Writing about food in Montclair is like shooting trout in a barrel; there's no sport in it because it's so easy.
It's not every city where you can walk up the main drag at any point and manage to eat well. Just one example is that four really good restaurants -- Déj࠶u Thai food, Rocky's West Indian food, Indigo Smoke barbecue and Blue Sky Cafe for contemporary American cuisine -- are all on one block of Bloomfield Avenue.
But there's so much more to talk about than what's on Bloomfield Avenue. Places that really intrigue me most are smack in the middle of residential neighborhoods in this urban cultural and culinary Mecca, like Nicolo's Italian Bakery on Baldwin Street, which has superb bread and great prepared foods for take-out.
I live in a place where you have to get in your car to buy a carton of milk, so I love the idea of folks being able to walk out their doors, stroll down to the corner and bring home great food, and that's what Montclair is all about.
A perfect example of this is Sweet Potato & Pecan, a tiny, pretty storefront take-out on Forest Street that opened last June. Ricardo Belnavis, a classically trained chef from Kingston, Jamaica, and his wife, Claudette, originally from St. Elizabeth, Jamaica, always wanted a small food shop of their own, so while pursuing other projects through the years, they were also searching for a perfect location.
They finally chose a spot on the corner of Label Street, because they believed this particular neighborhood really needed a Southern-style/Caribbean place with good food at moderate prices. Turns out they must have been right: All that homework is finally paying off; Sweet Potato & Pecan is becoming not only a neighborhood favorite, but a subject for discussion among local foodies.
I first heard about Belnavis' signature sweet potato and pecan pie while enjoying dessert with friends at another city restaurant. Then my friend, Sandy, suggested I try his macaroni and cheese, pronouncing it "excellent.
"Never one to pass up a trip to Montclair to see what's new, I visited Sweet Potato & Pecan a couple of months ago, bought some take-out and was really impressed with the food and the friendliness. So I went back to visit the Belnavises a couple of weeks ago, and was charmed by their story and their sincerity. These are truly nice people who put out some terrific food with a lot of pride.
First, everything is made from scratch in the gleaming kitchen at the rear of the store. Cooking duties are shared between Belnavis and chef Audley Gayle, who, by sheer coincidence, grew up in St. Elizabeth and, as a young man, once worked for Claudette's father.
Anyway, it's a good thing for us he wound up in this kitchen. He and Belnavis have designed a breakfast, lunch and dinner menu with a mixture of both cuisines, which are connected in many ways by culture. For breakfast (8 to 10:30 a.m.), you can have it Southern-style, with grits and salmon cakes, or Jamaican, with ackee and codfish ($7), jerk chicken livers and eggs ($5), black-eyed pea fritters ($1) or codfish cakes ($1.50).
For lunch and dinner, Sweet Potato & Pecan offers entrees like oxtails ($9.50), curried goat ($8.50), boneless curried chicken ($8), fried chicken ($7), barbecued chicken ($8), jerk chicken ($9.50) and barbecued ribs ($14.40 slab; $8.50 1/2 slab). There are also daily specials like escovitch (Jamaican-style whole fish), roast chicken stuffed with calaloo greens or jerk pork. Entrees come with your choice of two side dishes, or you can purchase a side dish separately for $3.
Oxtails are light and tender, but full of flavor. Curried chicken is wonderful -- almost sweet, but with a nice kick. Jerk chicken is also worth trying; it's fresh and moist and seasoned well with the traditional rub. Barbecue sauce is a surprise at Sweet Potato & Pecan. It's pure Memphis -- smoky and sweet, with just a hint of vinegar. Rib meat falls off the bone; chicken is slow-cooked and juicy.
Mac and cheese is done in the subtle Southern style, creamy and mild. Collard greens are more vinegary than I'm used to, but I liked them. Candied yams are served whole and are way too sweet for my taste, but that could be just me. I'd go back again just for the buttery cornbread, which is somehow light and dense at the same time.
Belnavis uses his experience as a French-trained pastry chef to bring his desserts to another level. Often, Southern-style cobblers and cakes can be cloyingly sweet, but these aren't. The pastry on the traditional peach cobbler is as flaky and perfect as any I've tried, and the peach filling stands up to it well. Jamaican bread pudding is nicely executed and laced with rum, but the real standout is the best-selling sweet potato and pecan pie; it is a wonder, combining the best of the two traditional dishes.
Jamaican cooking techniques come naturally to Belnavis; his parents owned a restaurant in Kingston, and he grew up helping out in the kitchen. He met his wife while they were students at New York's Herbert Lehman College. His parents wanted him to get a business degree so he wouldn't wind up in a restaurant and her parents wanted her to major in English.
Well, they both did what their parents asked, but life has a way of stepping in: She has developed fragrances as a perfumer for more than 30 years now, and he went to culinary school after college, graduating, then working in upscale hotels and restaurants as a pastry chef.
Now their children, Lauren and Stephen, are in college and working on degrees designed to keep them out of the restaurant business, but it's up for grabs how that will go. Both help out in the store when they can.
There isn't much room to expand Sweet Potato & Pecan. In good weather, there are cafe tables outside, and if business warrants, the thought is to break a hole in the shop's wall and expand to a full-service restaurant. There are lots of possibilities for a place with good food to do well in Montclair. I've already heard about a place around the corner that just installed an open pit for grilling meats. Maybe I'll head back up soon and take a look.
