Nov. 25. Mark the date. That’s the last chance you have to get to L’Etoile before they close for the season.
Why am I telling you this now, with less than two weeks of dining bliss ahead of you? It’s that worth it.
I love Edgartown, but I avoid it in the summer. In some ways, it feels like another country to me, a dyed-in-the-wool Oak Bluffsian. It seems I see people there in summer that I never see anywhere else. Or that I’ve never seen before, or since. Plus, the parking.
So when a friend last week said “Let’s go to L’Etoile before they close,” I conjured up memories of the last time I’d been there — maybe last year at this time, and jumped at the chance.
I parked about 40 feet away, and not only was the restaurant full of people I knew or at least recognized, it felt like “Cheers,” where everyone knew my name. Or at least my friend’s name. And the few people I didn’t know or recognize, I met. The bar is so friendly and convivial — it reminded me of the Ritz or the Ocean View — that I even made a new friend, who sat down next to me.
When the food arrived, I discovered why the restaurant was packed on a stormy November night, and why the bar area was so full of good cheer and goodwill: The food was, well, AMAZING. Yes, all caps. Amazing.
That’s how I met the woman next to me; she was new to a tech job in Cambridge and visiting on her own for the weekend, and asked, “What’s that!?” about the dish I was swooning over.
My friend and I had ordered four small plates, and they came out one at a time: The first was a Yuzu and Citrus-Cured Day Boat Sea Scallop dish which felt like a nice callback to summer, with spicy lobster and mouth-freshening bites of mango and blood orange ($21).
After that we tucked into the Grilled Spanish Octopus with Curried Gigandes White Beans, Grilled Japanese Eggplant, Roasted Tomato and Melted Leeks ($21). Again, every bite, every taste, every texture was delicious. We followed that with a salad of roasted beets (red and gold), which usually comes with watermelon, but on this night had mango instead (more summer!), crispy pancetta and goat cheese, all on baby greens and sitting on a tahini-pistachio purée ($19). We ate every morsel.
We ended the pre-dessert part of our meal with the Lobster Tatiana, a generous chunk of lobster meat with Pappardelle, MV Shiitakes and Farm Vegetable Sauté, with Lobster, Roasted Garlic and Parsley Sauce ($28). We couldn’t decide which of our four “Bar Bites”and small plates was our favorite; we kept changing our votes, so we decided to call it a draw for now. A happy draw. We decided we might have to have a runoff competition before Nov. 25.
We were just pleasantly full, and despite having had a couple of cocktails (try the Sazerac!), had room left for dessert. We shared the Best Lemon Square — an apt name if there ever was one. (Sorry, Mom! Possibly even better than yours!) This one came with a strawberry-mint salad and pistachio nougat. The new friend sitting next to me had something with apples (Michael Brisson tells me this was an apple crepe; desserts, which run $14, change often), and we traded bites, along with tips on other things she should see on Martha’s Vineyard while she was here.
She’d just arrived, she said, and had dashed through the rain from the Sydney Hotel next door, glad to find a friendly place where it felt fine to sit by herself at the bar. She asked if all of the Vineyard was always this friendly. I looked around to see what she was seeing and hearing: people stopping at others’ tables, laughing and visiting; people waving at each other across the bar; the chef coming out to talk to his wife (photographer Nicole Friedler) and friends; the bartender making jokes, and just an overwhelming sense of neighborliness and belonging. I told her that yes, Martha’s Vineyard usually is this friendly. I felt lucky to live here just then.
You oldtimers might remember when Michael Brisson had L’Etoile at the Charlotte Inn for many years (it was the first fancy restaurant I went to on Martha’s Vineyard, back in the ’80s). After 20 years there, Brisson moved to the North Water Street location 13 years ago. He tells me that they’ll be open Friday and Saturday this week, and next week on Wednesday only in the bar (there are also dining rooms that seat another 46; the bar and surrounding booths and high-tops seat 31). Thanksgiving, alas, is sold out, but they will be open again Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, Nov. 23 to 25. The last night of the season.
So go now, or put the third weekend of April 2019 on your calendar.
L’Etoile, 22 North Water St., Edgartown; 508-727-5187; letoile.net.
