Subversive Suppers

Sneak peeks into secret eatings

By JENNIFER CACICIO

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We were told to be at the house on the hill by 7pm. Exact coordinates were given, and we arrived a stone's throw from Somerville's Union Square on a recent chilly Friday night. With a few bottles of wine tucked beneath my arm, I rang the doorbell, and the host welcomed us inside.

The chef, whom I had met twice before, was busy chopping, steaming and sautéing in a kitchen thick with the smells of dinner. We said our hellos, then I continued on into the living room where there were Campari aperitifs, a large bowl of bean dip accompanied by a crusty loaf of bread and salt presented in a seashell. There were also nine other guests milling about. We were all there to have a meal together—though none of us had ever met.

"There is a new generation of culinarians, actively questioning the establishment, questioning it by acting, cooking [and] dining outside the bureaucratically controlled mainstream of American food," says killtherestaurant.com, a website (and forthcoming book) run by Michael Hebberoy, perhaps the poster boy for underground food culture here in the states. Back in 2001, he and Naomi Pomeroy began an illegal restaurant in Portland, Ore., that became so popular that it eventually morphed into the real thing. But after a well-publicized scandal (in which he fled town) led to the demise of his mini food empire in the Northwest, Hebberoy has returned to his grass roots. His website aims to be the "voyeurs' guide to the culinary underground" and serves as something of a meeting place or bulletin board for under the radar foodie happenings.

Supper clubs dance on the fine line between dinner party and illegal restaurant. It's basically just a bunch of hungry people getting together for a meal, yet once you start charging money at the door or passing around a donation jar, some would say it becomes something else. And according to the ones listed on Hebberoy's site—and the many more sure to be out there—they are happening everywhere. They might be held in an art gallery, an abandoned warehouse or a chef's apartment. Some include a theme or password, and oftentimes some kind of reading or performance. While living in New York, I once attended a vegan supper club at a loft in Bushwick, with a badass roof deck and three-piece band. But a few things are always guaranteed at these things. One, they're cooking up some mean grub. And two, they're doing it without the blessing of the powers that be.

When I first set out to track this culture down in Boston, I found this to be somewhat of a sore spot among local chefs. One who has recently opened a place of his own (legally, I might add) says, "I think it's great that people are doing this. I just don't think it's fair to glorify it when it's what we do every day. I mean, you try getting all the licenses and permits and all that. It takes so much time and money, but it's what you have to do if you want to cook for people."

On the one hand, I agree that law-abiding chefs have reason to feel shafted. Underground dinners don't report to the health department or the liquor licensing board, and therefore are technically illegal. (Consider: If someone got sick and died, who would be to blame?) Then again, supper clubs can be argued as simply a liberated, experimental way to dine.

But perhaps it's a bigger deal than one might expect. The most promising Boston supper club listed on Hebberoy's site was love+butter, self-proclaimed "tiny dinners" that gathered on weekends. I immediately tried to reserve a seat at an upcoming meal, but mere days later (coincidentally after the Boston Globe ran a piece about them on November 28, 2007, on the front page of the food section) love+butter posted a note on their now-defunct website thanking all who had indulged in their kitchen and saying goodbye. It seemed that a promising link to Boston's underground food scene had been cut off at the source.

But then a little birdie arrived in my inbox: an email from an old friend about a friend of his who'd been running a supper club since July. After a fair bit of talking, the supper-runner and I finally agreed to meet. Over coffee he explained that the idea for his dinners was hatched—perhaps like most—accidentally. Of course I can't tell you who he is or what his secret suppers are called (no one likes their dinner ruined), but I can give you the behind-the-scenes, and hence, the how-to. Once I attended his supper in Union Square, it wasn't four days later that I had him cooking in my own kitchen for the thirteen guests at my table. Consider this retold account as a call to arms.

Here's how it works: First, the locale is chosen. Next, the chef sends out snail mail invitations (to get on the mailing list you need to be added by a friend in the know) and guests reserve online, after which they are given the time and place. Strangers arrive with empty bellies and bottles of wine. Dinner is served family style over candlelight; courses come as they come. And this chef has a rule that I am quite partial to: Eat your neighborhood. He attempts to do most, if not all, of his shopping in the hood where the host resides. Whether it be home to Brazilian, Korean or Kosher communities, the food on the table will attest to it.

But truth be told, these dinners aren't really about the food. Even the chef himself insists that the grub is meant to add to the evening, not to distract. Though that's not to say it isn't tasty. At the first supper we had a zesty octopus and daikon salad, and steaming potato and rice cakes with quail eggs and a miso vinaigrette (among other things). For dessert we had roasted pears and a delicious baklava actually brought by a guest—a lovely interpretation of BYOB, the chef pointed out.

At the dinner hosted by my Brookline Village apartment, we began with Clear Flour bread and spreads such as anchovy butter and azuki bean. We had an inventive red quinoa risotto with goat cheese and proscuitto, and later a hearty venison stew served over mashed parsnips and potatoes. My boyfriend and fellow host made saffron and cinnamon ice cream, which the chef complemented perfectly with stewed raisins and figs.

But it's the experience, the conversation, the excitement of doing something out of the ordinary that makes these meals so fun. Among the guests were a carpenter, a tattoo artist, a skydiver, no less than three chocolatiers, a handful of healthcare researchers, siblings, couples, bartenders and more. As you might imagine, the discussions were lively, the wine was flowing and by the end of the evening, strangers were friends.

So how can you get yourself a reservation at one of these underground suppers? Simple. Just keep your ear to the ground. Or even better, start your own.