Clean Slate Eatery, running out of a once-was Del’s Lemonade location, is easily our favorite new restaurant on the Cape. This is no small proclamation seeing as it not only lives outside of our jurisdiction (HyperLocal is Chatham to Ptown, past the rotary only if you please), it isn’t even a border town (respect to Brewster). But we had it on good authority that the trip was worth the taking so we got our shots and our papers in order and made our way west.
Owned and operated by Jay Montigel, Clean Slate has just crossed over the 10 year mark. Because those 10 years included the Covid Bummer, the road to that decade was under construction and loaded with switchbacks & potholes (somehow mirroring the path on which it sits. No love for 28 but it perseveres). For a stretch in that surrealist time remembered as 2020-2022, Jay had to find a way to make some dough, so, after coming back this way from a trip to CA where he was eating tacos hand over fist, he decided to make those and sell them out of the food truck parked out front and thru the window from the kitchen. This kept some money coming in and some tacos in his stomach - both essentials of the moment.
There was no pre-research done before we ate at Clean Slate earlier this month; we heard about the new staff (Jay is joined by Executive Pastry Chef and Resident Badass, the award-winning, James Beard-nominated, executive pastry chef, Whitney Stancil, along withSous Chef Mikey Molina), the general aura around it checked the boxes of being distinct and wholly it’s own (a tasting menu with some newly added a la carte items), and that was more than enough to expand these eaters portfolios. Not sure if this is the time or place but anything more than a cursory menu glance is looked down upon by us here in our Ivory Tower of Judgment. For chrissake take a chance, live without preconceived bullshit or expectations in your heads. (They said as they did everything they could to steer you into this dining experience with a litany of specifics.)
So then! The small house pushed to the back corner of the parking lot gives you zero clue of what you’re about to get into (point of fact, drive slow, eyes up, or you’ll miss it). You’re in the vestibule door and things start to take shape: strong wine presence to the left, more dead ahead but wow, they really do keep the Little House on the Out of the Way -thing going with what’s more or less your aunt’s front door to enter. Ohh but once you’re inside, friends.
Don’t Play A Violin for My Grandma’s Garden
Jay grew up a middle class kid in Atlanta who gravitated to subcultures early. A skater punk who spent a lot of time working kitchens from a young age, his Misfit ID was stamped before junior prom. He’s managed to cook in several parts of the country, mostly the eastern seaboard, but that southern influence is always there, sticking to him like the humidity.
For a guy who runs one of the finer fine dining institutions on the Cape, he wasn’t raised doing yoga in a family garden, learning to tend to tannis root. Growing up, it was pork chops, roast chicken, and hamburger helper; kickflips, 50-50s, and boardslides.
After culinary school - which, according to Jay, gives you stellar vocabulary but you can learn about as much about cooking in school as you can about plowing from reading books (the Austin-Heads will get it). So he went back into the world of kitchens to get his hands in the grease. Spending about a handful and a half of years down in St Croix, he took some kitchen folks there up on an invitation to help run the restaurant they were going to open back in their hometown - that was how he landed in Dennis some years back.
He quickly burrowed. As much as Jay enjoys traveling, once he’s decided he’s planting himself somewhere, he’s dug in like a tic.
But his odyssey wasn’t through, after a stint in Savannah, GA, he eventually found himself on Nantucket at Company of the Cauldron, where he was mentored by the great Al Kovalencik. This may be the one stop on Jay’s journey that holds a place of real affection because it appears to be the space & time which spoke to his heart and either planted or gave language and sight to the kernel inside him that would realize itself as Clean Slate Eatery. It’s rumored Kovalencik approves of the room in West Dennis. Approves of, is jealous of … tomato tomahto.
High & Low, Through & Through
Aside from being known as one of the premier tasting menu spots on the Cape, which is clearly the lighthouse toward which Jay’s boat rows, the less pronounced, but may as well be traced in neon, essence is his own personal perception of a High & Low aesthetic and where & how they can meet at Clean Slate. The cleanest execution of this came on Mondays and Tuesday past in the form of Family Meal nights running under the moniker Classy Trashy: Hot Dog Towers with Caviar and Foie Gras. As you’ll see, this perspective, much less common on the Cape - where, when you’re lucky, you’ll find Classy-Casual or Classy-Informal - lays its weary head down at Jay’s feet. The Pennywise on his shoulder wants to drive a stake through middleground's heart.
