Category: Nantucket

Ventuno is absolutely top notch!

Eating at Ventuno (21 Federal St) is always a great pleasure. The breadth and creativity of their menu makes every visit delightful.

Last week was Nantucket Restaurant Week, and Ventuno gave you a choice of their Restaurant Week menu: 4 courses for $75 or their full menu. The only real difference is that that the smaller menu skips some of the more expensive items, but everything else was the same, and there was plenty to choose from. Either way, you get a selection from Antipasti, one from Primi, one from Secondi and a dessert from Dolci.

We were going to just order from the reduced menu until we discovered the breast of duck on the full menu. Thus, we became a full menu customer.

Our Antipasti choice was a Caesar Salad, made with Romaine, celery, ciabatta-parmigiano croutons, a Caesar dressing and thin slices of parmigiano cheese. Crunchy, delicious and substantial in size.

As a surprise, the waitress gave us an extra little course of the Chef’s Ricotta spread on toast as well. It was smooth, creamy and quite flavorful.

This was followed by Strozzapreti, dre’s spicy chicken sausage, broccoli rabe, and pecorino, served with some extra parmigiano cheese to sprinkle as needed. This was spicy but not overpoweringly so, and quite a change from the usual Nantucket fare.

And finally, the main course: cherry & balsamic glazed duck breast, roasted cherries, farro, radicchio, endive, hazelnut crema & candied hazelnuts, with scallions & pecorino. What a magnificent preparation. Tender, juicy duck breast sitting on the cherries and candied hazelnuts. What could be better?

Well, of course, there was still dessert. We’d had many of the other desserts, so we went with the burnt sugar and orange flan with a candied orange slice in it.

What a great way to finish a terrific meal. We are always really impressed with Ventuno, and hope you will be too!

Le Languedoc — as elegant as ever

Le Languedoc remains one of our favorite island restaurants. It styles itself as a bistro, but it is quite an elegant one, having been in existence since the 1970s. Its core menu changes but a little, but has additions every week to its elegant selections, based on classic French techniques.

You can always count on finding bistro classics such as Steak Frites and their Languedoc Cheeseburger, as well as a number of other outstanding dishes. We very nearly ordered their Seak Frites again this year until we saw that they had a veal chop in the corner of the menu where new additions appear, and we had to try it.

Just as we were about to order, the waitress told us of a special addition that night of a foie gras terrine. It was served with toasts and a generous spoon of blackberry jam to contrast with the smooth silkiness of the delicious foie gras.

This was followe by the veal chop, served with asparagus, and a delicious brown gravy. An incredibly elegant meal.

Meanwhile, our neighbor had the Duxelle stuffed chicken, with corn, bacon & horseradish croquette, roasted carrots, and sherry vinegar jus. It also looked terrific.

And, of course, we had to end with their special Small Town Girl butter crunch hot fudge sundae. Of course we got the petite version, and could barely finish it after all the rich dishes we’d had, but over all this was an outstanding evening and one of the islands highly regarded restaurants.

We are always delighted with Le Languedoc, and you will be, too!

Millie’s is as great as ever!

If you haven’t been out to Millie’s at the far western end of Nantucket in Madaket, you’re missing one of the island’s outstanding restaurants. The menu is mostly seafood tacos and quesadillas, but there is a lot more to it (beef, chicken and even berries), and all of it is imaginative and delicious. There is now a Mid-island Millie’s at the Rotary as well, serving lunches from 10:30-4, with a similar but not identical menu.

When we rented a house out in Madaket, the first place we’d always go would be to Millie’s for dinner, and sometimes we’d go again on our last day. Now that we stay downtown, it seemed as if getting to Millie’s without a car was too much trouble. It’s not.

We jumped on the Madaket Route WAVE bus in front of the Historical Society (across from the Juice Guys) and rode for 20 minutes to the end of the line at Millie’s. And this year the WAVE busses are free! We puttered around Madaket, and went to dinner at about 5, easily catching a return bus at 6:30. It couldn’t be easier! The busses leave downtown on the hour and Millie’s on the half-hour.

