Cider and Paella: A Perfect Pairing We Didn’t See Coming

Sometimes when food and drink purveyors team up to hold a joint dinner, it can end up a snooty affair. Especially in these parts, where we seem to need to find ways to say we’ve got money in ever new expressions.

So I was happily surprised to find quite the opposite experience when on a recent evening (November 16) Dom’s Taverna and High Seas Mead joined forces for something simply billed “Paella + Mead: A Night in the Funk Zone.” That colon is mine, and I apologize for the hint of academia it brings to the quite informal proceedings. For this gathering of 30 or so folks jammed into High Seas’ Gray Avenue tasting room was more family picnic than pretentious. Well, if your family has a really talented chef.

Chef Dom Crisp grilled up one gorgeous giant platter of paella, deceptively simple and unfussy. It didn’t hurt that each diner got a healthy serving of grilled local spiny lobster, buttery and briny, beside the paella. But the rice was the star, having soaked up a host of fish stock and then also absorbing some of the smokiness from the grill. The crusty pan-contact grains provided a pleasing textural variation, too. Note there was nary a brunoised vegetable or scatter of herbs in the rice. Crisp had the guts to let it speak for itself.

The evening also offered a butter lettuce salad with black garlic and a healthy grate of Manchego — again delivering taste well beyond its modest presentation and ingredient list. Some Wagyu steak bites showed up for each patron, a take on one of the Taverna’s menu items, redolent of delicious chimichurri. The close of the night brownie looked homey, especially on its paper plate, but was richly fudgy and enough you didn’t miss any ala mode or whipped cream that might frou frou it up otherwise. Again, it wasn’t that kind of evening.

High Seas poured their meads and ciders, delightful alternatives to beer — you got to pick which pour you desired — and who knew you should be having cider with paella? Both teams certainly did. For Crisp, when welcoming people pointed out, “We had our first pop-up here at High Seas before we even opened, so this seems like full circle.” Make that clearly a circle of friends.

See domstaverna.com and highseasmead.com