FIG
Whole Wheat and Sourdough Bread with Butter
Poisonous Peach – Bourbon, Domaine de Canton, South Carolina Peach Puree, Soda, Mint
John’s Island Tomato Tarte Tatin – Fromage Blanc, Nicoise Olive
Capers Inlet Clam and Sweet Corn Chowder “a la minute” with Benton’s Bacon and Brown Bread
Caw Caw Creek Pork Trotter – Sunny Side Up Farm Egg, Summer Salad, Pickled Peppers, Thick Cut Heirloom Tomato
Ricotta Gnocchi and Sea Island Grass Fed Beef Bolognese and Parmesan
Celeste Figs and Lemon Pudding, Doughnut Peaches, Saba, Cornmeal Shortbread
Sticky Sorghum Cake – Cinnamon Ice Cream
With Chef Michael Lata at the helm since opening its doors in 2003 the acronymic FIG was to be the final dinner of my trip to Charleston and although a twist of fate would actually find me venturing out for another meal later that night it was in fact the 2009 Beard Award winner’s cuisine that lingered in my memory throughout the night and the following days, all four savory courses and two desserts an exercise in simple ingredients prepared by a skilled hand to display the utmost of color, flavor, and texture. A surprisingly large and boisterous restaurant with a bar up front and a large dining room in back I was given the option of a table or the bar and given the decibel level opted for the later, a good choice placing me next to another solo diner who happened to be a local sommelier and in the hands of a very skilled bartender whose knowledge of the menu rivaled her skills mixing drinks; the outstanding ‘poisonous peach’ her recommendation when I suggested I wanted something sweet and local. Moving on to the cuisine, first let it be said here that no one should leave FIG without trying the signature Tart Tatin, a truly inspired dish giving new meaning to the debate as to whether tomatoes are fruit or vegetable, and moving on to the light, bright summer chowder before progressing to a much heftier second round of a lightly breaded trotter finding balance in impeccable vegetables plus pillowy gnocchi in a rich meat sauce the only ‘problem’ here was deciding which was best and trying not to fill up on the impressive house made breads. A great meal with another three savories still beckoning as I turned to desserts it was again with a heavy heart that I left two desired desserts to the ages instead opting to be sensible and only order two, the lemon pudding served in a long dish and beautifully textured by the figs and shortbread while saba lent its slight savory notes and the cake – a ‘sticky pudding’ made of sorghum flour and syrup further lacquered and drizzled with the syrup and intensely sweet, just barely reined in by the ice cream and an iced Americano.
