Those hoping to sample the debut prix fixe vegetarian and raw menu at Scape should do so soon. “Right around the 21st, we’re going to change it out to our spring menu,” chef Eric Kelly told us.
The three-course menu debuted in late January at the CWE restaurant, and the response to it pleasantly surprised him. “It’s rolling – it’s selling like crazy,” he said. “The demand is much greater than what I first thought it would be. About seven or eight out of every hundred people [who visit Scape] order the vegetarian.
“It’s no longer once every three weeks that somebody says, ‘I’m vegetarian, can you prepare something vegetarian for me?'” Kelly continued. “And the awareness and demands have gotten beyond just vegetarian and beyond just vegan – it’s raw. Now [guests] want the nutritional value. And anything that has so much demand cannot be neglected. You can’t just grill some vegetables, put it on a plate and give it to a guest.”
The current menu comprises a watermelon salad; a tomato, rapini and legume salad; and a choice between a portabella mushroom pavé and vegetarian lasagna.
Intriguingly, the first course includes fresh horseradish. “I wanted something that would really cut through the sweetness of the watermelon with some heat,” Kelly said. At first, in fact, he’d experimented with a jalapeño salsa used in another dish there.
In the second course, Kelly stressed the seasonality of the legumes. “We also add the rapini because of the bitter pepperiness,” he said. “And when it’s raw, it’s great. I used to love it sautéed with olive oil and blanched roasted garlic, and I eat it raw now – I prefer it raw.”
Otherwise, between the two current entrées, demand for one has far exceeded demand for the other, Kelly noted: “The lasagna’s been probably five times more popular [than the portabella pavé]. And I think that it has to do with familiarity. When you talk about a portabella mushroom pavé, people are like, ‘Huh?'”
As a result, Kelly plans to retain the vegetarian lasagna on the forthcoming spring menu. He’ll add to it an appetizer of spring rolls (incorporating English hothouse cucumbers and including dipping sauces), a salad and a curried crêpe for the second entrée choice. On both the forthcoming menu and the existing one, Scape also offers the prix fixe items a la carte, Kelly emphasized.
This article appears in Mar 1-31, 2010.