First Peas, Last Citrus: How April Quietly Rewrites Our Menu

Spring doesn't arrive on our menu all at once. It shows up in deliveries — a crate here, a flat of pints there — and each one nudges the menu a little further from winter. By the time April is in full swing, the terrace table looks almost nothing like it did in February. Here are the five ingredients doing the heavy lifting, and the people who grow them.

English Peas: The Official Starting Gun

Nothing announces spring to our kitchen quite like the first English peas. We get ours from Hollis Family Farms, about two hours out, where the third generation of the family still picks by hand. Peas begin converting their sugars to starch the moment they're picked, which is a polite way of saying the ones in your grocery store are a ghost of the real thing.

Hollis's first harvest lands on our dock within a day of leaving the field. Chef's move with them is simple: a quick blanch, a slick of good butter, mint, and a spoonful of whipped ricotta on grilled sourdough. When the peas are this fresh, restraint is the whole recipe.

Asparagus From the Sandier Side of the Valley

Our asparagus comes from Delgado Ridge Growers, a small co-op that farms in sandy soil that warms early and drains fast — ideal conditions for spears with actual snap. Their purple-tipped variety shows up first, followed by the standard green.

On the menu, look for the shaved asparagus salad: raw spears peeled into ribbons, dressed with lemon oil and shaved pecorino, topped with a jammy six-minute egg. It's the dish people photograph before they taste it, and then taste it and photograph it again.

The Last of the Citrus

Here's the part of spring nobody talks about: it's also citrus season's final act. Blood oranges, Meyer lemons, and bergamot from our California supplier, Pacific Grove Citrus, hit their peak in late winter and fade fast once April warms up. So we treat them like a farewell tour.

The citrus-and-fennel salad with castelvetrano olives is on the menu for a few short weeks, and the pastry team bakes Meyer lemon into a olive-oil cake that sells out most weekends. If you've been meaning to try it, the clock is genuinely ticking.

Ramps: The Scavenger's Allium

Ramps are wild — literally. They don't grow in tidy rows; they pop up in shaded hardwood forests and get foraged by people who guard their patches like state secrets. Our forager, a retired teacher named Wally who supplies a handful of restaurants across the region, drops off bundles that smell like a compromise between garlic and scallion.

Because ramps are delicate ecosystems, we keep our order deliberately small. You'll find them in the ramp butter that comes with the steak frites and, briefly, in a ramp-and-potato soup that never lasts more than a week on the specials board.

Radishes: The Understudy Everyone Underestimates

Radishes might be the least glamorous item on this list, and that's exactly why we love making the case for them. Spring radishes — French breakfast, watermelon, the little pink Easter Egg varieties — arrive from the same co-op as our asparagus, dirt still clinging to the tails.

Served whole with cultured butter and flaky salt, they're the most honest thing on the table: sharp, crisp, faintly sweet. The kitchen also roasts them for the spring grain bowl, where they turn mellow and almost buttery. Most people who order the grain bowl had no idea radishes could do that.

Come See It Before It Changes

The honest truth about a seasonal menu is that it's a moving target. The peas will give way to green beans, the citrus board will go blank until next winter, and by June the ramp butter will be a fond memory. That's the deal we make with the seasons — and honestly, it's what keeps cooking (and eating) interesting.

Our spring menu is live now, and the terrace is open. Reservations are recommended, especially for weekend evenings. Come taste April while it's still here.