This year they’d added a new dish we had to try: Fried Oyster Mini-tacos with purple cabbage slaw, pickled jalapeño, and lemon aioli. There were two fried oysters in each taco, dotted with a bit of mayo and topped with that pickled jalapeno. They also provided hot sauces to top them with if you wanted. We had them without so we could savor the oysters. These were a great, crunchy appetizer that you could pick up or eat with a fork (or both).

There seems to be a bit more lobster on the menu than there used to be: you get a warm lobster salad, a lobster Po’ Boy and a lobster quesadilla. They all cost around $39 so they all probably have quite a bit of lobster in them.

We couldn’t resist trying the Steps Beach Lobster quesadilla with Lobster, slow-roasted tomato, grilled zucchini, and Monterey jack cheese. The lobster was indeed plentiful and with the cheese and veggies this is a very filling and delightful dish. If it’s too much for you, they’ll box the rest, of course, or you can cheat as we did an pick out the rest of the lobster with a fork! It still is a lot of food and outstanding! You can’t go wrong at Millie’s.

Black-Eyed Susan’s is back for breakfast

Thanks to Michael and Orly LaScola, Chef Todd Edwards and Anna Worgess, who purchased Black-Eyed Susan’s from its previous owner, Susan Handy, the beloved restaurant is back and this year serving its well-regarded breakfasts 6 days a week. (They are closed on Wednesdays.) Breakfast is served to walk-ins from 7am to 1pm.

Being that it is still early in June, we were able to walk in for breakfast without the longer summer wait and sit at a table. The menu is similar to the old restaurant, offering eggs, scrambles, pancakes, hash browns, French toast, omelets and breakfast sandwiches. But even if you have to wait for a while on the benches outside, it’s worth it. It is just about the only breakfast place downtown and it is simply excellent.

We ordered eggs over easy with sausage and their excellent oat bread toast.

But more to the point, we got our tea in an actual teapot: one of the few restaurants in the Northeast that serves it that way.

And did we mention the service? The staff is warm and welcoming, and you can watch it your order being prepared in the open kitchen behind the counter. Our bill for tea, eggs, sausage and toast was $30.49 including $1.99 tax. And it is likely to be one of the best breakfasts we’ll have here!

Dune- one of Nantucket’s finest restaurants

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.

The Proprietors — Imaginative cuisine

The Proprietors Bar and Table at 9 India Street on Nantucket is always worth a visit to sample Chef Michael LaScola’s imaginative a playful cuisine. You can order a large plate and an appetizer sample a number of the smaller plates instead. Between us, we did both. The menu changes frequently, so you may not order what we did, but the food is surprisingly good.

Right at the top of the menu was a Cream Puff filled with chicken liver mousse and rhubarb ($14). We split one. Not only was it quite filling, it was probably the biggest hit of the night for us: smooth and flavorful.

One of us opted for the Green Salad with buttermilk dressing, quinoa, rye crumb and aged Gouda ($25), and an exemplary salad it was.

We also tried the Pretzel Parker Rolls with Kobe’s duck pastrami, and sour cherry mustard ($29). This looked great on the plate, but the duck pastrami was so thin we never got a good taste of its flavor. We imagined we were supposed to make little sandwiches of the pastrami and sour cherry mustard, and that worked very well together.

One of us tried the seared scallops with hot and sour vin, caramelized shiitake, endive and turnip ($49.50) and found it excellent.

The other offering was narrated to us in a really noisy environment so we may have the title wrong. It amounted to Gnocchi with rabbit stew and onions ($39), but there may have been other descriptors we missed. The gravy and gnocchi were delicious, but there were but a few shreds of rabbit to be found. However, the overall taste was outstanding.

For dessert, we split a single Banana Bread Sundae, served with chocolate and caramel sauce and cherries ($20). It was terrific, but so filling we couldn’t (sigh) finish it.

Our bill with two glasses of wine with tax but before tip was $220.95. While there were some misses, the cuisine was overall unforgettable.

Ventuno remains top-notch

We had dinner at Ventuno last Friday, and it again proved itself one of the island’s top restaurants. The menu may seem confusing at first, but it really is divided into Antipasti, Primi (mostly pasta dishes), Secondi (mostly meat dishes), some snacks, and Dolci (desserts).

