A yummy union

Marriage of tapas restaurant and local farm came through owners' love of great food

RALEIGH -- Raleigh -- Today is the 18th wedding anniversary of Sarig and Nancy Agasi, the couple who serve up tapas at Zely & Ritz on Glenwood South’s restaurant row. But the marriage of chef Sarig and wine buyer Nancy isn’t the only important relationship at Zely & Ritz. That’s because the couple shares partnership in the Raleigh restaurant with a farmer, Richard Holcomb of Coon Rock Farm near Hillsborough, who supplies much of the organic produce, eggs and chicken used in the kitchen.

Ever since pioneering chef Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., popularized the notion of eating local in the 1970s, chefs who care about using fresh, locally grown produce have tried to build good relationships with the farmers who supply them. Check the menus at some of the Triangle’s best restaurants — especially at this time of year, the height of the growing season — and you’ll see due credit being given to local farmers for their heirloom tomatoes, summer squash and sweet corn.

But the bond between Zely & Ritz is stronger and unique in the local restaurant scene. It’s almost like a marriage itself. This partnership is based on a mutual love of great food. And, like many great loves, it all began over dinner at a restaurant. Holcomb first fell for the food at Sarig Agasi’s original Raleigh restaurant, Butterflies, in North Raleigh. A software entrepreneur who founded Q+E Software and HAHT Commerce, Holcomb traveled the world on business and was an adventurous diner. Butterflies impressed him more than any other local restaurant. He always took international clients and colleagues there to eat the Mediterranean-influenced food prepared by Agasi, who had worked in the kitchen of Lespinasse in New York’s St. Regis Hotel and under star chefs David Bouley and Gray Kunz.

A Dutch man liked the food at Butterflies so much that he told Holcomb, “Richard, I have been coming to America for 25 years and this is the first time I had a decent meal in a restaurant.”

But the Agasis were forced to close Butterflies in 2001 because business was so slow. They and Holcomb blamed the failure on the location, in Sutton Square, and not on the food.

Fresh start

Loyal customer Holcomb pledged to help the restaurateurs if they ever wanted to try again. About 18 months later, with their eyes on a new location on Glenwood South, the Agasis took him up on that offer.

As it turned out, the software entrepreneur was not just to be a silent partner in the new venture, Zely & Ritz. A native of Whiteville, Holcomb decided to return to his farming roots and become the farmer who would be the restaurant’s primary food source. He bought a 55-acre former horse farm on the Eno River and put 2 acres under cultivation. He sold his 5,500-square-foot Raleigh home and moved into the 19th-century farmhouse. (Holcomb is still in the computer business, as chairman of the board of StrikeIron, which specializes in Web services).

As a successful entrepreneur, Holcomb recognizes the practicality of a unique partnership between restaurant and farm. “Most farmers fail on the selling side,” Holcomb points out, taking a break from the midday heat on the Coon Rock farmhouse’s shady porch. “But having the restaurant as an outlet for the food would solve that problem. We’d have a built-in customer.” And the chef has the assurance of knowing exactly how his food is being grown or raised and that it is as fresh as possible. For the most part, the partnership has been a success, chef and farmer agree. The two sat down with a seed catalog and eagerly compiled orders for exotic melons and heirloom tomatoes, like kids making a Christmas list.