FACING PAGE: The
vegetable carbonara.
THIS PAGE, LEFT TO
RIGHT: The interior of
Huck’s is devoted to a
down-home experience.
The wood grilled
whole durade.
T
here’s something inherently
contradictory about Huck’s
Filling Station. Its location
— a minimalist, glassed-in
gas station — proudly
manifests industrialization. Its menu —
thick with greens and Southern hospitality
— feels like a lackadaisical boondocks stroll.
It’s a small space, seating twenty-six at
tables and ten more at the bar. Outdoor
space is sectioned into a small (very small)
parking lot and pergola-covered dining
room warmed by fire pits. And it’s here
you can start to see that, in a battle royale
between society and something more
pastoral, the woods win out.
Huck’s owners, Ed Brady, Jeff Quinlan
and executive chef, Andrea Leonardo, are
no strangers to unconventional spaces.
Their earlier restaurant, Milk Money,
turned a basement off the highway into a
moody, lived-in lounge and this one seeks
to wash away society altogether on an
intersection at Post Road. To be fair, the
possibility of keeping civilization at bay
depends on the weather. On warm nights,
diners spill out onto the patio and
the restraints of reality dissipate for an
evening. Glass walls give way to a
backyard party where groups gather
around a bonfire dipping into fried chips
and warm trays of viscous raclette.
When the doors are closed, the
imposition of humanity is pronounced
though: tables — particularly two-tops —
are tight and conversation tends to
overflow onto adjacent tables. (“I was 213
six months ago,” a boisterous man offers to
everyone. “Now: 193. Awesome, right?”
Awesome indeed.) But the restaurant is
devoted to a down-home experience that
comes across in aesthetics (a collection of
mismatched cabinet doors above the bar
alongside quilted banquettes) and attitude.
Servers greet strangers like family (“What’s
up, you guys?!”) and regularly snap photos
of dinner parties when a selfie seems too
challenging. The staff also covers the
spectrum of personality: man-buns at the
bar, good old boys pushing plates and
good-humored women calling out specials.
But the real link to a more bucolic
America is in the menu, which uniformly
(unlike Twain’s man-boy) delivers more
than it promises. It reads like a somewhat
random collection of ingredients, held
together by a thin string of Southern
culture: cornbread, grits, greens, fried
oysters. It unfolds, however, as an acute
awareness of national diversity and
culinary heritage. Chef Todd Camp is a
matchmaker at heart, pairing disparate
textures and flavors that prove inherently
complementary. The restaurant is big on
vegetarian and vegan options, not only
philosophically but because Camp clearly
relishes produce. The house-made bucatini
carbonara ($23) has no pork in it; instead,
it’s punctuated with sweet potatoes, greens,
mushrooms and a dose of parmesan so
hefty you’d swear there’s smoke in it. The
plate comes together like the culmination
of a day spent foraging and a reminder that
local farms are full of surprises.
There are plenty of other mainstays at
Huck’s that bring Camp’s agricultural
***
HUCK’S FILLING STATION
4654 Post Rd., Warwick/East Greenwich line,
471-7170, hucksfillingstation.com
Open daily for dinner, Fri.–Sun. for brunch.
Wheelchair accessibility is a challenge
indoors but the patio is easy to negotiate on
wheels. Small parking lot; also street parking.
CUISINE
Southern fare opens its arms wide.
CAPACITY
Thirty-six indoors with another thirty-five
on the patio.
VIBE
The bar of your dreams with a menu to match.
PRICES
$4–$38.
KAREN’S PICKS
Cornbread, whole roasted fish, gnocchi
with duck confit, Statler chicken and every
damn cocktail on the menu.
KEY
* Fair ** Good
*** Very Good
**** Excellent + Half-star
RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY
l APRIL 2020 85