THE CAPE!

Six summers of eating + drinking

𓂃 ོ☼𓂃

Happy Summer. I’m driving down to East Sandwich tomorrow, where you’ll find me for the next two months. Aside from a week on Cape Breton in August and the occasional day trip to Boston for work (courtesy of the Kingston commuter rail), I plan on setting up my desk by an open window for the best two months of the year in New England. In exchange for hosting us, my husband and I will make my dad dinner most nights and generally try to keep him amused, which means a 7pm drive for ice cream and listening to the history of colonial Vermont.

This will be my sixth summer spent mostly on the Cape. My parents moved down from Vermont in September 2020, and the three jobs I’ve worked since have (intentionally) been hybrid or remote. It’s a nice arrangement, I’m very lucky, and I like to make the most. To that end, here’s where you’ll find me in the evenings this summer, when I’m not eating in the backyard…

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Enjoying dinner at The Pheasant and dessert at Baleine, its sister wine bar that serves a mean banana cake and sherry affogato. We’ve been friends of The Pheasant for several years now. The menu is always excellent and familiar — house-made bread, oysters, crudo, a seasonal salad and vegetable small plates, a pasta, a fish, a chicken, a pork, sometimes a steak. The ingredients change with the seasons. We are going next week and I think I’ll lobby our table to share the focaccia, oysters (from just down the road), fava bean panisse, spring salad (asparagus, pea tendrils, za'atar vinaigrette, ricotta salata…yum), mussel toast, and the Comté omelette. I’m also looking forward to going to a clambake, served every Monday and Thursday this summer in the garden. The sample menu is insane: local oysters, chowder, a summer salad, littlenecks and cherrystones, mussels with linguiça and peppers, cornbread, potatoes, fried chicken, and ice cream sandwiches. Between The Pheasant (the restaurant), Baleine (the wine bar), and Dunn & Sons (the wine shop), owners Erica and Adam are essential to the hearts and stomachs of the Mid Cape. <3

Drinking a wonderful/terrible martini at my favorite sh*tty Italian restaurant in the world, Amari. It is a 3-minute drive from home. We have funny banter with at least two waitresses and I’m hoping to increase that number. My dad gets the lasagna, JP gets the chicken parm, I get the linguini with marinara sauce and two meatballs, even when I ask for one. The food is fine and gets better the more you drink. Last year I made the mistake of ordering a Negroni with mezcal and was brought an Aperol spritz (cheers). Amari proves the point I’m always trying to make which is that a mediocre restaurant can and probably should be your favorite.

you get it

In line at Twin Acres, the best ice cream shop on the Cape. I don’t really know what else to say here. I don’t entertain conversations that suggest there might be a better place to get ice cream. If you live within 30 mins of Twin Acres, you should be going.

always raspberry x chocolate

At LUNE, the best restaurant on the Cape, for Sunday dinner. I wrote about my first visit. The tasting menu is served on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, à la carte on Wednesdays and Sundays. I like the occasional tasting menu, but à la carte satiates my need for control. I think an early Sunday dinner at LUNE is perfect, ideally at the counter so you can watch Chef Formichella work. Shaved Comté, pork and foie gras terrine, white asparagus with green peppercorn hollandaise and preserved lemon, Island Creek tinned mussels, mushroom vol-au-vent… I’m plotting my order for two weeks from now.

Drinking a Negroni on the lawn at the Chapter House, a beautiful property in Yarmouth Port (across from the Captain Bangs Hallet House and a few doors down from the Winslow Crocker House, both are worth a visit).

Standing in line with a cup of cold wine at Sesuit Harbor Cafe while the rest of the party hunts for a free picnic table. We bring a tablecloth, cheese, crackers, wine, beer, cards, and whatever else we need to turn the evening at the clam shack into a proper affair. It’s the quintessential Cape experience to watch boats come into the harbor at sunset while waiting for a waitress to carry over a massive, teetering pile of lobster, fried clams, fish and chips, coleslaw, and corn on the cob that you (or more likely, I) waited in line for nearly an hour to order.

Drinking a pickle martini on the outdoor patio at Fishermen’s View. This is the best pickle martini I’ve had on the Cape, other than the ones JP makes at home…

Eating a burger at Scargo, the most American restaurant there ever was in the sense that I think it would be the perfect place to take one’s grandparents (complimentary). I really like Scargo and so does everyone else, not least because they have a “world famous” grapenut custard on the dessert menu. Is it good? Not really. Does being good matter in this case? Absolutely not, don’t miss the point.

Trying new restaurants:

• Drifters (as close as I’ll get to Chatham, a town I categorically dislike due to its bastardization of prep and everyone at The Squire);

• Chillingsworth because it looks cute and Capey and I like its sign;

• Not really a restaurant but I’m excited to snack and drink at the recently renovated/reopened Old Village Store in Barnstable and catch one of Red’s pop-ups;

• Bleu, to see if a restaurant next to the Starbucks in Mashpee Commons can actually cook French food (don’t judge a book);

• Water Street Kitchen has been on my list for years but somehow I can’t bring myself to drive 45 mins down Route 28, maybe this will be the year;

• Lo Scafo, the new Italian restaurant in Sandwich. I love going into Sandwich town center but unfortunately there isn’t any good food, although the Belfry can make a martini. I am aesthetically offended by the mess of rolling pins hanging on the wall of Lo Scafo but I will overlook it if the pasta is good.

• Sal’s Place and Ceraldi in Provincetown, both tragically overdue.

• What have I missed?

Enjoy your summer!!! ☀︎☀︎☀︎