Meet Chef Carlos Perez, At The Corner, Where Food Is Art and The Menu Is Outstanding

Chef Carlos Perez is a force to be reckoned with. Remember his face. Remember his name. Although this young chef opened up @ At The Corner Restaurant moments before COVID-19 reared it’s ugly head, he wasn’t about to let something as trivial as a pandemic slow him down.

Last week Stephanie and I took a little road trip to Litchfield to see what Chef Perez has been up to. The restaurant sits on the corner of West and South streets (about a 10 minute drive from Arethusa Farm). The handsome brick-walled eatery, originally home to a pharmacy with a soda fountain, perfectly merges the old with the new.

We sat outside in the charming little brick and stone courtyard lined with quaint little shops. I felt as though I had been transported into a small English Village. Two beautiful blackberry margaritas were presented to us as Chef began to prepare his dishes. The margarita, aka the Liquid Lunch Date, made with Silver tequila, Cointreau, fresh lime juice, agave, sweet & sour, and fresh muddled blackberries, was simply divine. This drink is normally made with jalapeño, but it was left out so as not to overpower the flavors of the local oyster, our first sampling from the menu.

The Local Oyster was topped off with a watermelon mignonette and a spicy hot sauce, and served over an edamame seaweed salad. Visually this dish was magnificent. While I admit to questioning the choice of “seasonal summer mignonette,” I picked the mollusk up in my hand and gave it a hearty slurp… The watermelon was really only mildly sweet, and combined with the spiciness of the red hot sauce and the saltiness of the oyster, created a combination that not only worked but was absolutely divine.

What Perez prepares isn’t just food; it is art. 

It is art in every sense of the word. Chef’s creations are as wonderful to the eye as they are to the nose as they are to the mouth. He pairs flavors and textures that few would imagine or dare. Don’t let this classically trained chef fool you, his flavors and combinations are anything but conventional. He is fresh and vibrant. The French Culinary Institute graduate has an inherent intuition and talent that simply can’t be taught. 

Sometimes it’s something so simple.

Let’s take the cheese and charcuterie board. We’ve all had these and enjoy them tremendously. Frankly, it’s pretty hard to make a bad one. Although such a simple concept, here the glossy black slate plank becomes a canvas, and the food is Chef’s medium of choice with golden, crispy, goat cheese croquets, a citrus arugula salad accompanied locally cured meats as dabs and dollops of mustard are brushed on like paint. This is when a cheese board becomes so much more.

We got Spammed @ the Corner!

Canned Spam that is. It takes a creative mind to come up with Spam French fries. The Hawaiian Tuna Poke Bowl was another stunning dish with sweet coconut sticky rice, edamame seaweed salad, the aforementioned crispy spam, avocado, pineapple pico, ginger, kimchee, tamarind chili sauce, punctuated by a beautiful orange lily. Don’t let the Spam scare you, the crispy sticks played well with the myriad of flavors in this dish – salty, sweet, pickled, spicy, all of which were offset by the cool, mild flavors of the avocado, rice and tuna.

“Still Life with Berries”

This is what I would call this if I painted it. Really, an edible Caravaggio. Our visual game was now elevated with deep, jewel-toned blues, purples and reds. Jaws dropped. Never have I seen a more beautiful salad. Beets & Berries. The name does this dish no justice. Citrus arugula, spicy pistachio ricotta salada, a lavender honey balsamic vinaigrette along with blueberries, blackberries, raspberries and strawberries, stems left on and leaves fully intact. This salad will forever be ingrained in my memory; it was as delicious as it was beautiful. Because as salads go it really doesn’t get better than this.

Next we were treated to something not yet on the menu.

A gorgeous flaky piece of salmon served over a bed of sweet corn risotto with pieces of sweet corn and roasted tomato in a creamy sauce made from the broth of the husk and a basil pesto. Here all the iconic flavors of summer merge together to create something totally unexpected. If you’re not in the habit of ordering salmon out, you really would be remiss to pass this one up.

The Pineapple Jerk Chicken was a showstopper.

This chicken packed some heat - a whole lotta heat! Beneath the fiery skin I found a milder, tender and supple piece of chicken. Served over a sweet Jamaican coconut rice, with pickled red cabbage, guava marmalade, and charred pineapple Pico de Gallo, Chef Perez so beautifully marries all the flavors of the spicy and sweet, the heat and the cool. Again, color played such an important role with bright yellows, oranges and purples juxtaposed against the charred black of the chicken. If you can’t eat this in one seating I can tell you with absolute certainty that this travels well and makes a wonderful left over. If you’re not afraid of a little heat, this one’s for you. 

A divine masterpiece. Cue in the dramatic music.

Just as we thought there wasn’t an inch of room left in our stomachs we were presented with dessert. Served on a cake stand with a glass dome that exposed a smoky curtain that when lifted and revealed what would be our dessert. But (of course) this wasn’t going to be just any dessert. Not yet on the menu, I believe this will be called Strawberry Fields Forever. On a bed of hay, (made from a fine pastry dough not unlike angel hair pasta) were gorgeous macerated strawberries with their stems and leaves intact, whipped cream, a most delicious vanilla gelato and the most divine Madeleines I have ever tasted, the smokiness infusing it all. 

This indeed was a meal worth writing home about. Now, several days later, I still marvel over the artistic magnificence of each dish and the blending of the most unexpected flavors. Chef Carlos Perez marries artistry, skill and talent and it’s been a long time since I've had food like this.

At The Corner 3 West Street, Litchfield

@athecorner