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!
