Mary Nelen photo

A small plate of sweetness

Tabella Restaurant

28 Amity St., Amherst
413-253-0220
Small Plates $3.50 to $14
Sun-Thur 5-10 p.m.
Fri-Sat 5 p.m.-1 a.m.

There is a little restaurant near the little movie theater in Amherst serving little dishes. Described on the menu as "Small Plates Farm Fresh," Tabella embraces the "small plate" movement, offering the Spanish tradition of tapas: small portions, big taste. No fewer than 15 local farms provide dairy, greens, meat and fruit. Some of the beers are local and the hard cider is from Colrain. A fish dish on the menu is "wild caught" in Rhode Island. Other fish offerings are either line caught or farmed in Turner's Falls. Did I mention everything is organic?

A lovely restaurant with an outdoor cafe in summer and a romantic ambiance in winter, Tabella looks like the sort of place that supports local farming. Inside, on a chalk board, a salad special from Simple Gifts Farm in Amherst seals the deal. There is something to all this local eating, rather like the food revolution initiated by Alice Waters and others in California over 20 years ago. The local movement says the secret to getting the best flavor from food is to eat it as local and in-season as possible.

To test this dictum, order the salad special from Simple Gifts and while eating it, close your eyes and concentrate on the variety of tastes in the greens. Each leaf has it's own personality. The grapefruit vinaigrette provides some citrus that make those greens sing. Is it possible to get the same effect from a bag of mixed greens from Stop and Shop or through a California-based distributor at another good restaurant? Like well-brought up children, food benefits from a natural environment of care and nurturing.

Take the Deep Root Farm Organic Beet Salad with candied pistachios, mixed greens and chili ginger vinaigrette. Sure, the nuts are nice and the chili ginger vinaigrette is sort of interesting, but the beets, locally grown and kept in a root cellar at the restaurant, provide a vibrant explosion of taste.

The small plate thing works well when food calls for deep concentration. You don't have an option when ordering the Almond Crusted Does' Leap Farm organic chevre. This goat cheese dish is served all by itself in a little round disk. Perhaps because the Vermont-made chevre is award-winning and hard to come by, no bread, not even a cracker, is provided to distract your taste buds. Of course, there is a Wheatberry Bakery organic bread on the menu for those unaccustomed to eating award-winning chevre with a fork and knife.

After a couple of salads, the killer cheese and abundant and healthy bread, perhaps the next move might be the black peppercorn lemon-zested chickpea fries with garlic aioli. It has got to be tough to grind chickpeas into the shape of fries, somehow involve pepper and lemon, and end up with such a taste. The homemade mayonnaise is fitting for these gourmet fries, and this is a pretty nice way to be both virtuous and satisfied with a familiar crunch of something well-fried, yet much funkier in flavor than plan old spuds.

One small plate piqued our hungry interest: fried provolone-stuffed green olives. The combination of brine and aged cheese had little impact except making us very thirsty. The taste improved with the addition of a nice Chardonnay, but then that's true with lots of food.

Although there was nothing terribly local about the olives, the calamari was caught in Point Judith in Rhode Island. Unfortunately, this squid was merely a limp participant in a noisy melange of lychee glaze, black sesame-crusted cashews and pickled local organic daikon radish. On the other hand, the pan-seared, cage-free duck breast was extremely moist and featured a rich flavor just this side of gamey. Beautifully prepared with a rare pink interior and slathered in a cherry glaze, the thinly sliced medallions of duck decorated a dash of savory mashed potatoes. This could be one of the best dishes in the Valley.

Our desert was a toasted almond teacake with blood orange sauce and fresh whipped cream. The cake was moist and tasted slightly tasting of ginger, embraced by an orange sauce that tumbled down from the cake to the outer reaches of the plate. A sprig of mint decorated the whipped cream.

The service here is as good as the food.