One chef making waves in Monterey is Michael Chang, who owns Carmel-by-the-Sea’s Foray restaurant with his sommelier wife, Caroline Singer.
The most interesting thing about this dynamic F&B duo is their shared culinary passion that extends well beyond the walls of their restaurant: competitive truffle hunting.
Accompanied by their Lagatto Romagnolo, an Italian dog breed bred specifically for hunting the prized fungi.
“We work with a lot of private landowners in Carmel Valley and there are a fair number of local truffles native species available, but really up in Oregon is where we like to go for truffling,” Chang said. “There are orchards up there that grow the French Périgord truffle as well as in their native forests—native black, brown and white truffles. We like to do that in the winter to get away for a little bit.”
Back home in Carmel-by-the-Sea, a scenic beach enclave just outside of Monterey, the group-friendly Foray specializes in what California’s cuisine scene is famous for, using locally sourced ingredients, including truffles from nearby farms and, of course, fresh-caught seafood and local wines.
“We really try to give people a strong sense of place on the California Central Coast, so we do a lot of foraging in house,” Chang said. “A foray is, in our sense, basically a guided hike into the woods to go find wild edibles. So, we try to take people on that same hike through the woods but from the comfort of a dining room and through our culinary experience.
“We dry-age in-house, with a lot of local fish and a lot of local beef,” he continued. “A lot of our dishes have that forage component to them, whether it be mushrooms or greens or even the garnish flowers that we use. Right now, we're getting mustard flour and radish flour as well as nasturtium leaves and three-quarters leak flour. I think it's hard to find a better spot in the U.S. to have a restaurant.”
Depending on seasonality, diners at Foray may see menu items such as abalone, spiny lobster and sea urchin, which are all native to Monterey Bay, with wine sourced from the nearby Santa Lucia Highlands or Salinas Valley, itself a breadbasket for the U.S. and beyond.
[Related: 5 Outdoor Teambuilding Experiences in Monterey and Santa Cruz, California]
Group Dining Options at Foray
One thing that sets the fine-dining Foray apart is the owners’ history as caterers, which positions them well to plate up memorable events for its group clientele.
“We actually started as a private-event business before we founded our brick-and-mortar location,” Chang said. “We would host 12- to 24-person dinners offsite and sell tickets for those kind of under the radar. We have a capacity for about 100 for a standing event and about 60 to 70 for a seated event.”
Chang said Foray’s proximity to Monterey makes it a memorable group night out, being only about 10 minutes from downtown and its meetings properties. He added that Foray typically releases its reservations about two months ahead to reserve one of its two group dining spaces, with full buyouts also available.
