A maturing chef enlivens Davis Square
Gargoyles on the Square
Somerville
Boston's chefs are constantly in motion, and it can take persistence and an inquiring mind to figure out where a particular chef is cooking. It's sort of like playing ''Where's Waldo?" but with a lot more toques to count.
Take Jason Santos, for instance, he of the bright-blue hair. First noticed at Tremont 647 in the South End, where he started at the tender age of 19 and worked for almost 10 years, Santos then opened a restaurant in Providence, Kestrel, with Tremont owner Andy Husbands. Kestrel lasted only about a year before closing. Last spring, Santos popped up at Dedo Lounge & Bistro near the Theater District before the owner, James Conforti, closed the bistro.
After all these perambulations, Santos moved to
For a decade, Gargoyles has been a neighborhood haunt in Davis Square, from its beginnings as a tiny sliver of a place to its move down the block to bigger quarters. The place is a two-part affair, with front bar area sporting long windows looking out on the lively street, and a quieter, slightly cave-like room in back. It's a little funky -- appropriate for Davis Square -- but comfortable, with a reasonably priced, though not particularly adventurous, wine list, and a jazz combo playing in the front on Saturday nights. The service is similar: Nothing formal, but attentive and personable.
Santos's arrival provides a welcome jolt to the cuisine of Gargoyles, giving me a reason to reconsider the decade-old restaurant. He seems to have progressed from what often could be a brash use of seasonings back in his early cooking years. Now there's a subtlety in his spicing and a finesse in his style with many dishes.
One evening, we sit near the windows while sharing a Greek-style salad with several different varieties of sliced and cherry tomatoes, all so ripe they scream summer. Olives and onions spike the plate, along with pleasantly tangy feta and what looks to be a whole bunch of oregano. The salad is bright and aggressive, an attention-getter on a hot evening. As we eat, we watch other diners also angle for window tables, rather than moving to the back room, and notice that diners are chatting table to table. The couple next to us is still perusing the menu when our main courses arrive, and she leans over to ask what I've ordered. ''The duck confit with sticky rice," I explain, and she excitedly confers with her companion as they check out other plates around them.
The duck, glazed with hoisin and honey, is spectacular, the dark meat moist under its sweet-hot and crisp coating. Santos's recent Asian travels are reflected often on his menu, and the sticky rice mixed with mango and young coconut milk is his tribute to Thailand. It's nicely done, not too sweet, not at all gummy, the flavors offset with salty cashews and sauteed bean sprouts on top of the duck.
Another dish, poppy-crusted halibut, turns west for inspiration. The halibut is gentled cooked, mild and moist, the poppy seeds only a minor note, and bits of guanciale (cured pig jowl) add a salty emphasis. But squash blossoms are really the focus of the plate, stuffed with a cheese mixture and sauteed to be crisp on the outside. They're rich and irresistibly delicious.
We finish with a lime mousse cake that blends tart and sweet in just the right proportion. Again, an extra detail -- deep-fried fresh figs -- are the piece de resistance.
The front room definitely has the best vibe, but on a second visit, we retreat to the back so we can talk to friends as musicians tune up near the windows. We start with oyster nachos, which are a bit too much of a good thing. The fried oysters are fine, crunchy on the outside and moist inside. But the cheese-covered nachos are gloppy and too many, and in the end this seems like a bad idea. By contrast, Santos plumps his crab cakes and adds sea urchin-infused butter, crisped black trumpet mushrooms, and mustard oil, the flavors and the textures blending harmoniously with nothing overwhelming the crab.
But it's a couple of entrees that are most enticing. A frill of salad greens on top and chunks of peaches marry well with firm-textured swordfish. The richness of Kobe beef, here in a grilled skirt steak, is tempered by a corn-and-tomato salad underneath, and grilled tuna is expertly turned out, despite an uninteresting accompaniment of pad Thai and limp tempuraed zucchini. Chicken breast sous vide (or cooked under vacuum) makes a fascinating dish out of very simple ingredients. Santos explains later that the chicken is sealed with mushrooms duxelles and seasonings in a vacuum pack and then cooked slowly at 160 degrees for six hours. The result is a velvety texture and flavor that's difficult to describe, heightened on one taste, like the essence of chicken, and then fleetingly mild on the next.
I puzzle over this as we try a couple of desserts, finding a coconut tart and an odd peach tiramisu rather lackluster. Only a dense chocolate torte finishes the meal with aplomb.
Santos, with his sense of adventure on the plate, is giving a new sheen to Gargoyles with his refined -- or maybe just more grown-up -- cuisine. After all, although his hair is still blue, Santos is now 29. Maybe at 30, he says, it will be time to let it go natural.