Long before the matsutake mushroom, madrona-bark cream, and nettle-seed dish made it onto Cafe Barjot’s menu in early September, it had been taking shape within chef Nick Coffey’s mind for weeks. Coffey had just gotten the first harvests of wild matsutakes when he took a trip to Orcas Island.
“I’d gone to Orcas to get away, but the matsutakes had just come in, so I was thinking about them. All the madrona trees were dropping their bark, so I foraged. There were nettles as well, but the nettles were really tall, and I thought of the nettle seeds my girlfriend had picked up for a condiment she was making.”
Back in Seattle, Coffey put together a dish that was captivating for both its simplicity and its creativity: a single matsutake mushroom—the cap lightly grilled and served gills up—next to a dollop of savory madrona-bark cream…
