Rehab Or Restaurant? You Choose.

Want To Help Keep The Ram's Head Inn An Inn? Make A Reservation For Dinner.

By Susan Whitney Simm

For many years a bucolic Shelter Island landmark, The Ram's Head Inn has recently become the center of a brewing storm. The owners apparently want to lease the inn out to folks who want to run it as a rehab facility and the community claims that such a facility will negatively impact many aspects of Island life. Everyone seems to have an opinion.

But what no one seems to realize is that the food and beverage operations of the inn have already been leased out. Chef Matthew Boudreau, formerly of Balthazar and Union Square Cafe, has leased the dining room, kitchen and bar, and he hopes to do so for a very long time.

"Last year the owners believed that they had a buyer for the inn," said Mr. Boudreau. "But then I got a call from them over the winter to see if I was interested in leasing the food and beverage operations. Having worked in the kitchen before, I jumped at the chance. In the future I hope to lease the entire property if I can make a go of it this season."

Mr. Boudreau, who grew up in Cambridge and started his culinary career at age 8 selling sausages outside of Fenway Park (he is still a Sox fan), is passionate about local ingredients and uses them in concert with a handful of specialty items from around the world. The chef has worked at the Savoy Hotel and Allium in London and believes, as a result of his extensive travel, in "being a responsible citizen of the world." Everything from radish tops to fish bones is put to use in his kitchen.

The chef is also a master of deconstruction. His take on bacon-wrapped scallops? Sea scallops tossed in a truffle vinaigrette made with rendered bacon. On classic proscuitto and melon? A chilled cantaloupe soup garnished with poached sea scallops and oven-dried proscuitto croutons. The ripe, local melon is marinated with mint and jalapenos before being emulsified into an ethereal foam made creamy by the addition of sparkling water.

A recent dinner on the Inn's terrace overlooking Coecles Harbor with friends was a feast for all senses. Many of Mr. Boudreau's staff are French, and the air is filled with the cadence of their language. The chef paired numerous courses with wines from his carefully edited global list, which includes a number of notable local selections. (Call in advance to arrange for a similar tasting menu paired with wines.)

We began with the chilled aforementioned soup, accompanied by a crisp Tavel Rose from Prieure de Montzagues. Next came a luscious appetizer of burrata (it literally means "butter" in Italian), a fresh mozzarella with a solid outer shell and molten, creamy center served with house-made arugula bread fried until crisp and shards of warm sunburst tomatoes. It was nicely paired with a Chilean Carmenere from Alcance. (Carmenere grapes were originally planted in the Medoc region of Bordeaux and used much as Petit Verdot is today as a blending grape.)

Fish pate, this evening a combination of striped bass and porgy (often caught by the chef himself), is house-smoked using twigs from the Inn's property and vine clippings from local vineyards. It is served with crunchy wax and green beans from Cutchogue's Satur Farms, along with toothy fregula, a delightfully chewy, toasted pasta from Sardinia that is similar to couscous. A Hunold Riesling from Alsace provided a fruity counterpoint to the brininess of the fish.

Another seafood standout is the entrée of smoked sea scallops, procured fresh from the docks at Montauk. The shellfish are smoked and seasoned with the chef's homemade version of the classic Old Bay seasoning and served with local sweet corn, roasted peppers and shiitake mushrooms grown on a boutique mushroom farm in Southampton.

Pan-seared Long Island duck breast, pink and juicy, hails from Jurgielewicz Farms in Moriches. It is served in a duck reduction alongside heirloom carrots ("scrubbed but never peeled to preserve nutrients") and haricots verts from Satur. Another interesting plate mate is the often overlooked kohl rabi, a root vegetable Mr. Boudreau poaches in a broth perfumed with curry.

A hush settled over our table as aromas wafted into the air from plates of Hertiage Farms pork chops from upstate New York. The meat is meltingly tender, but it was upstaged by the spectacular accompaniment of cannellini beans and calva nerno (literally black cabbage, a member of the kale family). Mr. Boudreau learned how to cook beans in the Tuscan style during a stint at Manhattan's Maremma under chef Cesare Casella, who was the original chef at Beppe in the Flatiron District.

"Cesare was fond of saying 'beans suck,'" laughs Mr. Boudreau. "He meant it literally. Beans absorb whatever they are soaked or cooked in. Here we soak them in seasoned liquid before rinsing and cooking slowly in water with aromatics such as rosemary. Beans are fragile and must be handled accordingly." The results are one of the best dishes we have ever tasted, perfectly set off by the kale, which is braised in sherry vinegar, olive oil, garlic and shallots. A Bouchard Pinot Noir from Burgundy was an unusual but appealingly rustic match for the flavorful food.

All desserts are house-made by pastry chef James Halikman. Recent standouts include a gooseberry-peach crisp made with local fruit from Wickham's Fruit Farm in Cutchogue, a chocolate pot de creme (a house specialty) and my favorite, "Cookies and Milk," which features miniature treats and a cold glass of Ronny Brook Milk from an upstate farm.

Mr. Boudreau has leased the kitchen through the end of October. He is currently open six days a week through Labor Day, and will offer special five-course tasting menus with wine preceded by complimentary cocktail hours with passed hors d'oeuvres ($75 per person) on Thursdays through Columbus Day weekend, when he will co-host a Slow Food benefit with North Quarter Farm of Riverhead.

Stopping by the inn on a beautifully sunny day to ask some questions about his plans for the future, I ask the chef how he feels about the possibility of the inn becoming a rehab center. He pauses at a chore that obviously has his full attention in the kitchen.

"It is not a rehab center yet!" he says, with obvious reference to the culinary task at hand. "For now, we provide the best food and service that we can and we remain hopeful that we can continue to do so in the future."

The setting of the Ram's Head Inn is idyllic and the food some of the best being served on the East End. If we could all stop focusing on the rehab controversy long enough to support Mr. Boudreau's efforts by patronizing his restaurant today, tomorrow may just take care of itself.

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