Tyla and Vincent Nattress found and built the home business of their dreams.

Orchard Kitchen, a farmhouse/restaurant/classroom/event center/catering business in Bayview, opened this month after years of planning and nearly a decade of dreaming by the husband-and-wife business duo.

The couple met and fell in love in the Napa Valley area of California, moving to Whidbey six years ago.

Vincent grew up in Coupeville, and suggested the island as a place for them to relocate while looking to open a new business together.

The location, however, needed to meet a host of specifications: A house on ample property, barn, row crops, an orchard and a pond.

They found everything — except for the pond — on their “vision board” near the corner of Bayview Road and Marshview Avenue.

The multi-faceted business will be the second time the couple has tried owning and operating a restaurant. In May 2001, they opened a restaurant in St. Helena. Business was good, but then Sept. 11, 2001 sent shockwaves through commerce, especially tourism-based places like Napa Valley.

The restaurant closed and Vincent returned to the food and wine industry as executive chef of Meadowood Resort for five years.

“We weren’t working together,” Tyla Nattress said.

“We barely saw each other.”

The couple put together a five-year plan — the vision board — that led them to Whidbey Island.

News of Orchard Kitchen’s opening was music to Sandy Whiting’s ears. As executive director of Goosefoot, she’s in charge of overseeing Bayview’s economic vitality.

What helps one part helps the gander, she said.

“We’re really excited about it because it’s adding more to Bayview Corner. It’s more and more becoming a food center,” Whiting said.

The Nattresses’ new venture is more diversified than their previous one. It is a restaurant a couple times a week, a cooking classroom a few days a week, a working orchard and fowl and goat farm.

On their five-acre property, the Nattresses grow a dozen or so fruit trees, including pears, plums, apricots, cherries, quince, figs and several varieties of apple — some for eating, some for cider.

Plucking and clucking around the orchard are some 50 birds, mostly chickens and turkeys.

“Turkey on the roof, what are you doing?” Tyla Nattress yelled to one bird mid-interview.

All of the food the couple serves will be local. That means the fish, meat, cheese, wine and coffee is coming from someone nearby.

“Here, you see everything, from how it’s grown to how it’s prepared,” Vincent Nattress said.

At least twice a week, and sometimes more, the kitchen opens for farmhouse-style dinners.

Intended to be more like a dinner party with friends than a restaurant, meals are typically served family style. An example of the offerings was readily listed by Vincent Nattress: hot smoked salmon with plum chutney, tempura squash blossom filled with summer risotto, crispskin wild salmon, puree of garden cauliflower, green beans with curry and shallot, and deconstructed Whidbey Island blueberry fool for dessert.

“I’m going to be going over there real soon for one of those dinners I saw on their menu,” Whiting said.

For information and a list of offerings at Orchard Kitchen, visit www.

orchardkitchen.com/#foodhub