Atelier in Late Fall

Not long after my last visit, I was back at Atelier earlier this month. One of the things I really appreciate is how quickly the menu evolves: despite having been a month prior¹, everything was new².

Some news: Atelier had an Eater video on YouTube. That was cool.

It was a very cozy meal, with a few courses channeling the flavours of the holidays. The turkey agnolotti is the best example, but even the larder's cocktail had those warm fall flavours.

For me, the two stand-outs were the summer squash salad and the hatch chili.

They used the last of their pickled summer squash, to highlight how delicious it can be even in the off-season. This was, of course, good. But the croutons were of particular note -- they were described as "trucker croutons". They were cornbread, and baked until they were very dark and caramalized.

I've never heard of trucker croutons, and that phrase doesn't google well. I'm curious about the origin: is turning a box of jiffy cornbread mix into croutons a thing? It seems like it would be challenging: cornbread wants to fall apart, so cubing it up to dehydrate would be a pain in the ass. But: their execution was amazing.

The chili, as you'll see me rave in the gallery below, was fantastic. I don't think I've had many hatch chiles, but every time they come up, I think of Kenji talking about trying to get them shipped up to make green chile cheeseburgers.

It was very a very simple chili with mushrooms, but amazing. There was a chunk of candied pork belly, and that seemed superfluous: it didn't need the sweet or the porkiness. The shiny red candied pork is pretty, but I would have been happier with more of the chili! 😁

If you're keeping score, there were a few items on the menu that changed after it was printed:

• The smoked eel tart stood in for the the einkorn koji
• Pickled summer squash replaced parsnip in the salad (but it sounds like that was otherwise quite similar)
• The milk & cookie differed