The Nantucket Hotel’s Breeze Restaurant fires up a spring menu that might make you want to stay awhile.
Few dinners are more delightfully New England than a good, ol’-fashioned clambake. And yet, if you look for this summer staple on any menu on Nantucket, you’re bound to come up empty. That is until now. Beginning this spring, the Nantucket Hotel’s Breeze Restaurant will be hosting the island’s only weekly clambake, complete with sweet corn, lobster, spuds and clams, all baked to briny perfection in a towering seafood extravaganza that just screams summer. This is one of the many delicious new offerings that’s propelling the Breeze to new gastronomical heights this season.
The reimagining of the Breeze’s menu comes at the hands of one of the more fascinating chefs to have stepped foot on the island. Chef Pedro Alaniz grew up in Jalisco, Mexico. He left his family at the age of fifteen in search of a better life in the United States. For months, he lived alone in the mountains of California, sleeping under tarps and fending for himself. He eventually began his career in restaurants as a dishwasher at The Lodge at Pebble Beach. Fast forward thirty years, and Chef Alaniz has cooked for President Bush, opened multiple restaurants and even stars in his own cooking shows shown in 150 countries. From cooking in Dubai to cooking for Dubya, Chef Alaniz has developed an international cuisine that comes to life at the Breeze.
A quintessential meal at the Breeze could begin with Chef Alaniz’s zesty ceviche of cod, corn, onions, peppers and crisp apple slices. But if you’d rather admire a fish than eat one, pastry chef Cedric Beguim suggests his Spartan salad, a traditional Greek salad presented over a clear bowl of water where a live Siamese fighting fish swims. “You always have to have some drama on — or under — your plate,” Chef Cedric laughs. The Spartan salad is sure to be a kids’ favorite that might actually get them to eat their greens.
The entrée specials at the Breeze span the globe, with Italian, French and Indian cuisine appearing regularly. “I like to use local food in international styles,” says Chef Alaniz. He especially loves reaching back to his Mexican roots with shrimp and lobster tacos accompanied by pickled jalapeños and mole sauce that calls for forty ingredients.
When it comes time for dessert, pastry chef Cedric sends out a mean blueberry crème brulée with puffed pastry. Chef Cedric was born in Versailles and grew up in the heart of French cuisine, which helps him give his crème brulée a touch of true Parisian delicacy.
Beyond the cuisine, the Breeze offers one of downtown Nantucket’s most relaxed dining experiences. Even before you sit for dinner, the Nantucket Hotel welcomes you to lounge on its wraparound deck where lite bites are served with live music. And if you can’t make it for dinner, the hotel will pick you up at the visitor’s center downtown in its classic fire truck and bring you in for lunch. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that the Nantucket Hotel was just voted the number one hotel in the country and the 16th best hotel in the world by Trip Advisor. Simply put, they make it a breeze.
