In this year’s round of visits to Nantucket’s top restaurants, we began with Dune. We’ve been visiting Dune regularly since chef and owner Michael Getter opened it around 2010 and have always been impressed. This year, we found it outstanding in both food and service. While the menu changes regularly, this one is representative of Dune’s excellence.
We began with Roasted Red and Gold Beets ($23.50) with whipped goat cheese, balsamic and red sorrel vinaigrette. The beets were sweet and tender and went very well with the goat cheese and vinaigrette.
Our other starter was even more spectacular: Sautéed Florida Rock Shrimp ($21.50) served on a crispy chickpea polenta, with edamame, roasted red peppers, barley crunch and the most delicious sweet zucchini pickles. While the shrimp alone were very nice, the polenta squares under the shrimp and those pickles made the dish an outstanding experience.
For our main course we chose the Pan Roasted Sea scallops ($52.50) with a spring asparagus risotto, trumpet mushrooms and a brown butter sherry vinaigrette. The scallops were sweet, tender and juicy and not a bit dry.
And finally, our other main entrée was Miso Glazed Scottish Salmon ($48.50) with carrots, gold beets, bamboo rice, an avocado-miso-carrot puree and sesame crunch. We found some edamame there as well. This medium rare salmon with these accompaniments was simply stunning.
Finally, one of our desserts was Strawberry Pavlova ($16). A pavlova is a crispy meringue, here served with a white chocolate ganache mantee’, strawberry sorbet and a coconut crumble. Along with the fresh strawberries, this was a delightful mixture of textures.
Our other dessert was a delicious Chocolate Pot de Crème ($14) with a peanut and chocolate crumble.
Overall, this was a top-notch experience, with an excellent staff. At one point, I accidentally dropped my fork, and the waitress scooped it up and gave me a new one in about 4 seconds.
The dinner with 2 drinks and one glass of wine was $262.14 with tax but before tip, but including an optional kitchen gratuity of $4.81. The restaurant delivers the bill with a QR code on it (From the Toast app) that allows you to pay the bill by scanning that code with your phone. A great evening all told.