Illicit Gastronomy

I heard about supper clubs a year ago, it sounded like an interesting idea but I was too lazy to investigate further, but when Komos and Faux Eonix invited Cayetana and me to a local illegal dinner, hell yeah let’s try it. Breakin the law breakin the law! It’s funky, sitting in a stranger’s dining room with 5 of your friends, while the two chefs bring out small plate food creations that wouldn’t be out of place at the best restaurants in Boston (for me, that’s L’Espalier and No. 9 Park). Seared chicken confit on cauliflower puree was a smashing start, the lamb’s liver two ways was delicate, textured in the middleground between muscle and organ. Somewhere in there was a sweetbread with apples and cinnamon amuse-bouche. The pasta fagioli on bitter greens was the only dish I didn’t find outstanding, but it was quickly forgotten as they laid in front of me a small thick cut of pork belly on fennel and celeriac. Oh my god pork belly. The skin layer took a little bit of chewing, but each chew of that magic rind released an impossible flood of porky flavor. And then Cayetana gave me a bit of hers that she couldn’t finish, a darker colored slice than mine and it was even better. The flavor was even more rich, more luscious, and went on and on and on. It was like dining on the essence of a happy porcine god. Another amuse after that, black pepper ice cream I think, and then a dessert that did what I thought impossible: rolled up the lovingly crafted, simple genius of all the proceeding dishes, and whaled that sucker right out of the park. A wide smear of dark chocolate backgrounds a lush pumpkin mousse draped with bittersweet chocolate crumbles and pumpkinseed brittle. Pumpkinseed brittle, bitches!

After dinner you can hang out and talk with them, they’ll tell you about where they get their ingredients, the little old lady with a flock of sheep and a guard llama, the difficulties finding a competent butcher when you’re a micro-scale enterprise. They’re friendly, softspoken, and really, really skinny. I don’t know how it’s possible to cook like they do and be that tiny. Six guests, each donating $45 plus tip, that’s not a lot of money for the ingredients and all the work that went into the meal, especially consider ing how much research and experimentation must have gone into it. They clearly don’t do this for money; they very obviously do it for love. Which is what food, and cooking, is. It’s love.