I was late coming to the eventide North End Cafe — so much so that it had almost become an institution and had undergone an expansion before my first dinner there (although I’d done lunch several times). That was my loss. Our family stopped in a few days before Christmas and had an early present in the form of a meal that satisfied everyone.
 Blond ambition: the handsome new bar and second dining room at North End Cafe |
The renovation has been accomplished so smoothly that the new room — up a few steps from the old dining room — seems less an addition and more like a part of the restaurant I hadn’t seen before. Its long and lean proportions give it a bit more intimacy. Mean-while, the North End has slid comfortably into the local dining scene, and is one of those rare places of quality that’s open seven days a week for all three meals. It isn’t that the cuisine developed by owner Christopher Seckman and chef Kevin Maxey is startlingly original — although I was first tipped that something interesting was going on at the North End when I heard about an unusual calamari salad with fresh mint and pickled melon rind that was being served there last summer. There are other occasional surprises, but the level of novelty generally doesn’t go far beyond what restaurant-goers would expect. It’s just that the sense of taste behind them is eminently sound, which is a recipe for delight.
Our choices made for one of my favorite family dining experiences in a long while. Everyone found something they liked, and there was a lot of discovering going on. We enjoyed the crispy risotto balls with a charred yellow tomato sauce ($6). My wife was transported by the pan-roasted olives with fennel and orange zest ($3) — as warm and elegant a way to eat olives as I’ve ever encountered. And all four of us were transfixed by the cheese board ($11). It was one of the most cunningly assembled dishes I’ve seen recently. In addition to trusty old Maytag Blue, a uniquely sharp cheddar and a superb California sheep’s-milk called San Andreas, there were also dried cherries and apricots, candied nuts and a dense little holiday loaf — an assortment of intriguing and contrasting tastes put together with the casual abundance of a well-stuffed Christmas stocking.
The kitchen is especially gifted with starches, and that was evident in several entrees. The pan-roasted pork rib chop ($18) was tender and flavorful (although it was not cooked to order, and so arrived a step or two more well-done than I would have preferred); but the smoked provolone and butternut squash risotto that accompanied it was exceptional. It managed to take a quality that I usually deplore in risotto, gumminess, and elevate it to the level of principle. (On the current menu, the pork chop is served with a sweet-potato puree.) Likewise, the sauteed Onaga snapper ($19) was a tasty piece of fish, well-browned and caper-topped, but the memorable part of the plate was the whipped potatoes, close to a Platonic ideal of light-bodied mashers.
There was a divergence of opinion on the wild mushroom lasagna ($14). My wife felt I was being contrary in finding nothing special about this combination of fresh pasta, caramelized onion, ricotta, mushrooms spinach, basil creme fraiche and tomato sauce. I had a glimmer of understanding the next day, when toward the /files/storyimages/of leftover lunch it started to become deeply, heartily satisfying. Then the last bite was gone, and whatever possibility for settling the controversy vanished.
A month later, I returned with a group for brunch on one of those Sundays when everybody else in town seemed to have the same idea. The result was that we waited awhile for a table and even longer for our food — about half an hour, by my watch, although the conversation was good enough that we didn’t care, except when the warm smell of roasted potatoes wafted by.
And everyone was mightily pleased with what they ordered. The biscuits with sausage gravy ($4.75) were the sort of savory mess we all grew up (and later, out) on. The soup of the day, a three-bean concoction ($3.50), had a deep, homey taste, and could have been the best thing on the table. The omelet with poached Italian sausage, kale and roasted fingerling potatoes ($8) had strong tastes, so much so that if you’re at all put off by kale, don’t try it. It was so filling that I really didn’t have much urge to eat the rest of the day. I’m not sure why it came with both fried potatoes and toast, but what’s wrong with that?
Not much — and not much wrong with the North End either. I plan to make up for the lateness of my acquaintance with frequency.
