The Cottage Westport Launches Farmers Market Prix Fixe Menu

Just over two months from this very publication date, The Cottage Westport welcomed back chef de cuisine, Christian Wilki, after his stints at Villa Mulino in Avon and Swyft and Ore Hill in Kent.

Having worked with chef and owner Brian Lewis for five years previously, Wilki is happy to return to further cultivate and create culinary magic at The Cottage

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Sometimes that means bringing back an affordable four-course tasting that’s whipped up solely with ingredients from the Westport Farmers Market.

“We did this a while back, but one day, me, Brian, and Ralph ( León)were sitting down after service sharing a bottle of water—I know, so exciting—and we sat here talking and I said that I wanted to do a farmers market menu again like we did years ago,” Wilki says. “Brian was like, ‘absolutely, let’s do it.’”

For prospective diners, you’re in store for four-courses for $65 from Tuesday through Thursday, all summer long.

The bigger picture, aside from keeping things fun and challenging for Wilki and the kitchen staff, is all about shining a light on Connecticut farmers.

“The goal is to utilize and showcase their products and support farmers,” Wilki says. “It’s about not having to call Baldor for ingredients, because I don’t know where it always comes from. But here, I know where it comes from and I can talk with the farmers. We want to showcase as much local as we can.”

Wilki told CTbites that these tastings are roughly 95% from the Westport Farmers Market because there are spices and such that the restaurant can’t get from there.

You’re obviously welcome to have a few cocktails. Pictured: Head in the Clouds - bourbon, strawberry, pineapple, and coconut foam.

One of the introductory tasting menus featured Sankow’s Beaver Brook Farm’s fresh lamb, ground, made into a sugo, hand rolled garganelli, crispy brown butter rosemary breadcrumbs, and mild ricotta from Calf + Clover Creamery.

While the pasta – lamb dish was a blend of the market and The Cottage’s own ingredients, others, like a kale salad, is a hodgepodge of vegetables from different farm vendors that are frequently at the Westport Farmers Market; the kale came from Riverbank Farm in Roxbury, the fennel from New Milford’s Fort Hill Farm, and Hungry Reaper Farm’s radishes.

Rainbow trout from Ideal Fish, roasted carrot hummus, cippolini onions, thyme, sunflower seeds.

Drinks: In back - The New, New Fashioned - rye, Amaro Nonino, oleo saccharum (lemon peel syrup), bitters. Up front - Cucumber Daisy - tequila, grapefruit, ancho chile, togarashi rim.

And if there’s a dish, say, that The Cottage creates that requires a fresh catch, they’ll work that out.

“This morning, I stopped in Waterbury (at Ideal Fish) on my way in to get the trout,” Wilki says. “It’s for freshness. We’ll either have it delivered or we’ll go pick it up.”

Calf + Clover buttermilk panna cotta, huckleberry, thyme, almond crunch. Wilki mentioned that he’s switches from Calf + Clover’s buttermilk to their yogurt. “I fell in love with their yogurt,” he says. “I eat it almost every morning.”

The curation of the tasting menu, according to Wilki, happens every Thursday while they’re walking around the market, then it goes live the following week after testing it out.

And while you never know what you might see from week-to-week, it’s entirely possible that if a certain dish is a big hit, that it could end up on The Cottage’s menu in some way, as a special, a seasonal offering, or in another form, but tweaked for seasonality.

256 Post Road E, Westport
203.557.3701, thecottage.kitchen/westport