Coming to the island for a brief visit, we ate at Dune first. It has always been one of our favorites, with its imaginative menu and outstanding service. And to our delight, this is Nantucket Restaurant Week, and Dune offered a prix fixe menu of appetizer, entrée and dessert for only $68. As usual the dinner was excellent.
We started with their widely regarded roast oysters (traditional chilled oysters are also available). They are served with chorizo-ramp butter, cucumber, shallots, picked ramps and lemon. You actually get 5 oysters in this dish, but we cropped it down to 4 to fit on the page. The oysters are warm, and you can pick up each shell to drink any remaining juices without bring yourself. Absolutely terrific.
We vacillated on the entrée: considering scallops, swordfish and sirloin before choosing the roast cod loin.
The Pan Roasted Cod Loin was served in a coconut-lemon grass broth along with purple creamers (potatoes), Romanesco asparagus, bok choy, shiitake, fried garlic and basil. They server makes sure you have a spoon so you can spoon that terrific broth over your cod as you eat. The result is outstanding: we didn’t leave a drop behind.
Finally, you get a free dessert this week: a brown butter cake served with cherries, lemon cream icing, and candied almonds.
However, travelling solo, we managed to get a couple of photos of other appetizers. One was roasted red and golden beets with whipped goat cheese,pistachios, balsamic and a red sorrel beet vinaigrette.
And the other was Korean Barbecue Short Ribs, with sesame bbq, napa cabbage, Asian pear, red onion lime vinaigrette, fried shallots and cilantro.
What a terrific re-introduction to Dune’s cuisine. We couldn’t have been happier.
Love the plating!