12 // COASTWEEKEND.COM
14
Coast Weekend’s local
restaurant review
‘THE LAST SUPPER’ AT STREET 14
Dinner service at Street 14
Cafe, whose menu was rewritten
each week to welcome seasonally
available ingredients from local
farms, and whose dishes were
among the most exciting, exquisite
and thoughtful on the North Coast,
ended April 1. It was 1 1/2 years
old.
Causes were economic.
Co-owner Jennifer Camer-
on-Lattek confi rmed the cessation
of dinner service.
“We weren’t able to reach the
number of people we needed,”
Cameron-Lattek said, noting the
cost of high-quality ingredients and
the labor-intensive menu evolution.
Breakfast and lunch service at
Street 14 will continue.
“As much as it can be,” Cam-
eron-Lattek said of the April 1
closing, “it was a good time for
this time to happen,” noting that
the planned departure of daytime
employees enabled Street 14 to
retain all staff. Chef Andy Catalano
will stay on for a few months be-
fore beginning a new venture (stay
tuned to this column for details!).
Street 14’s dinner service
began in October 2015, following
a crowd-funded upgrade to the
kitchen.
“If I was to distill our mission
to one value,” Catalano told Coast
Weekend earlier this year, “it is to
be a part of the community and to
support our local farms.” He did
so with meals that refl ected the
seasons and fl avors of the North
Coast. (A fi nal menu listed 21
partners, a who’s-who of farm-
ers, purveyors and foragers in the
area.) While working with nearby
ranchers and fi sherman, the heart
of Street 14’s dishes were season-
ally available vegetables.
Well -versed in a wide variety
of styles, Catalano transformed
those exceedingly fresh ingredients
with both a reverence for classical
technique and a boundless sense
of creativity, earning himself “Best
Chef” honor in the 2016 Coast
Weekend Readers Choice Awards.
D
SUBMITTED PHOTO
Sprouting Broccoli Salad, lemon
curd, almonds and fried capers.
SUBMITTED PHOTO
Olive Oil-Poached Halibut with white beans, clams and spring greens.
Catalano’s ever changing menu
regularly included worldly compo-
nents and techniques rarely found
on the North Coast. As such, server
and front-of-house impresario
Allyx O’Connor found a common
refrain to demystify dishes that
might as well have been — and
often were — based in foreign
languages: “I’ve learned a lot of
new words today,” she’d say. “So
let me know if you have any ques-
tions.” In translating the kitchen’s
heady concepts humbly, O’Con-
ner and crew were recognized as
“Best Customer Service” in the
2016 Coast Weekend Readers
Choice Awards.
Besides critical acclaim —
including high praise from this
column — Street 14 developed a
devout following.
“It’s wrecked me,” said Elaine,
one of Street 14’s most fervent
regulars. “Nowhere else is this
good.”
While breathless appreciation
for the food abounded, deeper
connections developed. When
Elaine fi rst learned of Street 14’s
impending closure she burst into
tears.
“Elaine is part of the family
here,” a server said.
Elaine and other members of
that extended family — including
farmers, former employees and
other reverent regulars — gath-
ered at Street 14’s fi nal engage-
ments. Menus bore the title: “The
Last Suppers.”
On offer was the usual, which
is to say , culinary refl ections
of the North Coast at that very
moment in time. Perhaps no dish
during the fi nal two weekends
more represented the region than
the Olive Oil-Poached Halibut
($27), with white beans, clams,
spring greens and edible fl owers.
In high-contrast greens and white,
the dish vibrantly intertwined the
space where ocean and land meet.
“No one does halibut like
Andy,” Elaine said. “Even a few
seconds too long and you can ruin
it.” She wasn’t wrong.
Then there was the Fregola
Sarda ($16), a dish with the kind
of slippery name that O’Conner
translated so elegantly. A Sardini-
an pasta, Fregola Sardo is a cous-
cous with pebble-sized pellets. It
was salty, sleek and understated.
Shavings of cured egg were subtle
and thickening, pickled mustard
seeds tangy. Brussels sprouts were
an earthly tether, and cubes of
perfectly crusted pancetta burst
with savory, succulent fat.
The most indicative offering of
the fi nal two weekends, though,
was vegetable based: the Sprout-
ing Broccoli Salad ($10). It might
sound ridiculous, but the neatly
manicured mound, with meaty
almonds, fried capers and broccoli
coated with sweet, tangy, smooth
lemon curd approached some-
thing like dessert — a very green
dessert, mind you, and surely ap-
propriate as a starter salad, but a
sweet treat nonetheless. And here-
in is the genius of Catalano and
Street 14 — nowhere on the North
Coast would dare dream up such
raw fl avor combinations, much
less execute them so successfully
and simply.
Of course, there were actual
desserts at the Last Supper. I had
the Ricotta Cheesecake, which
included more delightful lemon
curd. Here too was a revelation:
the cheesecake was only mini-
mally sweetened. After the Olive
Oil-Poached Halibut, with its tan-
gible transference of terroir via
green leaves and edible flowers,
my palette had been recalibrated,
free from the salt-sugar roller
coaster. All together, the meal
was enlivened and satisfying
in the most essential, wholistic
senses.
I lingered, dragging slices
of the cheesecake through the
creamy lemon curd, trying to
stretch out time. I didn’t want to
leave, or for Street 14 to close. I
realized that, ratings be damned,
Street 14 was my personal favor-
ite restaurant on the North Coast.
It was the most challenging,
innovative and rewarding; the fi rst
place I’d mention when asked for
a recommendation. And here it
was, shuttering well before it’s
time. Or, perhaps all along, Street
14 was ahead of its time.
The mood in those waining
moments was mixed — forlorn
but not wholly despairing. For-
tunately no one would lose their
livelihood. (A soundtrack of irre-
futably joyous 1950 s rock ’n ’ roll
certainly helped.) While lilting,
a spirit prevailed: the confi dence
that all involved were honored
to have been a part of, or to have
partaken in, something special:
not only marvelous nourishment
but the forging of community, in
realizing labors of love.
“We rolled the dice,” Camer-
on-Lattek said. “But when you’re
doing something you believe in,
even if it doesn’t work out the
way you want, you can’t regret
that you tried. It really was a
dinner service that we were really
proud of.”