Barnyard Cookery

Foodies in New York were the first to encounter this term, through
the writings of restaurant critic Adam Platt in New York magazine.
A play on "haute cuisine", the traditional high cookery of France,
it describes a restaurant whose house style emphasises the quality
of the ingredients and where they come from rather to a greater
extent than their preparation. Fresh, good-quality ingredients,
often organic and sourced locally according to season, are cooked
well and served simply. The idea behind it is farm cooking at its
best, hence "barnyard". But it's often at a premium price at the
New York eateries first identified with the tag and which have
since been described as "pretentiously unpretentious". "Haute
barnyard" has spread beyond New York, with sightings from both
Australia and the UK; in the latter country it has been taken up by
the restaurant critic Jay Rayner in particular.

* The Village Voice, 30 July 2008: The ongoing hunger for American
countrified cuisine made with greenmarket ingredients and spun
upscale (coined "haute barnyard" by New York magazine's Adam Platt)
shows no signs of flagging. Get all the farmhouse chic you can
swallow at Forge and Hundred Acres, twin additions to the genre.

* The Observer, 21 Sept. 2008: Market is the sort of place any of
us would like to be able to call our local: a small, simple
restaurant serving food with its own solid but definable character
- that great term "haute barnyard" comes to mind once more - at a
reasonable