The shoestring fries we’ve ordered as a side are another Charles trademark and the same ones that accompany Pearl’s famous lobster roll. As I fork up bites of the crisp, hot chicken accompanied by cool and tangy caper-studded celery-root slaw and undressed watercress, I’m reminded of the Wiener schnitzel I first ate years ago in Salzburg, Austria-a long way from coastal Maine but a happy food memory, nonetheless.
SPAT OYSTER FULL
The server-recommended pan-fried chicken is a full boneless breast, pounded so it fills the plate, coated in crumbs, and fried to a perfect golden brown. Charles adapts the vegetables in her lobster stew to the seasons ours includes just-cooked, kelly green sugar snap peas and asparagus, and rosy peewee potatoes in a Pernod-scented broth, a bowl that is as bright and colorful as it is rich and luscious. “I prefer that people find the plate of food I’m serving accessible and understandable-in a best-case scenario, that they associate it with something they had a long time ago.”įollowing a classic salad of baby lettuces with roasted gold and candy cane beets, generously scattered with Roquefort crumbles, our entrees continue the nostalgic theme. “I don’t go in for international, global ingredients for the most part,” the chef says. Neither of these starters is complicated, but they are delicious and intensely satisfying. We also share a warm best version of johnnycake topped with generous slices of silky smoked salmon and a dollop of crème fraîche-a New England/New York mashup and another Charles signature. As the server come up and presents them, she explains that the tartar sauce is conveniently in the shell beneath tell me this is the each oyster, the way Charles has served them for decades.
SPAT OYSTER CRACKER
Coated with cracker crumbs, the oysters are crisp, plump, and piping hot, each of them served in an oyster shell. Ever since Charles described them a few days ago, I’ve had her fried oysters on my mind. Tucked into a cozy table near the fireplace by general manager Tara Padilla, we order cocktails: a lavender mead mule for my friend, made with particularly zesty house-made ginger beer, and a refreshing Tekiwi-tequila, Cointreau, kiwi juice, and lime-for me. On a chilly Friday evening, a friend and I are instantly warmed by both the friendly greeting and the mood at Spat, which is nearly full with a lively crowd. “Pearl in New York was meant to be a little breath of Maine, and Spat is meant to be a little piece of what New York might have been like at the turn of the last century, when there were oyster bars by the hundreds,” Charles says. Downstairs, Spat Oyster Cellar is a cozy low-ceilinged space designed to evoke an old-school New York City oyster bar. One side of the room is dominated by a massive fieldstone fireplace that is flanked with wine storage cabinets on the opposite side is a long bar with classic bentwood bar stools that match the dining chairs. A fan of minimalist design, Charles kept the look of the large dining room deliberately spare, painting the vaulted ceiling and walls a subdued greige ( Benjamin Moore’s Weimaraner) and stripping and refinishing the wide boards of the pine floor. The three-story building had to be stripped to the studs, delaying her opening until last summer. In the spring of 2016 Charles bought and renovated the building that had most recently been the Italian restaurant Abbondante, only to have her plans for opening the following season dashed by a catastrophic flood when the sprinkler system burst over the winter.
For Pinctada Margaritifera oysters in French Polynesia this time period usually ranges between 12 and 24 months.With 150 seats, including a spacious outdoor terrace, and unforeseen setbacks, the Kennebunk restaurant has been a bigger undertaking than the tiny New York original. Pearl farmers must wait and care for oysters until they reach a grafting size. This ensures that the wild oyster stocks are not depleted and gives farmers access to strong adult oysters that can be used for cultured pearl production.Īn oyster must reach a certain size before it can be operated in order to induce the birth of a cultured pearl. In areas of Australia, adult wild oysters (of specific sizes) are collected under a strict quota system regulated by government. Whilst in French Polynesia nature permits Pinctada Margaritifera oysters to be collected at a juvenile stage ('spat') in the wild, in other areas where oyster reproduction is insufficient or qualities are not high enough oyster hatchery programmes are used. The condition varies in different countries. One is to collect them in the wild, the other is through oyster breeding programmes in hatcheries. Juvenile pearl oysters can be obtained in two ways.
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