Nudel

37 Church Street
Lenox, MA 01240
413.551.7183

I was really expecting to love Nudel. This restaurant has been receiving ecstatic raves for its not just seasonal food, but food based on what is available fresh on a daily basis. So very few items are repeated and menus are posted daily on the web site. Ah -= foodie heaven! Fresh! Inventive! Tiny and hard to get a table!!

Sigh.

Where do I begin? I asked what the appetizer bluefish confit was - specifically, was it a spreadable consistency? I will be honest and seeing "confit" without "duck" before it was in and of itself confusing. The response I received was "no" from the waiter. No other helpful info. Hmmm. When i got home I looked up the definition of confit, which specified that it was meat, usually duck, salted, cooked and then preserved in its own fat, or a condiment cooked to a jamlike consistency. So my question was not, in fact, stupid. I did take the plunge and ordered the dish and what arrived in front of me was a square of bluefish in an orange sauce (a "consomme"). The bluefish has a strong oily taste and the orange sauce was sharply acidic. Not a particularly tasty combination. My friend ordered young lettuces in a sherry vinaigrette with almonds and wheat berries and what arrived was a bowl of sloppy looking, too-large green. I had just seen an episode of Top Chef where chef Eric Ripert had taken a contestant to task for putting salad in a bowl because the different elements of the salad prove hard to get at in a bowl. This was the case with the Nudel salad. And - we were almost done with our appetizers (in a very tiny restaurant with a "bar" made up for a few bottles of wine) before our glasses of wine appeared.

I had a pasta with shredded beef, "bone marrow roasted garlic", white beans and lemon. It was rich and interesting, but one note, under seasoned. My friend got the split pea hummus which was satisfactory but not spectacular. The best thing on the table was the side of sourdough toast with olive oil - crispy and moist on the top with a soft underside, as if it had been grilled. Yum.

The dessert was the best part of the meal. I had a walnut tart that would have been perfection with a few dark chocolate morsels, but still managed to be very satisfying. My friend had a vanilla pot de creme. I tried it and while it was nice, I did not have the desire to dive into, the way I did with the maple pot de creme at Allium in GB.

Will I try Nudel again? Likely yes as often the menus are intriguing. Will I rush back? Likely no.