CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT : A table filled with favorite dishes , including the kale salad with roasted ricotta apple agrodolce ; littleneck clams with grilled pumpkin pimenton ; spaghetti squash with sunchoke and taleggio cream ; grilled Pemaquid mussels and Block Island swordfish belly skewers .
investment , the goal should always be to try as many things as possible . Unlike Providence ’ s culinary kingpins — Persimmon and Oberlin jump to mind — Thick Neck will not immediately promise you the world and deliver . Instead , it offers very little and often leaves you breathless with bafflement .
“ Caramelized fennel breads , our butter ” says next to nothing . Is it a roll ? A wedge of crusty bread ? Neither . It ’ s a trio of dough disks that taste like cast-iron crumpets dotted with sweet fennel and served with a quenelle of herbed butter that is churned , cultured and salted by the team in house . The top half of the bread is just barely cooked while the lower half tastes like an open fire on the range . It ’ s unnerving and delightful how dichotomous this single bite is but it manifests everything that Brown ’ s food is : all things at once , and often contradictory .
Perhaps the paradox he manages to pull off most often is just how sublime simplicity can be . Take , for instance , the Block Island swordfish belly skewers . Each $ 5 order is two bites of locally sourced fish harvested at its peak before swimming to warmer waters . And in each one is a fully charred exterior that gives way to the softest part of the fish , one that seems more oil than solid and heavenly as it dissolves on the tongue .
114 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l JANUARY 2024