#BistroLife
By Leah Tuckwiller
Pictures by Josh Baldwin
There’s a new generation of young guns in the kitchen at The French Goat, led by Chef Jared Masters. Less than a year in, this Greenbrier County native is already taking the restaurant to new heights—and doesn’t show any signs of stopping.
It’s a beautiful Saturday night in Lewisburg, and there’s a little white house on Lafayette Street with all the lights on. Bistro music filters out into the fading daylight, past the diners on the porch and out onto the sidewalk, where a patch of French lavender highlights an illuminated sign: The French Goat. And, indeed, that’s a goat in a beret on the porch. The restaurant has just had a record summer, and despite the growing chill in the air, the party isn’t ending yet.
The French Goat, which has prided itself on French bistro-style cuisine since August 2015, had its sixth birthday in the peak of an incredibly busy summer—and with a new chef at the helm. Chef Jared Masters joined the team at the Goat (as it’s affectionately known) in March of 2021, at the end of a strange winter for the world and the beginning of what quickly became the busiest summer yet for the restaurant. It didn’t take long to get his feet under him.
After a regularly-scheduled seasonal change in the menu, which Masters and his team quickly took from concept to gorgeous flavorful plates, the chef began to make little changes that made all the difference. The French Goat, which already enjoyed rave reviews from regular diners and chance guests alike, spent the summer reaching for the peak of the mountain—and figuring out how to build stairs into thin air once they got there.
But let’s rewind a bit.
It’s a sunny morning in Lewisburg, and though The French Goat doesn’t open for dinner service until five o’clock, Chef Jared Masters and his team are already in the kitchen by eleven in the morning, getting the day’s prep work underway. It’s likely they stayed until midnight the previous night. He’s armed with coffee and ready for another night—or, he will be in short order. The day’s just started, but it’s starting with purpose.
For just a little while though, Masters takes some time to talk about his experience at The French Goat, along with proprietors Arthur Forgette and Debbie Porter. Masters and his team are all less than a year into what Forgette calls #bistrolife on Instagram, but you’d never know it from watching the action. Each night, there’s a high energy in the kitchen that spills out the double doors and into the bar, where regulars often come to get some dinner and a peek behind the curtain.
“It’s not uncommon, but it is,” Masters says about the energy and the excitement every person on the line has for what they’re doing. “For a brand new team, for every single position to feel this way. I'm getting the people in the right positions, hiring the right people for those right positions, and just letting them be good at what they're doing. We’re all pushing forward, you know, it takes time, and I know from other experiences you can't do it overnight.”
But the team is only brand new to the location—most of Masters’ teammates have worked together before, coming back together at The French Goat as positions became available. “So there’s a synergy, you pick up where everyone's left off,” Masters explains. “And each person has their own strengths. I like to focus on their strengths instead of the weaknesses, and then we can come together in the middle. So it’s been fun. It's been a really good six months,” as of August. “I think we've just really hit our stride to where we can really start executing on a higher level, but still have it presented in the right form for our restaurant setting.”
Porter and Forgette agree. “I've been really re-energized with the enthusiasm these guys are bringing in—the fun they have and how everything just seems to be so seamless. It's really given me a burst of energy again, too,” Forgette says. “I would put him up against a tier of chefs that are just the cream of the crop.”
“I like the direction that it's going in,” Porter adds. “I think Masters really gets the French bistro style, but he also wants to add a fun twist to it and make it elevated a little bit. But not so far off the realm of the bistro style. Like with the oxtail carrot,” found as an irresistible and inventive side to the Goat’s tenderloin filet, “that's really fine dining. And that takes a lot of care to live up to those guests’ expectations.”
That direction and expectation, right at the crossroads of fine dining, French bistro, and something uniquely West Virginian that Masters has deliberately poured into the mix, is best described with another hashtag frequently seen on The French Goat’s Instagram: #bonappalachia.
Since stepping into this kitchen, Masters has taken big steps into making the Goat truly farm-to-table. Local beef from Mountain Steer, bread products baked at Rainelle’s Fruits of Labor, and fresh summer vegetables from Masters Farm (yes, those Masters – Jared’s father, Frank, was recognized in 2018 for his conservation best practices as West Virginia Conservation Farm of the Year) make their way onto the table in features and highlights, but Masters also readily accepts whatever he can from local farmers and, he’s proud to say, 4-H kids.
“We have the egg co-op with the 4-H kids. So they bring us all these eggs, but they're bringing some of the best eggs in the country. They’re high-quality eggs! We’re going through around a hundred thousand eggs a week,” he jokes, though the real number is certainly hundreds a week. “And it's just like, ‘All right, let's get the best eggs we can get.’ I did 4-H my whole life, so that's one way I can give back to the 4-H community—and I get to use awesome products.”
Going into year six with a new chef, Porter and Forgette are relaxed on the restaurant’s front porch, totally happy with the direction of their Greenbrier County chef and their little French bistro.
Porter is confident, saying that she “thinks more people in the state of West Virginia are starting to realize we're on their radar. We're getting a lot more day trips and people coming from within the state than when we first opened.”
“I think right now we're really hitting our stride,” Forgette agrees. “We’re able to do more in the kitchen than we could the first few years, because we didn't have enough business yet to support spending a lot of money on experimentation. So it's been good. I think we're doing really well.”
“Experimentation” includes a fermentation lab in the cellar with unique, inventive house-made vinegars. Then there are plans for an in-house charcuterie program. All things Masters says he’s excited to do not just because they’re a lot of fun, but because this is how he was taught to cook—no waste. Saturday night ribeye trimmings find their way into Sunday brunch burger specials, corn cobs are cooked down into soup stocks, and scraps of all sorts are sealed into bags to ferment, develop flavor, and come back for another use.
Masters’ practical education comes from years spent in kitchens at The Greenbrier and The Greenbrier Sporting Club. The French Goat is a different atmosphere—French bistro style seems quite literally an ocean away from Southern fine dining—but Masters says the cooking is all the same. And, as a bonus, he’s now working in a space that’s open to the public, in the county where he grew up.
“It’s the first time I’ve ever been able to cook for my family—ever,” he relates. “For anybody I know honestly, because I’ve always cooked in a private setting for memberships. Not everyone got to see that. And now, we can cook for everyone. It's been fun, it's been a good change. And I still get to see the same people I used to cook for! So it's just an awesome mix.”