Consider Quentin Tarantino - 160 IQ, talent of a playwright, voice of a sailor, taste of a deviant. A guy who could (and probably does, we’ll find out one day when he’s dead) write in sonnets but chooses to put that talent to work on 70s drive-in exploitation flicks and heist movies. Not to say Jay’s making B-movies but if you can’t get down with pringles, maybe you’re having a tough time with the forest and the trees.
Another in a fit of focus points at Clean Slate is their attention to every detail, and this was the most enjoyable to observe in dish presentation. Like many restaurants in the States (and around the world, frankly) there is a pointed move toward Japanese cuisine because of how high to that next level it actually takes the game. Jay is no exception to this and could tell you about the cultural differences in what they do and how they do it, as opposed to what’s happening here where it seems like everybody wants to do everything. He didn’t say it to us but the implication is ego death is long overdue in the Stateside kitchen scene.
We’ve met and worked with chefs who compose dishes like Mozart - they know the ingredients, they create the dishes, and put them on the menu without tasting them. And they’re good - these are successful chefs. We report that Jay Montigel is not one of these: he is in a constant state of experimenting, cooking, tasting, and starting over.
The one place there was an interesting bit of lingual friction with Jay was when his skater punk misfit bristled when he used the word Art or Artist in relation to food & chefs. He eventually succumbed (Did it pain him? Did he sleep that night?) but what was more revealing was his settling on Artistry (all of these capital As are ours, when he spoke them I’m sure they were not only lower case but they were likely embarrassed).
The talk was about the vision for presentation, because it plays such a role at Clean Slate. Eating only from the a la carte menu was itself a visual treat but to glimpse the work that goes into the tasting menu’s presentation, when the lights drop down and Whitney and Jay put themselves in the flow ...that is for sure an allure for making a return run.
He is not wasteful and his eye for talent is likely matched only by his talent’s eye for him. His goal was (and is) to cook what he likes for hungry people with high brow taste with the eating habits of an aggressive tape worm.
A La Carte
Once you’re inside, no matter where your eyes tend to slide, you’re going to get a deep dose of warm wood. Are you a dreamer, do you register from the top down? The ceiling is not only vaulted but of incredible well-constructed wood planks. Are you more of an on-the-ground person not wanting to trip off a curb? You’ll get the beautiful, warm wood planked floors. And no matter which of those you are, there is no ignoring the centerpiece: the handmade (by Jay + some friends) wrap-around counter that Jay saw in his head when dreaming up the restaurant back in the pre-Harambe days. It’s a beautiful, low slung, Floating-V counter top and it probably doesn’t matter if Jay recommends you take one of the two the high tops if they’re available, a desert-stranded Jesus himself couldn’t resist the temptation of pulling up a chair at the counter and watching the magic show up close.
We’re not better, and managed to get ourselves stashed at the far end of the bar with full view of the place, excepting the 2 hightops behind us. The famed chalkboard coming in at 11 o’clock with the window into the kitchen and Mikey bopping back and forth over the lip of this outstanding martini. Designer Cocktails are a new addition this year - Molina brings his experience writing drink menus to Jay’s stable. And it’s winning. This was the first cocktail in a long white for which restraint was needed. The urge to attack it with ernest force in one of a thousand or more ways, was as strong as the drink itself (the Dirty Dirty was the make and model, something else impossible to recommend more highly).
As the time came for rubber to meet the road, decisions had to be made on food for the night. One lovely thing about our man Jay is that he does not overcomplicate things - his thoughts about how important each of the ingredients on the plate. There were 6 items on the a la carte menu this night:
- Osetra Royal Caviar: 10 grams served with Soft Boiled Egg and Pringles
- Truffle Frite: potato, parmesan raggiano, truffle aioli
- Wagyu Toast: carpaccio, japanese milk bread, pickled shallots, Yuzu Kosho Crema, Tamari Cured Egg Yolk
- Benton’s Country Ham: Stracciatella, Olive Oil, Citrus, Sorghum Syrup, Bene Seed Focaccia
- Day Boat Scallop Crudo: Coconut Milk Cilantro, Lime, Honey Peanut Chili Crisp
- Pizzeti: Fried Pan Sourdough, Feta Mousse, Baby Arugula, Cucumber Sumach Onions, Dill
And lucky for me there was a special on the board:
- Patty Melt: Panko Fried Wagyu, Cooper Sharp Cheddar, Tonkatsu Cabbage, Special Sauce, Milk Bread
So as much as the caviar jumped out, tonight wasn’t the night - but ballots were cast and the results were en route.
