Summer of Love Apples

Rob Rubba isn’t completely happy with the tomato dish we’re discussing. “It’s at 80 percent; we’re still working on it,” says the chef, sitting at a window seat in Oyster Oyster, his plant-forward, seasonally slanted, locally powered tasting menu restaurant in Shaw, which just earned a Michelin star and was a nominee for Best New Restaurant at this year’s James Beard Awards.

Presented in a flint gray, black speckled bowl, there’s a lot going on. Cherry tomatoes mingle with slices of pickled green tomatoes. There’s a pair of small savory cookies sandwiching slightly spicy tomato jam. Everything sits in tomato water infused with nasturtium flowers for peppery pep. The idea is to let the tomatoes take the lead and be “the umami magic they are,” says Rubba, who also included a quenelle of pumpkin seed ricotta and a flurry of edible flowers.

It’s late May, still spring, and Rubba is recipe testing with out-of-town tomatoes, but the dish tastes like a rush of peak July: a little sweet, a little savory and oh-so-breezy. Creative and refreshing, a version of it will star on the restaurant’s forthcoming summer menu.

“It’s important as a plant-based restaurant we celebrate this fruit that everyone associates with summer,” he says. “So, let’s do the best version of them we can.”

Though he likes the various components of the dish, Rubba might split them up: the cookie on a side plate, the tomatoes in a bowl, the broth in a cup. Nothing is certain except changes will happen.

Even out of season, tomatoes are always present at Oyster Oyster, subtly woven into the menu, serving as a secret backbone to Rubba’s cooking. They’re dried and preserved, slipped into broths, sauces and spice blends to amp them up with MSG-adjacent vibes. Though there are an estimated 10,000 tomato varieties in the world, he only works with those he can source from local farm partners in the mid-Atlantic.

Since originating in Central and South America and being cultivated in Mexico by 500 B.C., tomatoes have garnered a devoted following with each cultural cohort trying to outdo the other when naming them. Tomato comes from the ancient Aztec word meaning “swelling fruit,” while the French call them pommes d’amour (love apples). Not edgy enough for you? The scientific name for the tomato is Lycopersicon lycopersicum. Translation: “wolf peach,” which sounds like a band you’d see on a side stage at Coachella.

Rubba has loved wolf peaches, erm, tomatoes, since his earliest days. He grew up eating the ones his mother grew in their backyard garden every summer at his childhood home in Northfield, New Jersey (where the tomato is the official state vegetable, even though it’s a fruit). She slipped them into BLTs, cooked them down for pomodoro sauce, and tossed handfuls of cherry tomatoes into classic suburban salads, mixing crunchy iceberg lettuce with generous cucumber chunks.

However, his passion blossomed on a deeper level in the early aughts when he became a chef and tried his first heirloom tomatoes. He was working at Todd English’s Tuscany at Mohegan Sun in Montville, Connecticut. One of his favorite dishes was a simple burrata and tomato salad drizzled with aged balsamic.

“I remember the chef saying, ‘You work smarter, not harder,’” Rubba says. “In other words, buy really good product and you don’t have to work as hard. That’s when I really began to understand what a tomato can be.”

These days, Rubba grows his own tomatoes in a 250-square-foot plot in Arlington Community Garden. His vines are filling up with ruby red, oblong San Marzano tomatoes and a few different heirloom varietals.

“I forget their names,” he admits sheepishly. “There’s a lot going on.”

That’s an understatement. As well as overseeing his garden and his buzzy restaurant, he’s got two luminous daughters at home, Harper, 8, and Quinn, 5. Burgeoning gourmands, they are all in for tomatoes.

“They love cherry tomatoes; they crush them,” says Rubba. “And they love tomato sandwiches. They really appreciate them.”

And that is something he can be 100 percent happy about.

Follow Rob Rubba on Instagram @robrubba to learn more.

Oyster Oyster: 1440 8th St. NW, DC; oysteroysterdc.com // @oysteroysterdc

Nevin Martell

Nevin Martell is a D.C.-area based food and travel writer, parenting essayist, recipe developer, and photographer who has been published by The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today, Saveur, Men’s Journal, National Geographic, Fortune, Travel + Leisure, Runner’s World, Michelin Guide, Plate, DCist, Washington City Paper, and many other publications. He is the author of eight books, including Red Truck Bakery Cookbook: Gold-Standard Recipes from America’s Favorite Rural Bakery, The Founding Farmers Cookbook: 100 Recipes for True Food & Drink, It’s So Good: 100 Real Food Recipes for Kids, the travelogue-memoir Freak Show Without a Tent: Swimming with Piranhas, Getting Stoned in Fiji and Other Family Vacations, and the small-press smash Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and His Revolutionary Comic Strip. He has appeared on The Frommer’s Travel Show, The Kojo Nnamdi Show, the Chatter on Books podcast, and elsewhere. Additionally, he is the co-founder of the highly successful New Kitchens On The Block event series and the internationally acclaimed Pay It Furloughed initiative. Last, but definitely not least, he is a proud poppa and husband. Find him on Instagram and Twitter @nevinmartell.