlooking the Hudson River, says pop-ups offer chefs “a low barrier to entry” as they don’t need the initial start-up money necessary to open a restaurant. He had done some pop-ups when he was the owner of Good Life Gourmet Catering in Irvington (he went on to own Wolfert’s Roost) and found “from a diner’s perspective a pop-up is less about going to a restaurant than it is about going to a special event.”

So instead of making reservations, diners buy tickets to the pop-up, and learn about locations on social media. The current Friday and Saturday night dinners run through the first weekend of February and are held at The Dessertist – a popular dessert spot in Croton-on-Hudson. 

Korn brought in tables, hung some white paper lanterns and string lanterns, and kept the atmosphere low-key and intimate. The staff is an integral part of the overall experience – we were given an approachable education to our fantastic wine pairings and the food by the personable Ro’ee Levi. Korn says his sommelier Bob Cusick put great thought and care into the wines. “When I’ve dined out I’ve often felt that the wine service is over my head,” Korn says. He made sure to make it unpretentious. 

The five-course dinner was superb. The meal started with croquettes of bacon with parsnip, on top of a green tomato jam. This course set the tone for all to follow – there was the crunch of the croquettes coupled with the sweet jam and smoky bacon. There was also a faint hint of earthiness from the parsnips. I mopped up all the jam so nobody had to ask if I was finished.

The second course was red shrimp with black garlic focaccia. A red shrimp is larger and sweeter than other shrimp and that sweetness came through and matched perfectly with the mild black garlic spread. It was followed by a benne cake with mushroom caramel. A benne cake – benne means sesame – is a dish that Korn says “stems from a dish I’ve been working on my whole career.” It’s his take on a fried polenta dish, using heirloom benne flour and chickpeas. Atop the “cake” was the tartness of marinated mini-mushrooms. This was followed by spit roasted lamb, served so we could construct our own gyros on housemade pita with tzatziki sauce and other accompaniments. Dessert was a date cake with vanilla tahini and sesame brittle. I told Korn that while everything was amazing I would love him to package the brittle.

The meal was paced perfectly and although there were five courses we didn’t feel overly full. I took note of the names of the bottles of wines we learned about and thoroughly enjoyed (there was a sake served as well) and left with a desire to see what will be on the menu at The Elephant Tree in the future. He’ll be serving at Monteverde in March and April (the menu will change with every series of pop-ups), and there are plans for outdoor dining in the summer which will showcase ingredients from its garden, the chickens that are being raised there, and the new beehives.

You can buy tickets at www.elephanttree.fun and follow @elephantreepopup on Instagram.