Chef driven. Tasting menu. Foraged. Local. Pairings (house or reserve wines; soft beverages). Prix fixe.
Buzzwords? Yes.
Sometimes these mean: Expensive. Fashionable. Gentrified. Over the top.
On occasion, these mean: Dine here. Not always.
In the case of Ceraldi I was impressed, enjoyed myself, and learned. Rare, indeed. Dine here.
Here are some additional details about the evening we spent dining at Ceraldi in Wellfleet, MA. Located on the pier near the theater, at 15 Kendrick, Ceraldi's exterior is unassuming. They have two seatings (5:30 and 8:30 pm) and their sign lets you know to wait outside if you (as we were) are awaiting an 8:30 seating. There is a bench. Inside, there are high top seats, regular seats, and a range of seating at a bar which overlooks the area where plating occurs.
A few other background details: (a) Michael Ceraldi is the chef, and is active with folks who are there to eat; his wife designs the meals rooted in what is available locally for any given date (see below for details); (b) the staff seems to be fairly committed (though on occasion under educated and using the "its new to the wine list" kind of comment a bit too often); (c) the sommelier is smart and focused and though I occasionally had to work to get his attention, that may have been because of a VERY demanding customer to our right. The lighting is modest, and the decor kind of funky. Overall, nice.
In addition to the menu, we received a poem by Mary Oliver. Yes, she is ubiquitous. Often I like her -- not always. In this case: a big yes. The poem began with the notion of mystery and ended by saying: "Let me keep company always with those who say "Look!" and laugh with astonishment , and bow their heads." Yes.
On the meal itself: let me begin by saying I am not always rah rah these days on longish tasting menus. This one was spectacular, not too much, well introduced and curated, and accompanied by a very interesting (reserve) wine pairing that was not unduly expensive. To put it another way: I learned and was inspired. I admit I was reading Dan Barber's The Third Plate at the time, which may have influenced how much I enjoyed what I learned at this particular meal. As a bit of inspiration, know this: we saw the instagram photo the restaurant posted about their visit to the Wellfleet Farmer's Market on the Wednesday we ate there. And yes, we did indeed eat things from the market. My favorite: breakfast radishes.
The menu changes every single day and date as a result of availability. As for the menu that evening:
Lucky Lips Loagy Bay Oyster, wild seabed & Surrey Farm finger lime mignonette
I am not a huge fan of oysters. I ate this kind of because I was being polite, even after a few days of saying "no" in increasingly irritated ways to those around me trying togged me to eat oysters. This was truly amazing. The oyster itself, well, it was NOT SLIMEY and also firm. What was accompanying it was a burst of lime in the palate and a bit of crunch. The burst of lime of course, was the finger lime which the chef snuck in as quasi local because their grower (in Florida) grows other things in Wellfleet and spends half the year in each location. Indeed, the chef purchased the finger limes at the Wellfleet Farmer's market. Loagy Bay is apparently a particularly amazing place to get oysters in the Wellfleet area (according to the chef). (For a bit on the various Wellfleet oysters, click here. Who knew how distinct they were from each other?!?!?) I ate more oysters after this, humoring those around me, but nothing compared. And, to be honest, I may be more interested in the finger limes. Having said that, this was an A+ way to start (and apparently an oyster begins every meal at the restaurant.)
Weirdly, here is a picture I found on line which might be from the same meal.
Surrey Farm nettle flan, Tucked Away Farm carrot & top pesto, everything lavash
Yes, nettles. The flan was soft, firm and amazingly light in texture and taste. It was accompanied by a roasted whole (babyish) carrot which tasted remarkably . . . carrot-like. And, the pesto was among the best pestos I have ever had. This was an impressive dish.
