Change Comes Hard . . . To a Community Treasure

I like David Miller, the White Hart’s new chef, in spite of his calling food “product.�

   I like that he hates green pepper, seems polite to his staff and has had the good sense to drop his idea of  garnishing martinis with kalamata olives. The traditional green olive, I’m delighted to say, has been returned to the hunt room bar.

   Miller makes a shitake mushroom and chocolate soup that is certainly inventive, if not hot enough, a root vegetable hash that got raves from a friend, and a squash soup for anyone crazy for butterscotch pudding. The shrimp are colossal, as advertised, but mine were disagreably tough. And one woman told me how dry her chicken sandwich had been.  

   This is a young chef, 28, a graduate of the CIA, and a native of Tampa Bay, FL. He wears a Tampa Bay Rays baseball cap, and a faintly defensive air these days, although he is the possessor of many fine reviews in Southern trade mags. These reviews are one reason Scott L. Bok (a New York finance executive whose annual compensation was estimated recently at seven figures and who bought the inn a dozen years ago), hired Miller. Another reason is Miller cooked 10 courses during a winter visit which Bok’s wife and their 14-year-old liked. A good sign, Bok figured.

   Also, not significantly, Miller is remotely related to Bok’s brother’s wife.

   And, very significantly,  “Getting someone to accept isn’t as easy as you think. Not many restaurants are open 7 days a week, let alone 3 meals a day,â€� Bok wrote me by e-mail. 

   Probably most important of all, Miller is simply rhapsodic about the Bok farm which supplies the White Hart kitchen with grass-fed Angus cattle, acres of organically and hydroponically raised greens such as baby bok choy, romaine and other lettuces of varying hues and degrees of tenderness. Also herbs like rosemary and basil; shallots, asparagus, strawberries, root vegetables, red onions, garlic, all growing in gorgeously tended raised beds; and in the greenhouse, trout and striped bass will be fattening in tanks that water the heirloom tomatoes there; and nearby, 100 or so chickens scratch and warble in a roomy fenced-in plot, producing 40 to 50 dozen eggs a week.

   “This is what attracted me to the job,â€� Miller said as we toured part of the the 250-acre farm, that and the possibility of picking up some good press from New York City papers. And were it not for the grumbling, all would be swell.

   But people have a proprietary attitude about the place. Salisbury’s White Hart, built in 1806 on the town’s modest green, has been an emergency bedroom, a spot for a drink and a place for comfy, if uninspired, dinners for generations. It’s home when the house is jammed with relatives or the furnace has failed. It’s home for people leaving work and not ready for their house, yet. It’s been home to generations of Hotchkiss School parents visiting their offspring. And the taproom is home to a lot of ambulance and fire fighting volunteers with quarters across the street.

   This possessive air surfaced a few years back when a chef, I am told, replaced the declassé baked potato with roasted spuds. So some regulars baked their own, wrapped them in foil, and carried them into the inn’s taproom to accompany their dinner.

   Now once again, this white clapboard country inn, known for ordinary food, monastic decor and its annual chimney fire, has changed.   

   A lot.

   It’s had a resplendant makeover with Frette linens in the upstairs suites, luxe furnishings throughout and a pricey and sometimes zany menu in its several dining rooms. (No chimney fires in recent memory, either.)

   Once again, it’s food that’s irking all kinds of people, food like the duck and Cracker Jack salad. Yes, the jokey kid waiter told a diner, his prize would top the greens on his plate. But the diner  was not told that “crispâ€� duck was a synonym for dessicated duck. And a shower of Cracker Jacks, though  enjoyed by one longtime resident, seemed, well, tacky to others.

   Then there’s the “jumboâ€� lump crab cake, a $14 appetizer embellished with wax apple, bourbon and whole grain mustard remoulade. Photogenic, yes. But this turned out to be a small wad of lump crab surrounded by a thick and thready blanket of “specialâ€� crab meat. Chef David Miller says that if the cake were made totally with huge sweet lumps of meat it would, one, be too expensive, and, two, not hold together without breading.   

   Miller’s menu is designed to appeal to a variety of diners, Bok says. It is also designed to impress. The chili is made with elk; the spring rolls with venison, the pot pie with wild turkey (the chef says he thinks the birds are hunted somewhere in New York), and the feral boar (also hunted, Miller contends) comes from Texas.

   But some are not impressed yet — people born and raised in the area as well as weekenders who retired here.

   One resident told me the hamburgers were “not bad,â€� although they are an ounce shy of what they were before, a point duly noted and complained about.

   And one woman told me “the prices are outrageous [entrées range from $18 to $35] and the food is mediocre.   

   “I’m not looking for Le Cirque,â€� she said. “I’ve been to Le Cirque. I’m looking for a nice meal that’s delicious and well priced. It’s just plain foolishness to be so pretentious. Shape up,â€� she said. “Get real.â€�

   Miller says he knows some people don’t like the new menu and he knows some locals feel unwelcome.

    “One person gets upset, and the entire town seems to know it before the sun comes up,â€� he told me. 

   “But in a year, no one will remember any of this.â€�

   Meanwhile, he plans to do his job: which is to set striking menus, run the kitchen and train the staff.

   It will take time, though, to settle into the culture, he adds. “After all, I’m from a big city,â€� he says eying the green. “I’m not from Mayberry.â€