The Ash Street Inn’s Chef’s Table
Nick Provencher has been a professional chef for more than 15 years. That sounds very impressive, he said, but in fact the job can be very frustrating.
“Most of the time, it’s kind of a burnout job after a while,” he said. “It’s the hours and the people and the this and that, like you just get discouraged.”
His new position as the chef at the Ash Street Inn in Manchester has restored his sense of joy in the kitchen, he said.
“It’s essentially like a chef’s table that we’re doing inside the Ash Street Inn B&B,” he said. “They don’t normally serve dinner except when you’re doing a chef’s table.” On Chef’s Table nights, 12 guests sign up to have a multi-course meal prepared for them by Provencher.
“It’s a five-course dinner that we’re doing,” he said. “The menu changes every single week, depending on regional themes or just locally inspired menus. It’s super food-oriented, which is something that gets lost sometimes in a restaurant setting. There are none of those outside distractions. There’s no employees. There’s no one running operations or a general manager or a front-of-the-house staff. It’s just me cooking and interacting with the people who are there and just trying to create a really special night for everyone.”
For instance, Provencher said, “This week’s menu is a French-Indian fusion. It’s centered around some Indian flavors and Indian concepts done through the lens of a French chef and French technique. One of the dishes is going to be a slow-roasted and braised cabbage vindaloo. So there’s kind of a mix between two techniques. It has the sauce-building of Indian cuisine. and then the high regard and respect of fresh ingredients. The cabbage gets treated like meat, and cooking it is a three- or four-hour process. The finished dish is essentially like butter chicken, except it’s going to be with French-style Parisian gnocchi. There are going to be things at every meal that people haven’t tried before, or combinations they haven’t tried, or cuisine they haven’t tried.”
Cooking for 12 people at a time has opened up opportunities to follow his creativity, Provencher said.
“It’s 12 people. It’s so small that I can realistically accomplish whatever I have in my mind. There’s no, ‘Oh, we need to make sure it scales to 30 seats. We need to do this. We need to make sure that the line cooks are competent enough to cook it properly….’ There are really no holds barred on whatever we can do.” As the chef, he doesn’t have to design menu items that would be viable to make at volume, in and out of season, he said. “It only needs to be viable for three days, so you can bring in really cool ingredients, really fresh ingredients.”
Because liquor laws don’t allow the Ash Street Inn to sell wine, Provencher encourages diners to bring their own.
“It’s B. Y. O. B.,” he said. “We send out wine recommendations with the menu for the people who make the reservations, but it’s hyper-focused on what will pair with really, really high-quality food.”
That freedom and relaxed atmosphere allows Provencher to interact directly with the people eating his food, something that isn’t usually possible in a traditional restaurant experience, he said. He can explain the choices he made in preparing their dinner, and point out how ingredients enhance or complement each other.
“There are no distractions,” he said, ”no conflict of interest, no arguments. It’s just a calm, enjoyable dinner in a common enjoyable space where the focus is just around creating amazing food and interacting with people.”
“The hope of that is what has kept me in the game so long,” he said.
Chef’s Table
There are three seatings per week of the Chef’s Table at the Ash Street Inn (118 Ash St, Manchester, 668-9908, ashstreetinn.com), on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Seating is by reservation only. Visit ashstreetinn.com/ash-restaurant.
Featured photo: Courtesy photo.