A Seaside Feast

I love being a food and home editor and I love working for Yankee. But recently, I had a “I really, really love my job!” moment when I was invited down to South Kingstown, RI, for a dinner at chef William Kovel’s family house by the beach. Kovel has been one of my favorite chefs in Boston, and he earned stacks of praise during his turn as executive chef at Aujourd’hui, where he brought fresh life into an old-school restaurant (the kind decorated with a forest of wood paneling, acres of floral fabric, and armchairs for seats). In 2009, the Four Seasons decided to shutter the restaurant—even Kovel’s efforts couldn’t make up for the fact that such formal dining had run its course, even in Boston. But their loss was our gain—sometime later this summer, he’ll finally launch Catalyst, a 284-seat restaurant of his own in Cambridge’s Technology Square.

To give some media folks a taste of what Catalyst will be, Kovel invited us down for a casual meal. You know, just a 7 course feast with wine pairings in the back yard. The food was gorgeous–a casual interpretation of the more refined fare he’ll be turning out once he finally gets into his kitchen. We started with sashimi…

  Then oysters.

After these courses, we walked to the beach to see the sunset (see the photo above). There was a wonderful cool breeze and salt spray in the air. When we returned, there was a fresh tomato salad with burrata (cream-filled mozzarella)…

  plus grilled steak with chimichurri sauce, herb-grilled chicken, a beet salad, and this potato salad.

Soon it was too dark to take pictures. I couldn’t photograph it, but for dessert, we had a choice of strawberry-rhubarb crisp and root beer-cherry ice cream floats. We all chose both.