ANNOUNCEMENT: There will be no issue of Mariani's Virtual Gourmet next week because Mariani will driving around in France wining and dining on his readers' behalf.

    Perhaps because Cambridge is not as compact as Boston, I always think of it as the larger city, where you can walk very far and enjoy so many pubic squares as well as stroll through nearly a dozen neighborhoods like Somerville, Riverside, Radcliffe and Strawberry Hill.  The M.I.T. campus now takes up an enormous chunk of real estate, and the Charles River is broad enough to remind you that Cambridge is very much its own city, not an attachment to Boston.

    Given its number of universities and their students, Cambridge is awash in storefront eateries of every stripe, from vegetarian spots like Whole Heart and a place that sells 14 kinds of grilled cheese sandwiches to fusion spots like Anna Sortun’s Sarma to a multi-room restaurant and nightclub called The Middle East. There are no old, historic restaurants in the city—The Red House dates to 1802 as a private residence but only became a restaurant in this century—though one of the best in town, Harvest, is celebrating 45 years in business.

HARVEST

44 Brattle Street

617-868-2255

    Of the four restaurants Chris Himmel owns—Grill 23 & Bar, Harvest Post 390, Bistro du Midi and Harvest—the last is the best and most personalized. I doubt any restaurant in New England can claim as many illustrious graduates of its kitchen as Harvest. Scott Bryan, Bob Kinkead, Barbara Lynch, Frank McClelland, Sara Moulton, Eric Brennan, Chris Schlesinger and Lydia Shire all practiced their craft there before going off on their own to prove their mettle. 

    Today Tyler Kinnett, Harvest’s chef since 2015, is behind a newly renovated kitchen, and while he is clearly doing his own cuisine, it is in the line and spirit of what was done before. Dishes on the menu back in 1986, like fettuccine with jalapeños, grilled peppered shrimp, and a pea and goat’s cheese salad, might just as readily be found on the menu today.

Kinnett has wide experience in the area, having worked at Hamersley’s Bistro and Sel de la Terre and having run the catering department at Fenway Park, as well as having cooked at Blackbird in Chicago and Per Se in New York.

    You’ll find Harvest down a cobblestone path near Harvard Square, and the linden tree-lined garden terrace is the loveliest of several rooms, with candles on a clothed table. 

    Beverage Director Brahm Callahan’s 21-page wine list is one of the finest in the region, with about 20 half-bottles, and prices are quite reasonable overall in a state whose taxes can make wines punishingly expensive. 

    Harvest has a very long menu, which could do with some trimming. You might just go with the raw bar offerings, which include at least five species of oysters ($3.50 each),  or the crudi seafood, like Scituate scallops with a pine granita and brioche ($14) or Acadian redfish with yuzu, avocado and plantain ($12), or the icy seafood towers ($40 to $75), then a mix of charcuterie and cheeses ($12 to $13).

    You get a delectable skillet of cornbread with maple syrup, and Harvest serves one of the best lobster bisques (left) in town, exceptionally rich with lobster roe dumplings, pearl onion and chervil ($18).  Corn panna cotta with sweet cherry tomato, bacon, smoked Gouda, red quinoa, peppers and cornbread crumbs ($14) is a fine starter, too.

    Among the seafood main courses I recommend the Georges Bank haddock sided with mussels, fennel, butterball potatoes, artichokes, sugar snap peas and lemon ($34). Meat dishes of note are the garlic and fennel roasted rolled porchetta with grapefruit marmalade, stoneground Mexican Taza chocolate mole, coraline chicory and shiso ($38), and the perfectly balanced sweet and sour flavors of plump duck breast with stone fruit, pistachio mole and lavender jus ($36). There’s always a pasta or two, like the Swiss chard and ricotta tortelloni, good but overdressed with tomato, eggplant, kohlrabi, basil pesto, radicchio and Parmigiano ($24).

    On Sundays  Harvest holds a barbecue of beef brisket and pork belly, smoked sweet potato salad, jalapeño cheddar cornbread, baked beans and curtido ($34).

