Morris Kitchen was started by brother and sister Tyler and Kari Morris.
Tyler has been cooking in restaurants for thirteen years, including stints at Craftbar and The Breslin Bar & Dining Room – he's now the chef of Louisville, KY's new Rye. Kari worked in restaurants for three years while studying painting at California College of the Arts, then came to New York to organize art fairs and teach kids about healthy eating. The two collaborated to throw organic supper club dinner parties and thought a lot about how they could work together to create something of their own.
Kari was spending time with friends in the south of France and noticed a mysterious bottle on most kitchen tables – ginger syrup. She thought about the gingery cocktails she was seeing on bar menus everywhere and came home inspired. Experiments led to a first small batch of 40 bottles which sold out immediately at a local greenmarket.
Kari's now working on 3 syrups, 350 bottles at a time, full-time in a Williamsburg kitchen. She's passionate about sharing simple ingredients (apples, ginger, lemon) which can be rediscovered creatively. How does she describe the process? "Procure-clean-juice-strain-boil-skim-bottle-cool-label-stamp-deliver and repeat."
Kari pays attention to small but lovely details that set her syrups apart. Apothecary-style amber bottles combined with modern typography on letterpressed labels creates en elegant, accessible, and inspired vessel which contains the deliciously pure, syrupy elixir.
She's constantly evolving and trying out new ideas and loves working among other like-minded crafters in the Brooklyn food scene.