Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/514590
122 An anticipatory buzz fills the din- ing room at Newburyport's Brine restaurant. Snippets of conversation cover the merits of different cock- tails and who makes the area's best pizza while diners await the first course in the restaurant's ongoing "Culinary Opus" tasting menu series. Servers fan out and deliver dishes of kitchen-roasted sweet and salty nuts and tall pints of house-made beer, the start of a 15-course extrava- ganza featuring everything from local uni and spider crab to duck en croute. It's a heady food experience unique in Newburyport, a city better known for clam chowder and casual American eateries than the creative cuisine that highlights the scenes in Boston and Portland. As course after confident course sails onto the tables, Nancy Batista- Caswell, proprietor of Brine and its sister restaurant, Ceia, welcomes guests and explains her wine-pair- ing selections. It's been five years since Batista-Caswell's Caswell Restaurant Group shook up the culi- nary scene on State Street, opening Ceia Kitchen + Bar—a sophisticated bistro combining Old World Euro- pean hospitality and techniques with flair—quickly followed by Brine, a fresh take on the classic steak and oyster house. While some questioned her ability to succeed offering "city food" in Newburyport, Batista-Caswell confidently recog- nized the town's changing demo- graphic, keeping her kitchen open later than anyone else in town and serving challenging cuisine that has garnered a following far beyond the North Shore. "There are Sundays at Brine where everyone is a chef," Batista- Brine dishes a new twist on the traditional oyster house with things like sea scallop ceviche with roe, lime, grapefruit, and jalapeño. Caswell says. She means that liter- ally—her two restaurants are at the center of a culinary renaissance on the North Shore, and she is finding camaraderie with kindred dining destinations like No. 8 Kitchen & Spirits in Amesbury and Brasserie 28 in Andover. When Batista-Cas- well volunteered to run Great Chefs Night, an annual benefit for Anna Jaques Hospital, 33 chefs rushed in to donate their time and food.