    Harvest is always a happy night out, so you must enjoy some of Joshua Livsey’s sumptuous desserts, like the dense but moist flourless chocolate cake with cherries, dehydrated chocolate mousse, whipped cream and cherry jam ($10), or a corn cake ($12), or a blackberry Pavlova meringue with lush elderflower panna cotta, blackberry gastrique and sage ice cream ($13).

    Harvest is as good as refined dining gets in New England, and it is served up with a genuine bonhomie that puts its 45 years of longevity in proper perspective.

Open for lunch Mon.;Fri; for dinner nightly; for brunch St. & Sun.

LITTLE DONKEY

505 Massachusetts Avenue

617-945-1008

    You might mistake Little Donkey for one of those funky eateries along Central Square, but when you have two powerhouse chefs like Jamie Bissonette and Ken Oringer—both James Beard award winners—the dynamic soars upward. They also run Coppa (Italian trattoria), Uni (“global street food”) and Toro (Spanish, with branches in New York, Dubai and Bangkok).

Little Donkey is a big, bright room of industrial design remnants, with exposed brick walls, concrete surfaces and slender columns. There are high bar tables with high chairs, as well as regular ones.

    The menu is similar in style to Uni’s in offering up “unique flavors from around the world—from Jersey to Japan,” though there’s a lot more Japanese than Jersey on the menu. About Little Donkey Oringer says, “Every chef likes to have a restaurant where they can cook whatever the hell they want to cook any time they want to cook it, and this gives us that freedom.” Most often such hubris is a path to madness, suggesting a throw-away mentality without feeling the need to perfect a dish. Yet, given their dual experiences and ability to cover their bases, Oringer and Bissonette have forged their ideas into a winning formula. I had a lot of terrific food at a lunch at Little Donkey, where I was glad to see both Oringer and Bissonette, both of whom I’ve been writing about for decades, sitting across the room.                                                                Photo: Natalie Ann Schaefer

    Despite the “whatever the hell we want to cook” modus operandi, the menu doesn’t radically change much from day to day, though there are always specials. My party of five checked off a bunch of items, beginning with cooling tuna poke with Gochujang condiment and pickled bean sprouts ($16). Organic hummus with cucumber, sumac, sunflower seeds, served with warm Barberi bread ($10), had a complexity of spices too often lacking in muddy versions. And who can say no to a pile of patatas bravas ($6)?

    Cornmeal pupusas with peas, Chihuahua cheese, spicy slaw and tomatillo sauce ($8) didn’t add up to the sum of its parts. “For the Table” are BLT lettuce wraps with lamb bacon ($15), a very tasty dish with pimento cheese, tomato jam and pickled red onions that would do any Southern cook proud, while the Seoul Bowl "Bibimbop Style" ($14) had fiery kimchi, tofu, Korean fried broccoli, Persian cucumbers and egg, a combo that would rank high in any of the more exciting Korean eateries around town. Also very good with lots of punch was Thai sausage chow fun with Calabrian chili, scallion and crunchy peanuts ($15).

    You know there’s going to be a big sloppy burger on such a menu, and Little Donkey’s is called the “impossible burger” ($16) because of the difficulty of eating it without a mess. It’s really delicious, slathered with sambal mustard, tomato jam, smoked tofu aïoli and American cheese, whose components make even the tofu taste pretty good. There’s also a buffalo burger with pickles, American cheese, onion soup mayo, jalapeño chops ($15) and—wait for it—foie gras! It, too, is nice and sloppy, kind of silly and also irresistible once you’ve had it, for a very reasonable $15.

    This is not the kind of place where you skip dessert, and if you’re a fan of cookie dough, you’ll probably love the big scoop of it with chocolate chips, Little Donkey’s signature sweet (right).

    With a name like Little Donkey you might not take a restaurant too seriously, and if you did, you’d lose part of the fun. But Bissonette and Oringer are dead serious about putting out the best versions of every item on their menu with their practiced ability.

Open for lunch through dinner Mon.-Fri, for brunch and dinner Sat. & Sun.

NEW YORK CORNER

By John Mariani

NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR
By John Mariani