Benson Country Ham
A little scoop of ricotta, slab of prosciutto, syrup drizzle, and citrus …
After the first two bites of this one, I understood this was going to be an exercise in texture and flavor. And this also had nothing to do with pretense - there is nothing about the restaurant atmosphere that can be construed as stuffy - we’re listening to Tribe Called Quest, convinced we’re at Gabe’s PERLA on Minetta (don’t get it twisted with the W4 St spot). The only thing missing are the Jonathan Mannion photos on the wall.
Every bite was some bundle of these incredible ingredients made for people who don’t give a shit to pontificate about them. This was the most high-end version of the the Portuguese term for a catch-all dish reserved for left-over stretching for poor farmer folk: papash. The papash most Portugues grow up eating is some tasty but bastardized version of shepherd’s pie with whatever’s in the fridge. Take that principle and go shopping in the Clean Slate fridge to see what we’re talking about.
One major point of pride Jay talks about is how the quality of every ingredient on the plate is important. Thinking about it - how many times when you go out to eat is the steak perfectly cooked? Often! Or the fish is exceptional? If they want to stay in business, almost every time, right? But how many times do you kick and scream about the other elements? Not often enough is the acceptable answer.
“We have a seabass dish on the menu right now. Customers talk just as much about the fermented turnips or the sauce as they do about the seabass. And that doesn’t mean the seabass is bad.” Hell no it doesn’t; it means the collective dish is phenomenal - because it is. He and his staff talk a lot about how “that is the true sign that a place cares a lot about what they do: the insistence that every piece is important, that nothing is there just to be there.”
As the (cleaned) dish is led away from our station to the washer and the second martini is ordered off the belt, another conclusion strikes the countertop. “Electricity comes from other planets,” Lou Reed said that. “Eating at Clean Slate Eatery is the dining equivalent of watching a Coen Bros movie,” we said that.
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN comes to mind first. Not just the dark, warm, no nonsense poster art but the distinct feeling you get watching the thing that the filmmaker have grabbed you by the back of the neck (pause) and are showing you exactly what you need to see, boiled to the essentials. This is how dinner at the counter struck us that night.
Patty Melt
Putting this on the menu is like stealing. I looked around and most people in the restaurant had also ordered it. Delivery aside (see for yourself) the tenderness of the wagyu patty was borderline overpowering. The art of the presentation created a situation in which you will lose bits of bites but they scoop off the plate so nice you regret nothing about not tasting all of the elements (pause).
Again, the work they’re doing with texture is to be revered: take the tenderness of the patty along with the binding power of the Cooper Sharp and special sauce, good now incorporate the cabbage for crunch. The whole thing together under the umbrella of the milk bread but the patty and the cabbage have you thinkin Brando & Schneider’s LAST TANGO IN PARIS.
As we were slowly, longingly, putting away the balance of our Wagyu Melt, like enjoying the last few minutes on the Labor Day beach, dragging out the walk to the path, cruising along the waterline to swing a foot in maybe for the last time (… no this will be the last one), the friendly folks a couple seats down asked if we’d recommend the Dirty Dirty martini. Now we’re going to lunch next weekend.
Another of the finer points about this place is the innate social frequency it rides: it’s a Dinner Party. Probably stemming, among other things, from the seating capacity (it’s some ungodly private school student:teacher ratio of 16 customers:3 staff), it’s truly impossible to not overhear somebody else’s animated conversation, or recognize the effusive foodgasm of a nirvana-inducing bite.
To that end, the neighbor diners swapped stories with us about the plates we each enjoyed (of course they also got the Melt), they gave us a show with the asparagus before they cut into it and also blessed up with the Pizzeti - regardez!
The Pizzeti was the most unexpected dish of the night - and not only because after we whooped and raved about it we decided to order one ourselves. Yes, the sourdough was exceptional but feta mousse was not on the evening’s Bingo card going in, tell you what. The mousse swirls the edge of the flat sourdough which is then topped with what’s essentially a terrifically pickled salad to balance the weight of the dough and meet the feta where the feta is at. It’s FuckYou Buschetta and it’s not for the weak of heart. Or the full of stomach.
With that, we had to roll ourselves out to the sound of some lost track from the second disc of Wu-Tang FOREVER. And to our surprise there was no Minetta St to navigate or C train to wait for, just the potholes and the stop, start, and wait of that off-road, back-road, main road, 28.
