WELLFLEET, Mass. — After a day on the beach or kayaking through kettle ponds, your Cape Cod dinner choices in 2012 are mostly what they might have been any time in the past 50 years: fresh fish, lobster, oysters and clam chowder. All of it good, fresh and predictable.
The norm for dinner in Wellfleet, at mid-Cape, is unchanged since our grandparents ate here. For the first few nights of a vacation, coming from landlocked Colorado, fresh fish with a watery view was more than good enough. But after a few meals, we craved a culinary adventure.
Sol, at , offers inventive choices that bring fish and seafood into the new millennium. Combined with a stated preference for locally grown, locally caught ingredients and a sushi chef’s flair for presentation, Sol is a standout. The mood is urban casual, but colorful.
exceed the family-style seafood emporia nearby, but the sauces, spices and presentation are more creative.
Tuna poke shoyu, a salad of chilled yellow fin tuna, sesame seed and Maui red salt, is a favorite small plate ($15). The shredded green papaya salad with cold shrimp, crushed peanuts and fresh mint in a lime Nam Pla sauce offers notes more complex than the cold appetizer ($11) may sound. The lobster and corn tamale, tomatillo salsa and fava slaw with greens is a nicely spicy larger plate ($17).
Even Wellfleet oysters, pride of the town, have a new spin: The raw-bar specials include oysters on the half shell topped with jalapeno (Jersey’s Jamacian Juicy, $2 each), roasted in lobster coral butter ($3 each) or as a shooter with Ty ku sake and Yuzu white soy ($4 each).
Chef-owner John Arsenault opened the place in an old doughnut shop a little more than a year ago after working in San Francisco, Boston and L.A. The Wrentham, Mass., native said he wasn’t trying to buck a trend so much as to bring his West Coast exposure home.
Fifteen years ago, after his stints Out West, Arsenault said, Wellfleet’s food had become old and stodgy.
“I was personally tired of putting Ritz cracker crumbs on top of fish with clarifying butter and tossing it under the broiler.”
He introduced poke and fish tacos in 2005, “like in Costa Rica, like in San Diego. It’s not rocket science.” Now, he says, food consciousness is jumping.
“The Outer Cape is really taking a turn, in the last two years. Lots of locals go to international locales in winter” and bring home creative culinary ideas.
Denver diners might compare Sol’s offerings to . TAG has kangaroo, Sol has bear, both offer a range of sushi-inspired gems including ahi jalapeño.
Arsenault takes the locavore directive seriously. A sign in the window declares “all shellfish is from a stone’s throw away, smaller fin fish from just a little further out into the bay and the big guys often come from the backside of Truro or Chatham.
The walls, lined with vintage LP covers, attest to the utter hipness of the vibe, underscored by the menu instructions: “Tell your server of any medically important food allergies, but don’t lie simply because you don’t like something.”
Clearly Sol isn’t for everybody, which is just as Arsenault intended.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
