Martha's Vineyard is Seafood Heaven

          Seafood, seafood, seafood. As if you’d need another reason to want to visit  Martha’s Vineyard, the small island off Massachusetts' Cape Cod that is so picturesque with the Atlantic Ocean on one shore, sounds on the other that it is nearly inundated by tourists come summer.  The population swells by more than six times to over 100,000.  I had the double good fortune to visit in mid-May, right before the crowds, and to tour the awakening island with chef Christopher Gianfreda who had just returned for his seventh season of cooking here.  (Full disclosure, he is my great nephew, the son of my niece Liz Manning.)

The lanky 27-year-old who says he has islands in his blood, started his culinary training in the Virgin Islands and later honed his skills by working with chefs the likes of Jean Georges and Jim Burke in New York, Frank McClelland in Boston and Susan Spicer in New Orleans.  This year, he takes over as chef at The Outermost Inn, a quaint hotel and restaurant owned by Hugh and Jeanne Taylor of the James Taylor singing family. It is located “up island,” way on the rural western tip, near the lighthouse in Aquinnah and its famed red cliffs. And, miles from “down island” and the honky tonk of Oak Bluffs and the upscale boutiques of Edgartown. 

Gianfreda’s menu features seafood ranging from lobster and sought-after Katama Bay oysters to black bass and sea scallops.  All subject to change with the availability of catch and most strictly local. The inn website, www.outermostinn.com, promises Gianfreda will shadow the fishermen for the best of their labors.   And, indeed,  that was where we headed on one of our first stops.   We followed winding roads edged by scrub oak forests, their crooked branches barely budding despite late spring, to Menemsha, a quintessential New England fishing village on the Vineyard Sound. Its working harbor was featured in that blockbuster movie Jaws.  

Only a few ramshackle buildings in the typical weathered cedar shakes lined the docks.  We first stopped at Larsen’s, which sells prepared seafood.   Gianfreda said we needed to sample some of the freshest lobster in the world.   That and squid were then being caught, the live lobsters floating in tanks, some of them probably brought in on the early morning catch.  The owner, Betsy Larsen, clad in work clothes that included apron and rubber boots, her smile wide, was eager to share that she was the second generation running the shop. She said she has never missed a day without at least a taste of lobster for all her life.

Her openness and willingness to talk was characteristic of most of the year- round inhabitants I encountered during my visit. This eagerness to stop and enjoy life that Gianfreda said matched the spirit he felt back in the Virgin Islands.  At least at this pre-season moment.

Gianfreda recommended ordering the hot butter lobster roll over the version mixed with salad.   A sprinkle of hot sauce, dab of horseradish and we took our lobster rolls outside to the docks where we sat on empty lobster crates.   Imagine, succulent chunks of lobster,  steamed and then finished off in butter, sitting in a plain old white hot dog bun. Didn’t matter the bun, just the conveyor for the best lobster I ever had in my life.   A fistful of it.  Juices flowing down my wrist. 

There was plenty more back in the store if you wanted.  We just looked. Smoked bluefish in a cream cheese blend, oysters, to enjoy on the half shell raw. Littleneck clams you could eat raw or cooked.   

Next door was our real reason for coming here. The Menemsha Fish Market where we were met by employee Mikey Rottman. He explained that the market is the wholesale purveyor for most of the catch coming into the harbor.   “We call it ‘sea to table,’” he said. The goal is to sustainably sell as much as possible to local restaurants.

   “It is good for the fishermen and the fish,” the red-cheeked former chef explained. “Our best fish and the freshest. If a catch isn’t sustainable, we don’t sell it.”

He reached into vats filled with lobster brought in that morning. “You look for the feistiest one to get the freshest,” he said. Inside a big cooling room, we saw a 75 pound halibut, chunks that had already been removed and another container with some fluke. 

With a promise to look out for Gianfreda’s needs all season, Rottman sent us on our way.     We needed to get back down island to check out the annual Martha’s Vineyard Wine Festival being held in Edgartown, a couple of bus rides away onboard the island’s transit authority.  More winding roads, scrub oak and pitch pine forests, amid glimpses of sandy beaches.  Gianfreda said he completes the local sourcing for his food by buying his produce from Morning Glory farms in Edgartown.   The 60 acre spread raises everything from asparagus to nettles and for good measure also raises beef, pork and poultry.   The Outermost Inn has its own garden to grow herbs and flowers.

Of course, with his background, Gianfreda adds refined finishing touches to his menu, such as green apple mignonette, chile lime cocktail sauce and prosecco granita to set off those Katama Bay oysters.  

          The winefest was teeming with people, more than 50 distributors and vineyards there, for sampling under tents in the heart of Edgartown.  The several day festival also featured small dinners scattered at various venues.  We ran into Michael Holtham, the general manager of the Menemsha Fish House in one corner of a tent. He was busy shucking oysters and littleneck clams to serve to visitors.

Holtham said his company handles more than half a million clams per year, a million oysters and 100,000 pounds of lobster, all from local fishermen.  What isn’t sold on the island goes to Boston where the firm is affiliated with the wholesaler Red’s Best, the distributor for over 1,000 small American community based boats.  They sell at Boston farmers markets, trading any excess with other wholesalers to procure fish not grown in the area for local markets.

Martha’s Vineyard is small, only 100 square miles in area.  And we kept running into other chefs whom Gianfreda had worked with in previous years.  Talk always about food, the wines we tasted at the festival and then he had to head home, way back up island on three buses.

Gianfreda and the rest of his cooking staff are camping out on the property at the inn, far from all the touristy activities available down island but he said they are all mighty glad to have their accommodations.   Happy to escape the high prices of finding a place to live in, try 800 bucks for a room if you are lucky enough to find one. He lives in a funky ‘90s trailer, the refrigerator sitting outside. The rest of the staff are camped out in an A-frame cottage and rooms in the loft of a barn.
I stayed in the comfy Madison Inn down in Oak Bluffs, a cozy bright hotel with a homey feeling that even included snacks and coffee on demand.

Gianfreda says despite the seasonality of his work here, usually five to six months during the tourist influx, he loves being a chef here, for all the freshness and bounty of ingredients.  Especially the abundance of seafood that is probably the freshest anywhere.   He hopes one day to open his own Italian restaurant, featuring homemade pasta, but until then, “I’ll keep coming back,” he says. “Long as I can.”