Pat and David

Finish Line Festival ratchets up the outdoor barbecue

Posted on by Pat and David
The Lexus Gran Fondo riders found a fine feast awaiting them. Lexus ambassadors and retired racers Christian Vande Velde and George Hincapie led the 100-mile riders coming to the finish line in Chatham. All the riders arrived hungry, and the Finish Line Festival cookout trumped even the best backyard barbecue. Lexus augmented the chefs of Chatham Bars Inn by inviting the brewery at Blackberry Farm and Lexus Master Chef Dean Fearing (fearingsrestaurant.com). The dean of Dallas dining lent a little longhorn swagger to the party. With his sons on hand to help serve, Fearing loaded up plates with lobster tacos and smoky brisket tacos with a tangy, piquant sauce. On the side were his classic cowboy beans and cole slaw. “I thought, here we are...Read More

Drinks rival meals during Lexus Gran Fondo

Posted on by Pat and David
As wine and Champagne flowed throughout the weekend of the Lexus Gran Fondo, summer cocktails on the lawns stole the spotlight. For the opening night lawn picnic, the Chatham Bars Inn concocted a pair of perfect summer drinks. The flute (above) contains a Beach Plum Royale. Ingredients include orange simple syrup and a dose of beach plum liqueur. The hotel staff makes the liqueur when beach plums are in season, They lay down the liqueur to age and use it throughout the year. A generous pour of Veuve Clicquot Brut tops the glass. Bubbles buoy up a thin rim of orange peel, keeping it in suspension halfway up the glass. The deep goblet holds a spectacular ginger-infused version of Sangría. Lillet Rosé forms the base....Read More

Kitchen garden at Chatham Bars Inn is really a farm

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Chatham Bars Inn stays Cape Cod's gastronomic top dog because it grows its own food in Brewster on the north side of the Cape. The entire operation covers eight acres. Crops grow on four acres, with about a third of the crops in massive hothouses. “It's tricky to grow on Cape Cod,” says farm manager Josh Schiff. “The weather is unpredictable and the soil is poor.” As a result, the farm grows some of its most temperature-sensitive crops inside greenhouses, including a forest of tomatoes that fruit from May into December. “We start everything from seed,” Schiff explains.“We grow tomatoes and lettuce in compost with hydroponic irrigation.” More sprawling crops, such as cucumber, summer and winter squashes, and pumpkins spread across plowed fields. The farm...Read More

Lexus Gran Fondo speeds onto Cape Cod

Posted on by Pat and David
“Think of it as a party on wheels,” said Chatham Bars Inn general manager John Speers. He was speaking over cocktails on the inn's wrap-around front porch. “Our kind of gran fondo always incorporates food and wine.” The Lexus Gran Fondo launched in high style on Memorial Day weekend. The cycling and gastronomic events all centered on the historic inn at the elbow of Cape Cod. The luxury car brand has long supported other cycling events. But Lexus pulled out all the stops for this first Gran Fondo under the company name. A team of Lexus-affiliated professional riders led the 100-mile ride on Saturday from the XV Beacon (xvbeacon.com) hotel in Boston to the Chatham Bars Inn (chathambarsinn.com). Less ambitious riders could opt for 50-mile...Read More

Pioneering pairings of food and beer

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Chef Daniel Burns is on a mission to bring beer pairing into the fine dining conversation. Burns runs the kitchen of the Michelin-starred Luksus (www.luksusnyc.com). It shares a space in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, with the bar Tørst (Danish for “toast”) operated by Danish brewer Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø. (Jarnit-Bjergsø is also the brewer at cult favorite Evil Twin Brewing.) Between them, they have put craft beer on a par with wine for fine dining. And they have collaborated on a fascinating new book called simply Food & Beer. Part manifesto, part cookbook, part a dialogue on gastronomic philosophy, it's a perfect addition to the bookshelf of anyone who cares about the cutting edge in contemporary restaurant cuisine. As part of the book's launch, Burns did a star turn...Read More

