Comfort Food on a Dime
Nick Macksood
The Edgartown Diner is a happy respite from its high-end, white-collared neighbors in the heart of Main St. A throwback to the 50s, the diner is decorated with classic Americana: checked tiles, red plush booths, and other nostalgic ephemera on the walls puts one at ease while luxuriating in the morning with a coffee and the newspaper–This Week, perhaps?
And comfort is what owner Ralston Francis and his diner are all about. Specializing in Jamaican and Southern comfort food, it is one of the best spots in Edgartown to grab breakfast, lunch, brunch, or dinner.
Our smorgasbord for the day began with breakfast: Southern eggs benedict on cornbread topped with sausage gravy and fried chicken breasts. Woah. The combo of the gravy and the egg yolk was, well, gravy: dunk your toast in it, dip that double-battered panko-breaded chicken in it, or just use that sweet, crumbly cornbread as a edible mop.
A light lunch was in order after such a scandalously good opener. Thus, a simple arugula salad tossed with bleu cheese, walnuts, and balsamic vinaigrette. Oh, and topped with an encore of the panko-chicken. Oh, well. Far worse things can happen than a double helping of extraordinary fried chicken. The whole ensemble was a terrific mélange of flavor and texture: the subtle pepperiness of the arugula was thinned out by the creamy bleu cheese, which in turn complemented both the crispy chicken and the acidity of the vinaigrette. Add walnuts for crunch and voilà, the Beethoven’s 9th of flavor.
Dinner featured Ralston’s own jerk chicken over rice pilaf: a divine inspiration that honestly reminded me of home. I’m not Jamaican, nor was I born in the 50s, but my shoulders sank just a little further when the sweet and spicy chicken greeted my tongue with a firm handshake. The classic vanilla shake for dessert, with the sparkling maraschino cherry on top, was almost too much for my heavy heart–and stomach–to handle.
Chef Ralston and his team at the Edgartown Diner are certainly making a splash during their first summer of service on the island. And their latest decision to keep late night hours to catch the hungry looking crowds returning from a night out in Edgartown is one that should cement their future as a Main Street mainstay.
