'Sea-to-table': Mendocino coast inspires Harbor House chef

Chef Matt Kammerer may be the only boss anywhere who is pleased when one of his sous chefs arrives late for work, with the excuse that the young man “had to hit the beach.”

That’s because Kammerer operates Harbor House, a sea-to-table restaurant inside the historic Harbor House Inn. Set atop a secluded, ocean-side cliff in the tiny village of Elk in Mendocino, Kammerer and his crew source most of their ingredients from the very landscape they admire daily, including seaweed, sea lettuce, abalone, crab, sea urchins and rockfish. A sous chef may run late sometimes since he specializes in collecting the daily bucket of ocean water from a prime cove near his home, that, once at the restaurant, will be turned into homemade sea salt.

Since opening in May, the novel concept has been a hit with diners, Kammerer said, with guests traveling from all across the Bay Area to dine at his 25-seat restaurant. Some stay overnight in the nine-room inn, and others come exclusively for the tasting menu-only experience that changes as frequently as the tides.

Calling his concept “refined new American with a coastal perspective,” Kammerer’s cooking really needs to be explored firsthand to truly understand it. The idea reminds me of Single Thread in Healdsburg, with its meticulously crafted, artfully presented small plates, where everything, from the ingredients down to the pottery bowls and hand-forged knives, has a story.

But rather than fussy and formal, as Single Thread is, Kammerer and the inn’s general manager Amanda Nemec keep things relaxed and almost homestyle. Even diners who may not appreciate unusual dishes such as morel mushrooms imbued with chile-spicy kosho and grilled pine essence from a nearby forest will fall in love with the graceful, friendly service and the living room-style mood.

Then, there’s the setting, which mesmerizes with its beauty from foggy dawn to shimmering sunset. Built in 1916, the redwood-trimmed inn originally was a corporate retreat for Goodyear Redwood Co., a lumber business harvesting massive numbers of Elk-area trees.

It was purchased eight years ago by Edmund Jin and his wife, Eva Lu, then extensively restored and renovated to the tune of $10 million. Jin is CEO of E&E Co. Ltd, a Bay-Area based manufacturer of luxury home goods, and it’s his classic leather and wood furniture you’ll see in the entry lounge.

The dining room is simpler, with tables draped in beige-gray burlap-style cloths and little adornment except a centerpiece carved wood display table. The plainness is all the better to focus on the spectacular Pacific Coast views of thrashing waves anchored by magnificent rock arches and caves.

Take a stroll on the deck outside the restaurant, and you’ll see the new culinary gardens, planted with delicacies like alpine strawberries and pineapple sage.

Each morning, Kammerer harvests from the garden, then clambers down a steep, winding pathway to the cove and private beach below.

There, amid pearlescent abalone shells scattered across the sand, he plucks seaweed to turn into the earthy kelp vinegar he uses to lightly dress a salad of bitter greens. He’s never been in better shape, he jokes, as he climbs back up the cliff.

If it seems an odd place for a high-end restaurant – Elk is home to 208 residents - Kammerer somewhat agrees.

To come here, he left a career as executive sous chef at Michelin three-starred Saison in San Francisco, after working at Michelin-starred In De Wulf in Belgium, Michelin three-starred Nihonryori Ryugin in Tokyo, and the World’s 50 Best Restaurants-rated Attica in Melbourne.

But now, even working nearly around the clock, he says he loves the bucolic area and connection with Earth.

Somehow, the tiny team of just four kitchen staff manages to create the food, including elaborate breakfasts for inn guests, all while baking their own pastries such as oolong-infused pound cake, churning their own gray-green sea lettuce-infused butter to slather on thick, crusty sourdough, and foraging their own mushrooms.

Based on eight to 10 courses ($150, plus $90 for wine pairings from the custom leather-bound, largely local list), the menu doesn’t offer much information.

“Abalone, sea vegetables, wild cabbage,” for example, brings a teal bowl with slices of the tender-chewy seafood crowned in yellow flower petals, slippery greens from nearby Greenwood Cove and an intriguing, briny dressing.

