BUCHANAN — Tabor Hill Winery and Restaurant’s new head chef, Justin Carlisle, has two words to describe the restaurant’s future as it introduces a new menu starting Aug. 1: ambitious and comforting.
“I think what we’re doing is very ambitious for the region and for Tabor Hill as a brand,” he said. “We’re going from one level, and we’re trying to push to an extreme high level in an aggressive [amount of] time.”
When Carlisle says Tabor Hill is reaching a new level, he’s referring to the standard of hospitality and the quality of the food, he said. The goal is to build an experience for customers, Carlisle said, from the moment they step on the vineyard’s grounds to when their car pulls out of the parking lot.
Tabor Hill announced earlier in July that Aug. 1 represented the beginning of a new chapter for the winery and restaurant with the debut of an all-new dinner menu.
It took nine years for all the puzzle pieces to align, Tabor Hill CEO and owner Matthew Moersch said, but with the right people on his team, within two months, Tabor Hill has changed its service model and moved its culinary practices into a hyper-local direction.
“The fact that we know individually where the ingredients are coming from, it doesn’t get better than that,” Moersch said. “Also marrying that with the wines that we’re doing and elevating everything is exciting.”
Wisconsinite tries Michigan
Carlisle grew up on a small beef farm in rural Wisconsin, and had lived in Milwaukee up until about two months ago. There, he opened multiple restaurants, including the fine dining restaurant Ardent, from 2013 to 2024. During that time, he racked up at least seven nominations from the James Beard Foundation Awards, which recognize exceptional talent and achievement in the culinary arts, hospitality, media and broader food system, according to the foundation’s website.
“I closed our restaurants almost two years ago, the end of 2024,” Carlisle said. “The timing was right. … I kind of mainly went into the consulting side since then.”
Eventually, Carlisle met Tabor Hill’s COO, James Gray, who, he said, called him up and asked if he could lend a hand to push the Tabor Hill property to the standard Moersch sought.
It wasn’t easy leaving his family in Milwaukee, but after two days of helping at the property, Carlisle fell in love with it, he said. He was willing to contribute in any way he could to stay in the vast green of Southwest Michigan.
Beyond his culinary skills, Moersch said that when he noticed Carlisle’s “meticulous attention to detail,” he knew Carlisle would be a good fit for Tabor Hill, which Moersch Hospitality Group has owned since 2017.
“I like organization and structure, and I saw immediately that Justin was that,” Moersch said. “A lot of people can cook and do a decent job, but training other people and mentoring them, he immediately was just showing these people in our kitchen new ideas right away and new techniques. It was just obvious that he had the experience that we needed here and the leadership.”
From farm to table
Throughout his time as a business owner and consultant, Carlisle has learned the importance of evolving.
“Every restaurant is a living organism and beast that you need to evolve,” Carlisle said. “Not only with the times, but as your own product within yourself and within your region. And I think Matt really wanted to do that.”
But there’s one particular element of dining that both Moersch and Carlisle grew up with that they want to bring to Tabor Hill — farm-to0table quality.
“We can’t grow our brand and grow our restaurant if we don’t support those that are around us,” Carlisle said. “Most of these farms that we’re dealing with right now are a 15-minute drive from here or less, and we’re getting pretty much everything that we need.”
At the end of the day, Moersch said, Tabor Hill is a winery first, but the same way that customers can see the vineyard where the grapes for the wine are grown, Moersch and Carlisle wanted to give customers the reassurance that their food is being grown with the same care.
In a way, Moersch said, the alcohol and food industry feel broken, and because of that, it’s become more important than ever to him that Tabor Hill — and its customers — supports local.
“We’re in this weird time of chain restaurant versus your locals that are starting to struggle versus your production people who are struggling because people are drinking less,” Moersch said. “For us, it’s very important the decision they’re making [customers] is to support local communities.”
Going with the flow
Carlisle created a flexible menu, one that can adapt and change to the ingredients that are available from local farms.
“I don’t really look at what certain items are. I just get too fixated on it,” Carlisle said. “I focus on what the flavor profile is, almost like you would look at wine making.”
During growing season, smaller farms can easily run out of a specific ingredient, and constructing a meal based on a flavor profile ensures a simple missing ingredient won’t make or break the dish, Carlisle said.
Everything on the menu can be modified and altered and still provide a similar experience. The menu will be structured with a small snack menu, a lunch menu and a main menu that will be offered all day long, Carlisle said.
“The menu is not really structured in your traditional menu structure of having appetizers, soups, salads, entrées and desserts,” Carlisle said. “We’re more altering it almost like you would look at a wine list where it would be lightest to heaviest.”
The reality is that most of the menu can be shared or individualized, Carlisle said. They want diners to be able to orchestrate their evening however they see fit.
With what’s currently in season, customers can look forward to fresh tomato salads, white fish, seasoned melon, and roasted chicken and pork with corn, cabbage and beans.
Carlisle and Moersch are both working to make Southwest Michigan a destination, Carlisle said, by bringing something new to the table with care.
“There’s lines of familiarity that you have to uphold in your region along with pushing the boundaries to have people having more of an exciting experience, too,” Carlisle said. “Maybe toe the line of an experience that they haven’t had before but also give them that in a more comfortable setting and a comfortable structure.”
Tabor Hill Winery and Restaurant
● What: Wine vineyard and restaurant with new dinner menu focused on sourcing locally
● Where: 185 Mount Tabor Road, Buchanan
● Hours: Noon to 6 p.m. Wednesdays and Sundays; noon to 9 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays.
● Price: $10-$25
● For more information: Call 269-422-1161 or visit taborhill.com.
If you know of a business that should be featured in an upcoming Market Basket column, email Tribune staff writer for Market Basket Jessica Velez at jvelez@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Tabor Hill CEO and head chef work to put Southwest Michigan on the map
Reporting by Jessica Velez, South Bend Tribune / South Bend Tribune
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Jessica Velez, South Bend Tribune | USA TODAY Network
