New Rivers in Providence has been on my "must-go-list" ever since I attended a wine dinner with industry people (chefs, wine reps, winemakers) and feasted on a family-style dinner of bistro style dishes (potatoes, beets, sausage, salads...) simple, but with incredible flavors. Last week we went to dinner, and I was blown away. The menu is seasonally driven with many house-made components (from pasta to the charcuterie program) and beautiful ingredients. The Chef sent us a house made lardo (aged for 7 months), on garlic toast. This was a spectacular beginning to an incredible dinner. The cliche "melts in your mouth" could not be a better description- the lardo was salty, sliced paper thin, and nearly disintegrated unto the toast leaving the pork flavor on the warm bread. I think the photos speak for themselves, but among the dishes were fried squid (with a slightly spicy aioli- the perfect match to anything fried), falafel, fiddlehead ferns (my first time), asparagus with ramps, spring salad ( a medley of spring vegetables and flowers including string-like asparagus sprouts- very delicate but abundant in the earthy flavor), caramelle with pork sausage (pasta stuffed with ricotta, served with mint, peas, and carrots, and tossed in a brown butter sauce) charcuterie, fried soft shell crab. Every dish showed balance of flavors, and proper execution for the ingredients at hand. Chef Beau Vestal is succeeding in what many try but fail to achieve. I can't wait to return.