Servers don’t really explain what we’re eating, either, or how it’s prepared except for “steam and/or fire.” And that’s fine, because there’s no benchmark to compare this extraordinary cuisine to.

All I need to know is that one evening’s “artichoke, trout roe” brings a tiny bowl of shaved, crispy vegetable and salty fish eggs, while another evening’s “summer squash, green garlic and nori” delivers six bite-size morsels of soft-charred vegetable decorated in bright purple and green bits of brilliance.

Kammerer likes unexpected flavors and bold aromatics such as plump, al dente asparagus spears laced with grapefruit and nori, or turkey tail mushrooms dressed with wildflower honey, dried sorrel and lime.

Oils, custards, sauces and various unknown moistening agents somehow bring all ingredients together and add umami – we trust the chef, and it’s an exciting way to eat.

Notably, there’s very little meat on the menu. One evening, we savored an amuse of duck jerky glazed in preserved apples and espelette pepper from nearby Boonville, served in a rustic wood, lidded box.

That was followed by a mid-course of Muscovy duck, the tender slab aged 17 days and served rare with thick, sumptuous jus and just a simple flower on the plate – the sides of Mendocino wild rice, flowers, preserved vegetables and fresh garden leaves were presented in a woven basket, an iron pot and assorted bowls.

Desserts keep the same light but satisfying cuisine concept. Three tiny plates arrive in succession, precious with bites like grilled rhubarb kissed with pineapple sage and almond oil, or strawberries partnered with white chocolate and grilled honey.

All along the way, sommelier Corrina Straus keeps our interest with often unusual quaffs, like Sur la Mer cider from the family-owned Drew Family Cellars winery in Philo 5 miles away.

Harbor House has accomplished a magical thing. Even as plate after plate arrived, I never felt stuffed, just supremely satisfied. Even as the meal stretched into three hours, I never got restless. And even as dishes can be a little weird, they’re always sincere.

Chef Kammerer harvests with love, and cooks with love, ands those are the most delicious flavors any diner could ask for.

Carey Sweet is a Sebastopol-based food and restaurant writer. Read her restaurant reviews every other week in Sonoma Life. Contact her at carey@careysweet.com.

Chef Matt Kammerer may be the only boss anywhere who is pleased when one of his sous chefs arrives late for work, with the excuse that the young man “had to hit the beach.”

That’s because Kammerer operates Harbor House, a sea-to-table restaurant inside the historic Harbor House Inn. Set atop a secluded, ocean-side cliff in the tiny village of Elk in Mendocino, Kammerer and his crew source most of their ingredients from the very landscape they admire daily, including seaweed, sea lettuce, abalone, crab, sea urchins and rockfish. A sous chef may run late sometimes since he specializes in collecting the daily bucket of ocean water from a prime cove near his home, that, once at the restaurant, will be turned into homemade sea salt.

Since opening in May, the novel concept has been a hit with diners, Kammerer said, with guests traveling from all across the Bay Area to dine at his 25-seat restaurant. Some stay overnight in the nine-room inn, and others come exclusively for the tasting menu-only experience that changes as frequently as the tides.

Calling his concept “refined new American with a coastal perspective,” Kammerer’s cooking really needs to be explored firsthand to truly understand it. The idea reminds me of Single Thread in Healdsburg, with its meticulously crafted, artfully presented small plates, where everything, from the ingredients down to the pottery bowls and hand-forged knives, has a story.

But rather than fussy and formal, as Single Thread is, Kammerer and the inn’s general manager Amanda Nemec keep things relaxed and almost homestyle. Even diners who may not appreciate unusual dishes such as morel mushrooms imbued with chile-spicy kosho and grilled pine essence from a nearby forest will fall in love with the graceful, friendly service and the living room-style mood.

Then, there’s the setting, which mesmerizes with its beauty from foggy dawn to shimmering sunset. Built in 1916, the redwood-trimmed inn originally was a corporate retreat for Goodyear Redwood Co., a lumber business harvesting massive numbers of Elk-area trees.

It was purchased eight years ago by Edmund Jin and his wife, Eva Lu, then extensively restored and renovated to the tune of $10 million. Jin is CEO of E&E Co. Ltd, a Bay-Area based manufacturer of luxury home goods, and it’s his classic leather and wood furniture you’ll see in the entry lounge.

