Like a place out of a storybook, Night Kitchen offers enchantment
To find the Night Kitchen, you drive -- and drive -- down the winding rural roads of Montague in the lush Pioneer Valley. When you come upon the restaurant, tucked behind the Book Mill and an antique shop, and perched above the rushing waters of the little creek, you might reasonably feel that you've fallen into a dream, or a child's picture book. Here, Max Brody and his business partner, Peter Hitchcock, have crafted a gem of a place that melds charmingly into its landscape.
We arrive one weekend evening recently to find the place packed. The hostess, Max's wife, Joanna, seats us at the tiny bar overlooking the kitchen, where we wait for a table on the terrace. The bartender is Max's younger brother, Sam, who chats as he makes sure our wine is properly chilled. Behind him, Max Brody and his small crew move swiftly and economically in the tight quarters.
Once we're seated outside, we're moved to a better perch right over the creek. Water rushes underfoot, and overhead the moon can be glimpsed through overhanging branches.
The world of cooking is nothing new for Max Brody, 34, and Sam, 24, who were raised in Newton and are sons of cookbook author Lora Brody. Max's culinary background includes working for Emeril Lagasse in New Orleans; stints in Italy, Thailand, and Taipei; and co-authoring, with his mother, the cookbook, ''Stuff It."
Night Kitchen's menu draws from these travels, with a roasted chicken with blackberry barbecue sauce, grilled swordfish with black olive tapenade, and sesame-crusted fried tempeh with sweet soy and ginger glaze. The spirit that underlies the food, though, clearly reflects Brody's cooking philosophy, which is a connection between his cuisine and the locale. ''This is a pretty rural, agrarian community," he says later on the phone. His customers -- professionals from Springfield, academics from the Five Colleges area around Amherst, and entrepreneurs -- are knowledgeable about food, Brody says. They appreciate locally made olive oil; prize-winning cheese from Colrain; eggs and naturally raised poultry from Wendell; and produce, herbs, and flowers from Seeds of Solidarity, a nonprofit farm and educational project in Orange. He wants his restaurant to do its part to sustain local small farms and the agrarian lifestyle, he says.
Meanwhile, the day-to-day life of the fledgling restaurant, which is a year old, goes on as Brody ponders ways to use native tomatoes and spike a grilled pork porterhouse with pineapple rum salsa. After the summer crowds and leaf-peepers have gone home, cooking classes, film series, and holiday parties keep the place busy.
''I know I'm not going to make a million dollars," says the chef. But he and his wife live across the street, so the commute is easy, he says wryly. His brother lives close by, and his parents come often from the Boston suburbs.
In this idyllic spot, it's hard not to think of his Night Kitchen as the stuff of storybooks.
The Night Kitchen at Montague Mill, 440 Greenfield Road, Montague, 413-367-9580, or www.montaguenightkitchen.com. 