There are great meals, and then there are meals that change the way you think about food. Dinner at Cellar Door was in the top five dining experiences of my life.
The theme of this dinner was citrus, and from cara cara oranges to mandarinquats(!), chef Logan and mixologist Gary certainly didn't pull their punches in that regard.
Course 1: Scallop crudo with avocado, mandarinquats, basil, Aleppo pepper and champagne vinaigrette. Easily the most visually stunning course of the five, served (in a cruel irony, as Logan noted) in a scallop shell. Wonderfully balanced with sweet, salty and tangy flavors. Paired with a caiparinha, Brazil's national drink, lightly sweet and made with rum, sugar and lime.
Course 2: Radicchio, escarole, arugula, kumquats, sugared limequats, chopped sugar snap peas, goat cheese, toasted almonds. Simple but great; the bitterness of the greens contrasted beautifully with the sugared citrus and the creamy goat cheese. Paired with an elevated ruby grapefruit paloma--a good mix of sour and sweet.
Course 3: Baby back ribs with green onion and a soy-cumin-chili-orange glaze. These were, without question, the best ribs I have ever had. Sweet, savory and quite literally falling off the bone, I could have eaten a whole platter of them. Paired with a bourbon lemonade--sweet but complex with a great aftertaste, the best drink of the night.
Course 4: Fettuccine with baja crab, mascarpone, ricotta, meyer lemon, basil and parsley. Perfectly al dente pasta with a nice creaminess to the sauce. The slight orangey taste was a little strange to me but it was still very good. Paired with a cara cara orange apparition, excellent and deeply citrusy.
Course 5: Blood orange, ricotta, polenta and almond upside-down cake with cara cara zested whipped cream. I didn't care much for the blood orange baked into the cake, but the crumbliness created by the polenta made for a great unique texture. Paired with a meyer limoncello--tiny but very strong with a nice lemon-sweet flavor.
Not only was the food delicious and crafted with unbelievable attention to detail, but so were the drinks--a rarity in my experience. The atmosphere was warm and inviting, and even the other dinner guests were friendly and entertaining. I've never had a dinner where every element came together so perfectly in such a lovely yet unassuming setting; it turns out that dining in a chef's home is better than a restaurant in almost every way. In that sense, Cellar Door expanded my view of what a meal can be.