FACING PAGE : Flying Fish tsukemen ramen with pork chashu . THIS PAGE , FROM LEFT : Cabbage Caesar salad ; Carpenter Street Ramen with pork and dashi broth ; glutenfree carrot blondie with corn ice cream .
T he small space at 3 Luongo Square has long been an incubator of culinary ideas , and occasionally a hot spot of creative madness . For more than ten years , it had been under the direction of James Mark , who opened north in the twenty-seater and then Big King . Both restaurants were notoriously tough to categorize , which was — if such a thing exists — Mark ’ s signature .
In that vein , Pickerel has some resemblance to its predecessors . Owners Spencer Smith and Scott LaChapelle have an almost myopic fixation with liquids , though the former works with cocktails while the latter runs a ramen apothecary in their unassuming kitchen . Beyond that central theme , however , Pickerel maintains some of the offbeat , upended unpredictability that this minute restaurant has always manifested .
There ’ s a single booth and a couple of two-tops at Pickerel , all of which flank the wooden bar . The aesthetic falls between Japanese and Scandinavian : minimalist and clean , with the occasional plant breathing oxygen into a space that has as many people queuing up at the door as it does eating . On paper , the menu looks equally restrained : two cocktails , a quartet of wines , three apps and a trio of ramen offerings . So very simple . Except that none of it is .
Drinks are flamboyantly peculiar , an amalgam of unlikely ingredients that form a strikingly cohesive whole . The barley daiquiri is anything but fruity : Mellowed by roasted barley Demerara sugar , the rum fades to the background , replaced by malted , savory notes that redefine the drink . On the flip side , the mirin spritz — alarmingly described as a mixture of rice vodka , mirin , beer and lemon — is so delicate and light as to defy the properties of alcohol altogether . It turns out that this is the thin space where Smith and LaChapelle meet : in a balancing act that creates whole harmonies out of the most disparate parts .
Pickerel isn ’ t interested in shock value per se ; it ’ s a kitchen that falls hard for random ingredients and can ’ t rest until each one finds a partnership that will hit perfect pitch . Example : In spring , stalks of soy-glazed asparagus are charred to near-oblivion and served with whipped tofu and mackerel salt . It ’ s the manifestation of fire , an interplay of aggressiveness and grace that makes diners think Pickerel would do wonders as a vegetarian restaurant . The same holds true for LaChapelle ’ s house salad , which arrives like
PICKEREL
3 Luongo Sq ., Providence , pckrl . com
Open from 5 p . m . to midnight Thursday – Monday . Wheelchair accessibility is a challenge in this narrow space . Street parking .
CUISINE Modern Japanese .
CAPACITY Twenty-one .
VIBE The few , the proud , the privileged
ramen eaters .
PRICES Small plates : $ 11- $ 12 ; ramen : $ 18- $ 22.50 ;
dessert : $ 4- $ 14 .
KAREN ’ S PICKS Everything . Including drinks .
RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l SEPTEMBER 2023 133