Unlike a lot of other restaurants, Ventuno still serves bread, a half loaf of terrific ciabatta for $6. You can get it with butter, olive oil, or probably both. It’s crusty and excellent!

We started with five local oysters with a grapefruit granita for $21. The grapefruit ice blended well with the oyster liquor to make a wonderful start to the meal.

One of us ordered their outstanding Caesar salad with romaine. Celery, ciabatta-parmesan croutons and Caesar dressing ($19).

For one entrée, we ordered Agnello: slow cooked and grilled lamb coppa ($48). Coppa is an unusual cut, in that it is part of the collar of muscles that extend from the loin. There are only two per animal, so it is fairly rare. Usually it is cooked slowly, resulting in really tender piece of meat. In this case, it is grilled briefly for the flavor as well. It was some of the tenderest lamb we have ever tasted. It was served with heirloom polenta, broccoli rabe, and a caper-anchovy gremolata.

For our other entrée, we ordered Capesante e Gamberi: grilled shrimp and Nantucket sea scallops, served with house bacon, grilled spring onions, spring peas herb gremolata, parsnip crema an preserved lemon piccata($51).

Finally, we split a dessert called Bomboloncini ($15): bittersweet chocolate filled donuts, coffee gelato and chocolate sauce. A delightful end to an outstanding meal. The bill, with two glasses of wine, including tax, but before tip was $233.26. It was one of the best meals we had during our visit.

The Pearl re-opens in 2023 under new management

The Boarding House and The Pearl were sold by the Raynors to Blue Flag Partners in 2019, and after the pandemic and some remodeling, they re-opened this spring. The Boarding House does not have any on-line presence, because they no longer take reservations. You just show up at or after 5:30 to have dinner with them.

The new version of The Pearl is less formal than its predecessor (no tablecloths) and very friendly, as evidenced by the substantial crowd dining there on Thursday. While the menu has some similarities to the old Pearl (our 2013 review is linked here), the menu is definitely the creation of the new management. They do not mention their chef’s name in their publicity, however.

The menu has some similarities in style to the old Pearl, including the Salt and Pepper Wok Fried Lobster, now with a Market Price of $80, and the 60-second steak and eggs ($33) share plate. And the menu is divided as before in 5 Snacks, 8 Shares, and 6 Entrees, but it is rather briefer than its predecessor.

What is very different is the style of the new Pearl. The staff are warm and friendly, and the diners all seem to be having a good time. The austere blue décor has been replaced with tan composition table tops, with napkin settings including both silverware and chopsticks, emphasizing the style of the new Pearl as Asian Fusion.

For our visit last Thursday, we selected two snacks: Lobster Rangoons ($27) and Heritage Pork Dumplings ($25). We did ask how much the Wok Fried Lobster was, and it turned out to be $80, but our waitress told us we would be happier with the Swordfish Katsu ($49) instead.

We also asked her whether, with these two starters, we would still need to order two entrees, and she said no, suggesting we could always add in another Share such as the Spring Pea Fried Rice ($25). So, we ordered that too.

We got the Lobster Rangoons first, and –a word of warning—these come right out of the fryer and onto your plate, and are full of hot steam. Don’t bite them directly: cut them open first. They are excellent.

Our Heritage Pork dumplings came second, and considering how dark the sauce was, it seemed more likely to contain black bean sauce than the specified red chili oil. But again, they were very good.

The Swordfish Katzu is a very interesting idea. It is basically swordfish breaded with Panko crumbs and deep fried. It doesn’t specify any sauces in the preparation. However, by deep frying the swordfish, they have solved the problem of dried out swordfish, which is all too common in other preparations. The swordfish was tender and juicy unlike any other version we’ve had. It was served with green goddess curry, spring peas, and mint.

Unfortunately for variety, the spring pea fried rice was rather similar, so we probably should have picked a different side dish. It came with chorizo and mushrooms, cured egg, crispy garlic and mint, but the peas and rice predominated. We show the two items plated below:

Finally, we chose two desserts, Cooper’s Chocolate Chunk Cookies, with sea salt and almodn milk to dip them in ($10) and Miso Caramel Budino ($12) with coffee syrup, milk chocolate crunch, candied ginger and crème fraiche.

The Budino was outstanding! Our bill was right around $200 including tax and $5.16 “kitchen appreciation.” Definitely a good deal for the evening.

