Off the land and into the pan

GREAT BARRINGTON -- Route 7 Grill sits on a quiet stretch of the road for which it's named, just past the center of Great Barrington in the Housatonic River Valley of the southern Berkshires. It's a self-consciously bucolic area of stone walls, hay fields, country inns, antique shops, and good rich soil for the many small, sustainable family farms. When Lester Blumenthal bought the place, he tore up the carpet, built a giant granite and bluestone hearth, and wedged a smoker into the kitchen to slow cook grass-fed meat over local hardwoods. By serving familiar and affordable dishes prepared with locally grown ingredients, Blumenthal hopes to replace the typical long-distance - trucking - and-middlemen-based food supply with a system that supports the farmers in his region. So while you might find a burger on the Grill's menu, almost every element in it came from a neighboring town.

"This isn't fancy fine dining," says the restaurateur. "It's just American comfort food made with real local ingredients."

On a thunderstormy weeknight recently, the restaurant is packed with a widely varied crowd -- everyone from construction guys nursing beers to a party of bearded and lycra-clad bicycle commuters. At the birchwood bar, bartender Benny Real is crushing fresh mint from the garden for mojitos and pouring shots from glass jars of vodka and rum infused with fresh berries. Pitmaster and kitchen boss Jaime Hernandez tends to the smoker and cranks out Texas-style beef brisket, slow-smoked pulled pork, and buttermilk-fried chicken. Teenage waitresses whiz by balancing plates high with pork chops from Twin Oaks Farm 's whey-fed pigs, juicy bacon cheeseburgers with ground beef from Moon in the Pond Farm 's Scotch Highland cows, bacon from their pigs, and mounds of fries cooked in lard rendered here, too. For the kids there are hand-breaded local chicken tenders, and house-made all-beef hot dogs.

Now in his second summer at Route 7 Grill, Blumenthal has settled into the role of front of the house manager, part-time bartender, and full-time food procurer. He visits local farms several times a week to stay in touch with what's in season. He races through the speed-trap towns in his black BMW M3 to kibbitz with the farmers and pick up produce for the kitchen. Moon in the Pond Farm in Sheffield is one of his regular stops , and farmer Dominic Palumbo is partially responsible for Blumenthal's eat-local enthusiasm.

Palumbo is a heartthrob, as cool and salt-and-pepper handsome as George Clooney. He grew up with 10 siblings in Fall River, studied horticulture, and owned a landscaping business in New York -- doing plants for penthouse terraces and brown stones. Sixteen years ago, he bought Moon in the Pond Farm as a weekend retreat. Soon Palumbo was raising most of his own food and traveling to Manhattan to sell organic vegetables at the Greenmarket.

He still grows plenty of vegetables, specializing in heirloom varieties, but has become particularly passionate about animals. He started with a few sheep, then bought chickens and pigs. After a few years he traded conventional livestock for historic breeds such as speckled Sussex laying hens, Khaki Campbell ducks, Horned Dorset sheep, and Normandy and Scotch Highland Cows.

"These animals were selected over hundreds of years because they were rugged and tasted great," he says. "They aren't foolproof, though. If you raise them outside with no stress and let them eat greens and wild plants, the meat will take on those flavors and nuance. If you feed [them] corn and soybeans , the meat will taste like corn and soybeans."

Palumbo is the consummate diverse farmer. He saves seeds, smokes his own bacon and sausages, cures pancetta, runs biodiesel fuel in his tractor and Volkswagen station wagon, and teaches everything he knows to eager apprentices.

It was at Palumbo's farm that Blumenthal first became passionate about local food. "Growing up in Brooklyn," says Blumenthal, "I didn't know a summer tomato from a winter tomato." When he met Palumbo and tasted his produce, it was a pivotal moment. "Eating tomatoes off the vine at Dom's place was intoxicating," he says .

From there, it wasn't long before Blumenthal went in search of all kinds of local greens, barnyard chickens, and native fruits, all of which made their way onto his menu -- romaine lettuces from Farm Girl Farm in North Egremont for the Caesar; poultry from Herondale Organic Farm in Ancramdale, N.Y.; strawberries from Taft Farms in Great Barrington; Berkshire Blue cheese, also made in Great Barrington.

Blumenthal, 39, lives in South Egremont with his wife, Robin , an artist and textile designer, and their 2 1/2-year-old son, Max. He went to summer camp in the Berkshires and studied literature and Italian at Hamilton College. He learned about quality of life in Italy, he says. "I relate to their notions about living and food , family time and meal time. I grew up with it too, but in Italy the food was much better." He ran and eventually bought the family wall-covering and fabric business in New York and moved to the Berkshires 14 years ago.

Blumenthal thought about starting a new career as a farmer or cheesemaker, but realized he was still too much of a city boy to birth piglets and milk goats. And a cheese cave would be "too much science and too little romance," he says. In 2005, he bought the old roadside building that now houses his restaurant and spent 11 months renovating. "This is the bridge between the small farm and the common guy's mouth," he says.

Even with enough customers to keep the Grill full, buying local and organic food from three dozen farmers means unusually high costs and tough profit margins. "It would be so easy to make one phone call and order everything from Sysco," says Blumenthal, referring to the food suppliers who deliver to many kitchens.

"But this isn't about the easy way," he says. "For me, there was that sensual moment of tasting real food. Nothing else mattered. That's what I want my customers to experience."

Route 7 Grill , 999 Main St., Great Barrington, 413-528-3235, or go to route7grill.com.