Ocean meets wine country in Pismo Beach

Posted on by Pat and David
California beach country is often also wine country. On the Central Coast, wineries nestle in the foothills of the Santa Lucia mountain range only about five miles from the ocean. The San Luis Obispo wine country comprises about thirty wineries squeezed into the hills between Arroyo Grande in the south and San Luis Obispo in the north. Over the hills in Pismo Beach, Lissa Hallberg of the Tastes of the Valleys wine tasting bar and bottle shop was eager to introduce me to their products. The coastal village just over the mountains from Arroyo Grande boasts a long strand of soft sand. The town resists modernization, preferring to embody the classic, low-key beach getaway. In the morning, fishermen cast for Spanish mackerel off the 1,200-foot...Read More

Grill 23 bar menu demonstrates steakhouse evolution

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Grill 23 in Boston's historic Salada Tea building launched 30 years ago to make sure that the business guys in Back Bay had a proper steakhouse where they could seal new ventures over a big, juicy slabs of beef. It's still under the same ownership, but left the old steak-and-martini steakhouse formula behind years ago. With its succession of smart and inventive chefs, Grill 23 keeps refining what a steakhouse should be. These days the kitchen operates under corporate culinary director Eric Brennan, and just last week he launched an ambitious new bar menu with a party (above). Since Grill 23 has only had a discreet bar area since 2014, the restaurant isn't locked into tradition. The new menu is a smart cross between steakhouse...Read More

Savoring Sara Moulton’s spring pea soup

Posted on by Pat and David
Ever the prodigal daughter, chef Sara Moulton returned to her roots at Harvest Restaurant in Cambridge, Mass., for the launch of her latest cookbook, Sara Moulton's Home Cooking 101: How to Make Everything Taste Better. For readers who only know Moulton from her television work—a pioneer host for nearly 10 years on the Food Network and more recently the host of “Sara's Weeknight Meals” on public television, the woman has serious chops. She worked for seven years as a restaurant chef, cooked with Julia Child in her home for dinner parties, spent four years testing and developing recipes for the late, lamented Gourmet magazine, and ran Gourmet's dining room for more than two decades. But she started at Harvest in Cambridge—a brainchild of Modernist architect...Read More
Provisions provides pitch-perfect Boston bistro

Provisions provides pitch-perfect Boston bistro

Posted on by Pat and David
We wondered if the opening of State Street Provisions (255 State St., Boston; 617-863-8363; statestreetprovisions.com) during December's holiday blur was like Hollywood releasing its most promising films just before Christmas to make them eligible for award consideration. In that case, Provisions wins Best Boston Bistro of 2015. But that hardly makes the place out of date for 2016. Readers of HungryTravelers know we rarely write about our home turf, but Provisions seems so representative of dining trends we're seeing in Europe and the U.S. alike that we couldn't resist. Also, we expect a lot of visitors to Boston this year, and we're happy to send them to this waterfront bistro/gastropub where they'll get good value (and great food and drink) for their money. Executive chef...Read More

And the winning Champagne is…

Posted on by Pat and David
What was our best bubbly of 2015? We've been fortunate this year to enjoy some spectacular sparkling wines, from a range of proseccos to an elegant pink Franciacorta to several cavas and crémants that we simply drank without taking notes or photographs. (Even wine and food writers are entitled to a day off.) But the champagnes of Barons de Rothschild (www.champagne-bdr.com) really took us through the seasons. We started off in warm weather with the non-vintage brut, which is the company's anchor champagne. It's blended with 60 percent chardonnay (mainly grand crus in the Côte des Blancs) and 40 percent pinot noir (principally from the villages of Verzenay, Ay, Mareuil-sur-Ay, and Bouzy). It has a Rumpelstiltskin straw-gold color, a faintly yeasty aroma, and fine and...Read More