The Pearl – review from 2013

Note: This review was published on Examiner.com in 2013. It is reprinted here for reference to compare with our 2023 review. Seth and Angel Raynor sold the Pearl and the Boarding House in 2021 to Blue Flag Partners, who re-opened both restaurants in the summer of 2023.

The Pearl is the top echelon of the three restaurants run by Seth and Angela Raynor: the others are the Boarding House and Corazon del Mar. The Pearl features imaginative dishes arranged as small plates, large plates, raw, and vegetables, created by Chef Liam Mackey and sous chef Emmanuel Rojas. The service is uniformly excellent in the beautifully designed pale blue dining room.

While the Pearl has gotten the reputation of being quite expensive, only the Wok Fried Lobster ($60) actually is.

The rest of the large places are priced from $29 to $36 and the small plates from $13 to $22. And yes, the Wok Fried Lobster really is good, but you don’t have to order it every time you visit. You can see the entire menu here, and note that they do include the prices.

On this visit, we made up our meal of three small plates and one large plate, and had plenty to eat. The cuisine is dubbed “coastal,” but it is really imaginative ideas from Asian cooking, vegetarian cuisine and several raw bar choices.

We tried out the Chefs Vegetable Box ($15), which was a vegetable plate of shitakes, asparagus, fiddlehead tempura, artichokes, beets and fava bean hummus. There wasn’t a lot of quantity to this one, but the mix of flavors was really imaginative.

Our other small plate was called Sizzling Ssam Plate, where Ssam is part of Korean cuisine where you wrap the meat in lettuce leaves. In this version, a block on sliced pork belly is served on a hot, smooth, black rock to keep it warm. Accompanying the pork was “dynamite bbq sauce” and “traditional condiments.” In this case those included the lettuce leaves, kimchi, pickled vegetables and the soy-like barbecue sauce. You simply picked up a slice of the pork, placed it on the lettuce leaf, added the kimchi and vegetables and then wrapped up the lettuce. You then had a lettuce wrap you could pick up and dip in the sauce and each. This was an absolutely spectacular dish and one of the best on the menu.

Before the main courses arrived, we were presented with a couple of surprise small plates: one was an excellent Lobster Rangoon, lobster and cream cheese fried in little pastry dumplings. The other was a fluke sashimi, served with tamarind sauce, shredded green mango, thai chile and peanut on top. Again, an excellent tapa-sized delicious appetizer.

Our main courses were the Vietnamese Lettuce Wraps, which are a crispy pork and shrimp spring roll with herbs, pickles and a nuoc cham dipping sauce. This one is always a winner and you should be sure to order it as an appetizer or main course.

Finally, our other main course was Pan Seared Sea Scallops, beautifully presented with little kimchi pancakes, Asian pear, black sesame lemon and a Korean garlic chili sauce. While the scallops were delicately seared and very tender and the chili sauce an excellent accompaniment, the little kimchi pancakes and lemon didn’t add much to the overall flavor.

Finally, we split an excellent dessert crepe dish with chocolate sauce, hazelnuts and pineapple.

The Pearl is one of Nantucket’s most elegant restaurants and always a great dining experience. They serve dinner Wednesday through Sunday.

FIre alarm disrupts the Pearl and Boarding House

Last night (June 15, 2023) at about 7:15 pm, while diners at the Pearl were beginning their first courses, the ceiling lights came up and the annoying braap braap of a fire alarm began to sound. After checking briefly, the manager apologized and explained that we would all have to go outside for a short time. Fortunately, it was a warm evening.

Gathering outside, we noticed that diners at the Boarding House were also outside, since both restaurants are part of the same building. A few diners walked over to Ventuno to see if they could have dinner there, but it appeared as though nearly all returned to the Pearl.

After we had waited for about 10 minutes, the Nantucket fire truck appeared, nearly filling Federal Street.

Two firemen hopped out and went into the Pearl, and after a few minutes, turned off the alarm and determined that it was a false alarm.

Shortly thereafter, the firemen and the truck left and diners returned to both restaurants.

The manager told us that smoke from outside had blown in and set off the alarm. Kudos to the Pearl staff: they continued service without dropping a beat.