The dining room is simpler, with tables draped in beige-gray burlap-style cloths and little adornment except a centerpiece carved wood display table. The plainness is all the better to focus on the spectacular Pacific Coast views of thrashing waves anchored by magnificent rock arches and caves.

Take a stroll on the deck outside the restaurant, and you’ll see the new culinary gardens, planted with delicacies like alpine strawberries and pineapple sage.

Each morning, Kammerer harvests from the garden, then clambers down a steep, winding pathway to the cove and private beach below.

There, amid pearlescent abalone shells scattered across the sand, he plucks seaweed to turn into the earthy kelp vinegar he uses to lightly dress a salad of bitter greens. He’s never been in better shape, he jokes, as he climbs back up the cliff.

If it seems an odd place for a high-end restaurant – Elk is home to 208 residents - Kammerer somewhat agrees.

To come here, he left a career as executive sous chef at Michelin three-starred Saison in San Francisco, after working at Michelin-starred In De Wulf in Belgium, Michelin three-starred Nihonryori Ryugin in Tokyo, and the World’s 50 Best Restaurants-rated Attica in Melbourne.

But now, even working nearly around the clock, he says he loves the bucolic area and connection with Earth.

Somehow, the tiny team of just four kitchen staff manages to create the food, including elaborate breakfasts for inn guests, all while baking their own pastries such as oolong-infused pound cake, churning their own gray-green sea lettuce-infused butter to slather on thick, crusty sourdough, and foraging their own mushrooms.

Based on eight to 10 courses ($150, plus $90 for wine pairings from the custom leather-bound, largely local list), the menu doesn’t offer much information.

“Abalone, sea vegetables, wild cabbage,” for example, brings a teal bowl with slices of the tender-chewy seafood crowned in yellow flower petals, slippery greens from nearby Greenwood Cove and an intriguing, briny dressing.

Servers don’t really explain what we’re eating, either, or how it’s prepared except for “steam and/or fire.” And that’s fine, because there’s no benchmark to compare this extraordinary cuisine to.

All I need to know is that one evening’s “artichoke, trout roe” brings a tiny bowl of shaved, crispy vegetable and salty fish eggs, while another evening’s “summer squash, green garlic and nori” delivers six bite-size morsels of soft-charred vegetable decorated in bright purple and green bits of brilliance.

Kammerer likes unexpected flavors and bold aromatics such as plump, al dente asparagus spears laced with grapefruit and nori, or turkey tail mushrooms dressed with wildflower honey, dried sorrel and lime.

Oils, custards, sauces and various unknown moistening agents somehow bring all ingredients together and add umami – we trust the chef, and it’s an exciting way to eat.

Notably, there’s very little meat on the menu. One evening, we savored an amuse of duck jerky glazed in preserved apples and espelette pepper from nearby Boonville, served in a rustic wood, lidded box.

That was followed by a mid-course of Muscovy duck, the tender slab aged 17 days and served rare with thick, sumptuous jus and just a simple flower on the plate – the sides of Mendocino wild rice, flowers, preserved vegetables and fresh garden leaves were presented in a woven basket, an iron pot and assorted bowls.

Desserts keep the same light but satisfying cuisine concept. Three tiny plates arrive in succession, precious with bites like grilled rhubarb kissed with pineapple sage and almond oil, or strawberries partnered with white chocolate and grilled honey.

All along the way, sommelier Corrina Straus keeps our interest with often unusual quaffs, like Sur la Mer cider from the family-owned Drew Family Cellars winery in Philo 5 miles away.

Harbor House has accomplished a magical thing. Even as plate after plate arrived, I never felt stuffed, just supremely satisfied. Even as the meal stretched into three hours, I never got restless. And even as dishes can be a little weird, they’re always sincere.

Chef Kammerer harvests with love, and cooks with love, and those are the most delicious flavors any diner could ask for.

Carey Sweet is a Sebastopol-based food and restaurant writer. Read her restaurant reviews every other week in Sonoma Life. Contact her at carey@careysweet.com.