Halcyon Farm lettuces & breakfast radish, VT goat cheese dressing, garden herb
Have you come to the conclusion that I am not a huge fan of salads and salad greens. Well, if not, I have been deceiving you. I am not. And yet, this was a terrific dish -- and for once, I ate the entire salad. The dressing was tangy in a nice way and not heavy. The lettuces were crisp and varied in both color, texture and, most importantly, taste. However, the star of the show was the breakfast radish. Turns out I like them a lot.
arancini al barolo, mozzarella, Parmigiano Reggiani fonduta, Hillside Farm pancetta, agro dolce onion
I like arancini -- which are often a way of using up left over risotto. They are a kind of risotto ball, perhaps with a filling, fried. In this case, undoubtedly, the risotto was made for the dish -- and the al barolo, as the chef reminded us, has to do with the fact that in the relevant region of Italy, risotto is made with. . . wait for it . . . barolo (wine). This was not the deep red of some of these risottos. And, of course, the risotto was used in the particular form of the arancini. These were light, tasty, and I give them high marks for the agro dolce onions. Spectacular.
grano arso ravioli Hillside Farm chicken confit & liver mousse, Stephenie's lavender, Flora Chella blossom
Yes, ravioli. To start, I want to emphasize that I had asked for a no wheat meal for one of us. Perhaps mistakenly, but hey. So, it was really really great that the chef actually made separate things for the wheat-less meal. And, in this case, this did not just mean substituting fresh fruit for dessert and things like that. I have to shout this: THEY MADE RAVIOLI WITH CHICKPEA FLOUR for the substitute. The ravioli were amazing -- the liver mousses melted, the confit (while occasionally a bit well done) was shredded and just salty enough to mitigate the mousse a bit, and the local flowers lightened the dish in amazing ways. This was an impressive dish in both forms. As a lovely side note, the Flora Chella blossom was noted to be from an edible flowers joint run by one of the staff's mothers.
Seaweed Meadow Farm steak, Down Farm kale, polenta, Surrey Farm Espellette, In the Weeds daisy grain chimichurri
This was my least favorite dish. The chef let us know that there is only one farm on the Cape which raises cattle -- and that they rarely get beef from them. Once in a while, they get a whole side of beef; and they are committed to using the whole thing. If you are lucky (as we were) to be there shortly after a side is delivered, you get something relatively mundane (in my words) and easy to cook. While my partner and I disagreed, I found the meat too chewy and hard to cut, and . . . just did not like it. As the child of a rancher with experience of sides of beef and related matters, she was cheered by the fact it tasted like beef to her, which is way too unusual these days. On the other parts of the dish: (a) the kale was a single crispy leaf and was wonderful. (The server could not figure out what kind of kale it was -- definitely not dinosaur/lacanto kale, which is what was on the menu. Turns out they got all sorts of kale at the farmer's market and used what they could. Hence, different diners got different sorts of kale.) The espellette (like the finger limes) came from elsewhere. The daisy chimichurri -- well, who knew that daisy greens were edible? More importantly, who knew they were delicious?
Cape Cod Organic Farm strawberry sorbet, black pepper angel cake, wild black locust flower
Ok, I admit it, I cannot remember what came for the wheat-less dessert. As for what is described here: i thought it an ingenious and great combination. (I love an easy recipe of strawberries, balsamic vinegar, and black pepper and thought of this as a riff on that.) The sorbetto was very very strawberry -- they were early in the season for them and used them well. The angel cake may have been just a little too peppery but a great idea. And who knew that the many locust trees we saw flowering across the Cape produced edible flowers!
So: on the whole, this was a great meal. It tasted terrific and I learned a lot about food on the Cape.
Now on to libations paired with the delightful food. We ordered the reserve wine pairing. The wines were: 2015 Francois Le sant Sancerre Silex; 2012 La Stoppa Ageno; 2014 Chateau d-Estoublon Blanc 'Aliplles'; NV Fattoria Moretto Lambrusco; 2010 Domaine Francois Charles Volnay premier cru 'Les Fremiets'; 2007 Tenuta Di Tracciano Chianti Colli Senesi DOCG; NC Champagne Lahore Freres Rose. And, of course, a flat bottle of water. My favorites were the first two wines, especially the second which was an "orange" wine -- and delightful. We did decide this was one of the most interesting pairings we have ever had -- challenging you to link things in an intelligent way.
After all those details, some commentary. My partner had a very interesting set of comments (beyond how delightful and interesting the wine was and how much she liked the meal and liked the avoidance of unduly rich offerings) that focused on the ways foraging and local ingredients are managed now -- and marketed now -- in ways that move from necessities (of poor folks) to privileged access (aka gentrified) for the not-at-all-poor. Made me rethink everything. Again.
On gentrification of food as it relates to immigration, click here. (Of course, not the topic of the matter at Ceraldi but still.) And again, here.
