Grab-and-go or just linger at The Porch
Lisa Boisset went from high-end restaurants to catering to opening her own little spot on the edge of the Barlow. Her cuisine will wow you.
Longtime caterers Lisa and Kevin Boisset of The Cook & The Drummer—she’s the cook, he’s the drummer—have opened a new brick-and-mortar spot in Sebastopol called The Porch. It’s located in that delightful little spot right next to Patisserie Angelica, on the edge of the Barlow.
They had their first high-end pop-up dinner in early November, and, on Nov. 19, they opened what they thought would just be a small grab-and-go spot offering soup, grain bowls, salads, and a few exquisite French-style sandwiches. What they discovered, much to their surprise, was that their redecoration of the old Bar B Que Smokehouse location was so alluring that almost everyone who stopped by wanted to eat there.
“We make everything from scratch. We even roast our own turkey for the sandwiches,” Lisa said. “The one thing we source out is French ham. We make all of our vinaigrettes, all our stocks or sauces, our aiolis. We don’t use mayonnaise, and we just use high-quality ingredients, and we make everything.”
Lisa Boisset is a graduate of the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco and the Cordon Bleu in Paris. She has managed some of the nation’s top restaurants and has 20 years of experience as an executive chef, including stints at Masa’s in San Francisco and Cafe Pacific and Equinox in Dallas.
She met her French-born husband, Kevin, in Paris in 2009, and he followed her back to America.
“I wanted to be wherever she was,” Kevin said simply, explaining his willingness to relocate from the City of Lights to the wilds (OK, semi-wilds) of Northern California.
They started their catering business, The Cook and the Drummer, in 2011. The Cook and the Drummer does much more than catering, however. True to its name, it includes music for events and broader event planning. Kevin handles the music and all the administrative work.
“We really started it from the ground up,” Lisa said. “I always like to say that we started with a Toyota Corolla and a laptop.”
The couple lives in Occidental. Unlike working in restaurants, being in catering gave the couple more flexibility to raise their children—two children from Lisa’s first marriage and one of their own. Now that two of those children are grown and one is 12 years old, Lisa felt ready to venture back into the restaurant business.
“I do miss the restaurant feel and work and seeing more of the customers on a daily basis,” she said.
In addition to their work at The Porch, the couple plans to continue their elegant, monthly, wine-pairing pop-up dinners. The next pop-up on Dec. 20 with Square Peg Winery sold out almost as soon as they posted the invitation on Eventbrite. Keep an eye on their social media to find out about the next pop-up, and drop by the Porch to indulge in their daily fare.
One final note: their focaccia is simply the best I’ve ever tasted.
The Porch, which is open Tuesday to Saturday, 11 am to 3 pm, is located at 6811 Laguna Parkway. Find out more about their work at The Cook and the Drummer and follow them on Instagram or Facebook.
