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Edgartown L'Étoile Ensconced at the rear of the elegant Charlotte Inn, this bow-windowed conservatory-dining room is chic and utterly charming. It's a picture of pristine elegance in white and green, with brick walls, skylights, spotlit paintings, lush ferns, a blooming hibiscus tree and a trickling fountain. Well-spaced tables seat 45 inside, and another twenty can be accommodated seasonally on a garden patio. The food prepared by French-trained chef-owner Michael Brisson, who formerly cooked at the much-acclaimed L’Espalier in Boston, is superlative. Dinner is prix-fixe, averaging $78 for three courses with about five choices for each, or $120 for the chef’s tasting menu. A single, long-stemmed pink rose was on each table as we savored an autumn meal to remember, from exceptionally good sesame-sourdough and honey-whole wheat cranberry rolls to the shortbread and chocolate truffles accompanying the bill. Appetizers of local scallops and foie gras bore complex, understated sauces, as did the main courses, pheasant and rack of lamb. Most impressive was the amount of meat on both the pheasant, deboned and served sliced with pumpkin raviolis, and on the lamb, rare and juicy and – hard to believe – too much to finish. Desserts were a fabulous warm tarte tatin with cinnamon stick ice cream and a coconut parfait with berry coulis. The latter was almost as refreshing as the mulled pear sorbet with pomegranate seeds that was the “intermezzo” between appetizer and entrée. Every course, every taste testified to the artistry in the kitchen. (508) 627-5187. Prix-fixe, $75. Dinner by
reservation, 6:30 to 9:45 nightly in summer; Tuesday-Sunday in late
spring and early fall, Thursday-Saturday rest of year. Closed January to
mid-February.
Chef-owner Scott Caskey closed Savoir Fare, a fifteen-year seasonal favorite here, to concentrate on this new and larger enterprise. He and wife Charlotte took over the space once occupied by Martha’s restaurant and produced a lively bistro and bar serving lunch and dinner year-round. They seat 140 in two Parisian-style dining rooms on two floors, two bars and a billiards room. Alchemy is defined as “transforming something,” said Charlotte, “and we’re making something new out of this restaurant.” Indeed, their bistro is as popular as ever and Scott’s cooking is as creative as ever, even if the menu strikes some as quirky. At a fall visit, we didn’t see anything that compelled for lunch, especially at prices starting in the low teens for a cheeseburger with fries, and including a salad called “red, white and greens” with oregano vinaigrette, artichoke croutons and chèvre. Said salad was on the dinner menu as well, along with braised veal cheeks on a celery-root latke and “pumpkin patch” raviolis for appetizers. Recent dinner entrées included fennel-pollen-dusted halibut in an artichoke bisque with fried potato gnocchi, brined cornish hen saltimbocca over a fricassee of cannelloni beans and smoked ham hocks, pork chop Milanese, and grilled beef tenderloin with a sauternes beurre blanc and shaved foie gras. The Caskeys and crew have fun “mixing potions” (another definition of alchemy), and the results, while sometimes uneven, are widely applauded. (508) 627-9999. Entrées, $26 to $32. Lunch, Monday-Saturday noon to 2:30, Wednesday-Saturday in off-season. Dinner nightly, from 5:30, Thursday-Monday in winter. Atria The Brick Cellar Bar is Edgartown’s hottest night spot, and the upstairs dining room in an elegant white sea captain’s house occupies a lofty culinary realm as well. The restaurant is named for the brightest of the three stars forming the Southern Triangle constellation, whose position in the night sky guided 19th century whalers sailing from Martha’s Vineyard. Chef Christian Thornton imparts Mediterranean and Asian accents to contemporary New England fare featuring local, organic products. Expect such starters as crab and artichoke pot pie, rare ahi tuna tempura with miso vinaigrette and wasabi caviar, oven-roasted foie gras with vanilla french toast and vintage balsamic vinegar, and crispy ginger-spiked quail with sweet chile glaze. Main courses range from sake-marinated cod with miso broth to braised Indian beef curry with basmati rice. Seared Atlantic halibut with lobster-saffron broth and roasted duck with spicy plum sauce and duck confit spring rolls are favorites. Desserts could be molten chocolate cake with cappuccino ice cream, Indian rice pudding with candied pistachios or vanilla crème brûlée. Dine in understated elegance on the enclosed wraparound porch or the inner dining room, or outside on the romantic rose garden terrace. Afterward, join the night crowd downstairs in the brick-walled bar. Watch the tropical fish in the lighted aquariums and enjoy live music in cushy leather club chairs or at the brass bar. (508) 627-5850. www.atriamv.com. Entrées, $22 to
$36. Dinner nightly, 5 to 10.
Here is one glamorous restaurant, upstairs in the new Winnetu Inn & Resort main building with tall windows onto an equally glamorous outdoor deck and a view of the ocean across the dunes at South Beach. The setting is sleek in understated gray with elegantly set tables spaced well apart. Executive chef Roy Breiman from California’s Napa Valley orchestrates the precious menu in terms of overtures, compositions and finale. Dinner might open with a “chilled bowl of hand-picked lettuces” with toasted walnuts and sour-cherry vinaigrette for a cool $8 or a roasted red beet “tower” with herbed goat cheese, micro greens, shallot chutney and 25-year balsamic vinegar for $12. Compose yourself with grilled turbot “au laurier” in a bay-leaf emulsion, herb-marinated chicken breast with a ruby port-vanilla reduction or roast pepper-crusted tenderloin of angus beef with a huckleberry reduction. Finales include a caramelized banana charlotte and black currant soufflé. A harpist serenades diners on weekend evenings, and a jazz quartet entertains during Sunday brunch. (508) 627-3663. Entrées, $24 to $37. Lunch
seasonally, 11 to 2. Dinner nightly, 5:30 to 9 or 10, weekends in
off-season. Sunday brunch in off-season, 11 to 2. Closed December to
Memorial Day.
Lattanzi's is the Italian showplace for chef-owner Albert Lattanzi, who had been chef for years up the street at the former Andrea's. Taking over our old-favorite Warriner’s Restaurant, he lightened up the paneled walls of the elegant library room to produce a Mediterranean look, and topped the white linened tables with butcher paper for an Italian bistro feeling. The atmosphere is refined and the food so abundant that some complain the portions are much too big. The manager advises that almost everyone takes the leftovers home in a Lattanzi basket, and many phone to say how much they enjoyed them the next day. Chef Al makes his pastas by hand, cooks his meats on a hardwood grill and buys his seafood from fishermen who come to his back door as soon as they get off the boat. The pasta dishes are highly rated, especially the arrabbiata with spicy pork sausage and tomato and the fettuccine picante with anchovies, hot cherry peppers and garlic. One skeptic said he never knew a lasagna dish could be so good. Main courses range from calamari fra diavolo to Canadian hardwood-grilled porterhouse steak alla florentina and a stellar veal chop with porcini-mushroom cream. The mixed grill with lamb, hot Italian sausage, pork and spicy peach chutney and the grilled pork loin with apricots and pine nuts appealed the night we were there. Appetizers here are good but superfluous. Save room instead for a stellar tiramisu, the chocolate-hazelnut cake, the fresh fruit tarts, one of the sorbettos or, at the very least, a cheese plate. The wine list focuses on Italian vintages. (508) 627-8854. Entrées, $22 to $38. Dinner
nightly from 6, June-September; rest of year, Wednesday-Sunday from 5. Material excerpted from Inn Spots & Special Places in New England, by Nancy and Richard Woodworth. Copyright 2004. Wood Pond Press E-mail feedback to: Home
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