Chefs…They’re Just Like Us!
They… pay bills!
They…work out!
They…summer on Cape Cod!
And, apparently, the Islands.
You know that pesky pang-of-guilt that creeps up just as you’re jaunting off to P-Town or Vineyard Haven, thinking of your poor old favorite chef stuck Hub-side, slinging hash to the city-bound? (Right. I made that up.) Well, cast it aside. (Just roll with it.) At least a few top local chefs, refusing to accept their fate passively, have come up with a brilliant game plan: Open up a second restaurant in a fab locale.
Indulgent summering-in-Nantucket magically becomes industrious launching-a-new-business-venture, only with better suntan potential and a balmier breeze.
Local culinary power couple Amanda Lydon (of UpStairs on the Square fame; more recently, Ten Tables in JP) and Gabriel Frasca (of Spire fame) live in Boston during the bleaker months. Warmer weather, however, they spend summering in Nantucket, co-cheffing at Straight Wharf, their swanky, harborfront restaurant that specializes in gussied-up local ingredients. And like any good summering chef, they serve food only in the evenings. (You know—when the sun goes down….)
Likewise, Chris Parsons, chef of Catch. Winchester may be as fine a place as any to helm a restaurant when you’re simply trudging back and forth from home to work in the snow. But this season, he’s got his nose to the grindstone (not to mention the SPF 30) at the Vineyard, launching his new Catch at the Terrace, at the Charlotte Inn in Edgartown. Cue the sad violin music.
Finally, there’s Marc Orfaly, of Pigalle and Marco fame. The savvy chef has formed a “partnership” with the owner of an inn to run two restaurants. Where? In some scorching, barren desert, perhaps? The middle of Kansas? Hardly. The Summer House and the Beachside Bistro are situated on choice real estate in Nantucket.
We’ll let the press release do the honors:
“With a picture-perfect setting overlooking the Atlantic … [etc.] … the Beachside Bistro is the only restaurant actually on the beach. Dining surfside to the sounds of the waves and cuddled in a bistro blanket under the stars is
something to remember.”
It may be a cliché, but there’s nothing we like better than being cuddled in a bistro blanket. Nice work if you can get it.
Stay tuned for “Chowder—St. Bart’s edition,” coming soon.
