If you happen to be headed to Martha's Vineyard this summer and want some grade-A grub, might I suggest the Outermost Inn.
It's owned by James Taylor's brother, Hugh, and features the culinary wonders of one Daniel Sauer.
Below are two reviews of my kid brother's excellent cuisine.
If you ask nicely, Danny Boy might make you his world-famous Bacon Double Burger Dog.
Fine Dining: Eat like the island's elite at these elegant dining destinations
Fineliving.com
Hugh Taylor and his wife Jeanne run an up-island inn so friendly that visitors liken it to being a guest in a friend's vacation home — that is, as long as your friend's brother is singer-songwriter James Taylor, employs an ex-New York chef and has a hilltop house with wraparound views! Chef Daniel Sauer — who put in time behind the stoves at Manhattan heavyweights Hearth and Craft — oversees the dining room and offers a menu that elevates local ingredients to gastronomic heights. For example, Aquinnah oysters are served with ramp mignonette and even a simple green salad gets gussied up with pickled fiddlehead ferns. Deceptively simple entrees belie the chef's considerable skill. Butter-poached lobster is achingly tender, and roasted lamb loin is set off by fava beans, tomatoes, spring garlic and porcini mushrooms. Desserts range from a classic buttermilk panna cotta to an early-summer rhubarb and blueberry crisp. BYOB.
Vineyard's a haven for world-class cuisine
by Mat Schaffer, Boston Herald
Outermost Inn. Lighthouse Road, Aquinnah; 508-645-3511; www.outermostinn.com
Discerning diners on Martha's Vineyard are abuzz about Daniel Sauer. He's the talented young chef at the Outermost Inn, the bed and breakfast owned by Jeanne and Hugh Taylor (James' brother) in Aquinnah. Sauer, a veteran of Oceana, Craft and Hearth restaurants in Manhattan, is married to Nonie Madison, the daughter of longtime Wampanoag leader Jeffrey Madison. She and her husband came home for the summer.
Dinner is a $72-BYO-prix fixe affair. It's a bargain given Sauer's urbane, imaginative cuisine. His food is sophisticated yet accessible and very charming. I wanted to eat everything on the menu.
What I did eat was delicious. There's a misleadingly simple salad of tuna poached in oil, marinated chickpeas, harissa aioli and crisped prosciutto that conjures up lazy Mediterranean luncheons. A plate of roasted golden and red beets, slivered Granny Smith apple and horseradish-dressed watercress is as tasty as it is beautiful. And an intermezzo salad of greens, exotic radishes and crumbled croutons in red wine vinaigrette couldn't be more refreshing.
Sauer serves slices of roasted sirloin with braised short ribs, a wedge of hen of the woods mushroom and crostini topped with bone marrow. The richness of that dish is counterbalanced by the almost austere, Asian minimalism of seared and roasted striped bass with charred bok choy and gingery carrots in delicate lemon balm-fish fumet. You'll ask for a spoon to slurp up every drop.
Desserts are just as focused and assured. Don't pass up creamy buttermilk panna cotta with fresh berries or tart, warm rhubarb and blueberry crisp with a scoop of strawberry sorbet.
Located all the way up island next to the lighthouse, the Outermost is a schlep - especially from Vineyard Haven or Oak Bluffs. But its dramatic views, pleasant back porch and quaint dining room with beamed ceiling, brick fireplace and lace-curtained kitchen door make the ride worthwhile.
That and Daniel Sauer's accomplished cooking.
According to Madison, who waits tables at the inn, she and Sauer next intend to move to Boston and open a place of their own. I, for one, am excited.
(Photo courtesy of Boston Herald.)
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