Ebbitt Room

Chef Lucas Manteca was on vacation with his wife and baby daughter in Miami, relaxing after a long season at his Stone Harbor restaurants, Sea Salt and Quahog’s, when the phone rang. It was Curtis Bashaw, CEO of the development firm Cape Advisors, calling to offer him the job of executive chef at the Ebbitt Room, the AAA Five Diamond Award-winning restaurant in the Virginia Hotel, one of Bashaw’s two renovated Victorian hotels in Cape May.

For Manteca, a native of Buenos Aires, taking the job would mean closing Sea Salt, the tiny, acclaimed BYO he and his wife had opened in 2004. “We loved it to death,” Manteca says, “but I thought, I can do what I’m doing right now, but without Sea Salt’s limits of size and seasonality.”

“I was running Sea Salt by myself,” explains Manteca, who knew many of his customers by name. “I thought it was not going to be fair to my guests for me not to be there. With rough [economic] times ahead, I thought it was a good idea keeping [Quahog’s,] the restaurant that was more accessible,” he says.
What made the deal too good to refuse was Beach Plum Farm, the 62-acre spread Bashaw owns in West Cape May that supplies half the Ebbitt Room’s fresh produce. As soon as Manteca donned his new chef’s jacket last spring, he began to make use of the Beach Plum bounty: asparagus and potatoes puréed into a stunningly silky soup finished with feta and pine nuts; fried squash blossom crowning the bountiful minestrone di mare; succulent figs in a toffee pudding drizzled with Grand Marnier caramel.

It’s obvious Manteca loves the seasonal, farm-fresh ingredients at his fingertips. My main criticism of his cooking is that he occasionally gets too excited about them, loading dishes with many accents when two or three would do. Lemongrass, lentils, mango, chili, cucumber, ginger, tomato, orange, basil, fennel, and gooseberry all made cameos in a single chilled lobster salad. Cucumber, chayote, coconut water, mint, fromage blanc, avocado, and grapefruit sorbet all hopped aboard a sweet Maryland blue-crab salad. Even flavors as vibrant and refreshing as these get muddy when jammed together like riders on a rush-hour subway train.

Hamachi sashimi did not benefit from truffle oil in the yuzu and clementine vinaigrette, making it a bull in a china shop of tart green apples, heirloom radishes, mâche, and buttery fish. Nor did the raw-oyster duo of Cape May salts and California Kumamotos require the roll call of hijiki seaweed salad with citrusy ponzu sauce, a small cup of runny Tabasco gel, a shot-glass of gazpacho, and pickled mignonette sauce. At $18 for just four oysters, it’s obvious you’re paying plenty for all the extras on the plate.

Manteca says his goal “is to make the Ebbitt Room an everyday restaurant instead of just one for special occasions.” But whether you order à la carte or have the $65 three-course tasting, the prices put that goal perilously out of reach. The tasting allows diners to choose any dishes from the full menu. To get your money’s worth, stick to pricier items like the Malbec-braised short ribs and lavender beurre blanc-poached lobster surf-and-turf—$48 á la carte.

There are bargains to be found on the wine list, rife with under-$50 gems from New World vineyards. (Manteca loves the young, sprightly $34 Alta Vista Torrontes white from his native Argentina—and so do I.) There are about 300 bottles in the cellar, and exactly zero sommeliers, though wine-knowledgable floor manager Jahanna Ezson serves as resident expert. When servers don’t have answers, they rush to the bar and return with info—and, more than once, a complimentary taste.

An elegant off-dry Alsatian riesling ($46) from Domaine Mittnacht Freres soothed the smoky, salty accents of the spaghetti Amatriciana blended with sweet, buttery sea urchin purée. Topped with succulent seared local scallops, this was easily the best dish I ate anywhere last summer. Manteca’s pasta aptitude may stem from his Italian heritage on his mother’s side, while his mollejas al verdeo (crisp, creamy sweetbreads with sharp scallion sauce) was all Argentina. The purée of scallion with reduced white wine and crême fraiche served the mild organ meat well. “Veal sweetbreads ‘from the heart,’” he says, referring to pancreas sweetbreads (as opposed to thymus, or “throat” sweetbreads), “are the most precious thing in my country.”

Other winning simple starters were ultra-tender sautéed calamari tossed with lime zest and juice, and grated ginger; lightly seared bluefin tuna in aji amarillo (a Peruvian yellow chili) sauce; vivid sockeye salmon and beet tartare kissed with local strawberry vinaigrette; and Hudson Valley foie gras torchon paired with toasted brioche and sweet-and-sour rhubarb preserves.

Entrées also showed finesse, particularly in seafood dishes like moist, flaky mahi-mahi; pan-roasted skate glossed with blood orange-infused brown butter and toasted hazelnuts; and meaty Hawaiian butterfish in a saffron-spiced lobster consommé. From Argentina’s gaucho tradition came a brawny 13-ounce prime ribeye steak with a salty, peppery char and ruby-red interior.

Desserts are collaborations between Manteca and former Buddakan Atlantic City pastry chef Corey Taylor. Successes include a raspberry-vanilla bombe with tart-and-sweet raspberry-beet sauce; nicely balanced peanut butter-chocolate mousse; quivering vanilla panna cotta with tangy passion fruit gelée; and milk chocolate tart with dulce de leche. Ice creams and sorbets disappointed, not for their flavors (vanilla-lavender, red grape, chocolate-chili) but because those three scoops, served in the same bowl, melted and ran together like makeup in the rain.

The staff, young but polished, can become flustered when the restaurant is busy (as it often is). The kitchen’s timing can be inconsistent. “It’s going to take about a year to get everything where I want it,” admits the chef, a caveat that doesn’t excuse undercooked Colorado lamb chops or appetizers arriving before the wine.

The expectation here is that the Ebbitt Room under Manteca will eventually hit its stride. He has already revitalized the menu. Perhaps with time and increased confidence, he will simplify some of the overwrought touches and preside over a winner.