Musical Interlude
We mentioned the immediate sense memory flashback to one of Gabe Stulman’s legacy spots in the West Village, Perla. It’s also worth mentioning the Outer Cape’s finest Chicken Parmesan (among other things), the Nor’East Beer Garden ... so now we name Clean Slate Eatery in these same sentences. We’re told that not a night goes by when some customer doesn’t mention the quality of the tunes or follow the playlist.
Any and all staff at the restaurant can add songs to it, Jay will let them ride, do some pruning here and there to curate, but the music is a mainstay and something that’s certainly in the middle ground of your experience there, if not closer to upstage.
Here again you’ll hear the High-Low fronts meet and shake hands, sometimes cause some thunder. Jay’s music taste just happens to coincide with the customers' – he just had a birthday (enjoy the next spin around the sun Jay) – so he understands that the clientele who want and can pay for an experience that he produces are near to his age. The music naturally lines up with their taste, or at least their familiarity. Here’s to hoping your grandma has an ear for beats and not so much lyrics when the Tecallian Stallion turns up in the queue.
Man with A Mission
When Jay talks about the vibe in the restaurant (and this place, like any worth their Himalayan salt, will bring people back not only for the food but the atmosphere – another ingredient on the plate), he leans into being the guy who walks the floor, taking orders, talking to people, serving drinks. He’s got his sous chef in the kitchen and Whitney working right next to him behind the counter in full view: dressing dishes and running point on the final two courses of the night (first the cheeses, which is the entry way to the final, the dessert). This is Dinner and a Show.
For the tasting experience, Clean Slate will be doing one seating a night. If you are hungry and rub a rabbit’s foot, stop in and see if you can grab a spot for an a la carte dinner, but head over knowing the jewel of this establishment is the tasting and reservations are going to be the safe bet.
There’s also a supplemental wine pairing available to guests with the tasting menu.
Do you have a background in wine?
"Nope I just like to drink."
Their a la carte menu will run adjacent to the tasting, there will be ingredients in common, flavor combination overlaps, etcetera, but the Shiny Object is to secure a spot for the Prix Fixe. The a la carte menu may also not be in play every night, so find a way to get in touch before you start planning your options.
On Friday and Saturday nights safter 9p, another kind of party goes down after the tasting service. The door is open to after-dinner crowds who want to come in for a nightcap or three and some of Whitney’s signature desserts. And this is when Jay’s’ High-Low philosophy is personified:
You will see folks roll through in skirts and sundresses and blazers. And they’re gonna be sitting at the counter, or standing up by a high top, next to some cook just off a shift and grabbing a couple beers with their servers. Just like the ingredients on the plate, the songs on the playlist, or the imaginary subway car this place rode in on, we’ll all be mashed up in there together telling stories about the USS Indianapolis and singing goodbye to another summer night.
Clear Your Mind
Clean Slate is exactly what Jay wanted Clean Slate to be: not just a strong name reflective of a couple escorted trips to the door but, in his opinion, truly The Manifestation of what every cook wants to be doing: cooking the food they like to eat for people who want to eat it. Worth noting the marked word choice here: Jay says Cook, he doesn’t say Chef - and Jay is most certainly a Chef. But here’s another example of the High-Low philosophy woven through the world he’s conjured within the walls at 702 Main St.
The Low-End part makes sense in Theory (represent represent’sent), given his background: Shake ‘N Bake pork chops on Monday translates real simple to pringles with your caviar) The High-End of that spectrum is likely a mix indicative of the breadth of his food exposure over the years and the fact that the Fat Kid Inside is indefatigable, albeit now with a refined palate. Why wouldn’t a man of such powers choose to use them for Haute Cuisine? It can’t always be hot dog towers and tacos, but it can ALSO be hotdog towers and tacos, nomesayin? In short, you’re coming in to eat what he’s making or you’re not coming in at all.
And as much as Jay wants sky-high success and, like us all, to bulk his pockets doing what he does, he will not advertise. He is NOT a constant post-er on social, he doesn’t flood FB groups. He wants it all but he wants it organically, he does not mind earning it, and he’s true to the mission in such a way it’s impossible to not be compelled it’s in the air for them. He has confidence, well founded, that a strong and long standing anything is anchored by roots, and roots need time to grow. Settle in, let’s have a martini.
Fuck it, run the gallery.
