Hours Sun-Sat 5:30-10 p.m.
May we suggest Duck Bolognese, veal, bomboloncini.
The Cape and the Islands have never been dining destinations, but the restaurant scene has evolved. In addition to clam bellies and lobster rolls, one now finds tapas and sushi, French pastries and handmade pasta, and ambitious, chef-driven cuisine.
At Sol in Wellfleet, I recently sampled a rice noodle soup with roast pork and bacon so delicious I’m still thinking about it. Same with the tuna Bolognese at Blackfish in Truro. Or just about any item from the small plates menu at American Seasons in Nantucket. These dishes rival anything I’ve eaten in the city recently.
This year, several new restaurants join the scene - projects from Boston-area chefs and restaurateurs doing what Bostonians do in the summer, heading to the Cape.
In North Truro, former Garden at the Cellar chef Will Gilson and partner Aaron Cohen have taken over longtime establishment Adrian’s for the season. The duo is behind the group Eat, which has hosted a series of pop-up restaurants in hair salons, coffee shops, chocolate factories, and antiques galleries around the city. Now they have a pop-up restaurant … in a restaurant. It’s so meta it just might work. (And last week they brought in the people behind New York’s Big Gay Ice Cream Truck to run a pop-up within a pop-up.)
Eat at Adrian’s is part of a motel, and the atmosphere is fairly basic, aside from the view of Cape Cod Bay. The food, however, is anything but. The menu incorporates seasonal ingredients and local seafood, including a sampler of fish charcuterie. One evening it features a pot of cod rillettes, fish pate with pickled mustard seeds, smoked salmon, and fuchsia beet-cured scallops. These are accompanied by a variety of pickles (sunchokes!), mustard, and toasts.
