2Acadia

When Acadia lost its fabulous chef, Matt Blondin, to David Chang’s Momofuku, I thought Acadia was done for. But they scooped Patrick Kriss from Splendido and he has learned to dazzle with low country cooking. His cold cream of corn soup is a river of good lovin’ poured onto frozen smoked cream with dried andouille sausage (lots of taste!), lightly pickled quail egg and blanched celery sweetening sour yellow plums. This is a chef with the Midas touch. He fries sweetbreads crisp and juicy and bejewels them with thin sliced tongue, dehydrated tongue pastrami powder (!!) and heirloom cherry tomatoes. For dessert, chef draws a line of dark chocolate cremeux across a plate, adding cherries, fruit puree, miniature crispy crunchy butter cakes and dreamy sorbet made from cooking down milk. This is about as sophisticated as cooking gets in our town.