KIN was a five course tasting with an optional beverage pairing or drinks from the full bar. Each menu runs about 5 weeks and is unique and changes with the seasons along with being designed to reflect the art on display. This season the art was by Esther Oppenheimer, another Boise resident. The communal seating was at a long line of adjacent 2-top tables and the menu. Due to the set-up they do not accept odd number party reservations. Chef Kris Komori is a fan of the farm-to-table movement and works with the growing seasons of Idaho along with being active in his community. His abilities won him the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Mountain Region in 2023 after being a semi-finalist five times. Next to the dining room was a lounge and a cocktail bar. Various members of the kitchen staff introduced each course including Chef Komori who also came out to greet the diners after the meal. Another member of the staff closed the evening with an acapello song. It was a lovely evening and one you should reserve if you are in Boise. One note was that the beverage pairings were very small pours so you might want to allow time for a drink in the bar first and the noise level made it hard to talk to your partner across the table.
Set-Up
Food
An amuse bouche was a small pretzel roll stuffed with caramelized celery root, cream cheese, pickled celery root, Swiss chard and onion. The roll was topped with sesame seeds which gave it even more flavor and texture. The roll was perfectly soft yet chewy and the balance of filling to roll was good. It was a tasty way to start.
Tête de Moine (a semi-hard raw cow’s milk cheese) was with tomato, grape, and shiso then topped with a nori lavash. The cheese was cut into feathery florets and the gel dots were tomato water. The grapes and tomatoes were fresh with some pickled and they were lucky to get some end of the season harvest. The dish had lots of flavor and the various bits worked into winning combinations.
Butternut Consommé contained some pastas filled with squash and alongside were shrimp, togarashi (spicy mix of ginger, chili powder, seaweed and yuzu), pepita and white chocolate. The broth was made with cocoa butter and steeped shrimp shells and had a wonderful depth of flavor. The pasta stars were a tad thick for me but tasted good. The shrimp on the accompanying plate were marvelous, barely cooked, and so sweet. Some toasted pepitas and marigold petals added to the white chocolate powder seasoning. It was a wonderful course.
Sturgeon was underneath matsutake, spruce, tofu and herbs. Plants are an important part of Oppenheimer’s works and this dish was designed to represent that part. Tofu purée and spruce oil were on the bottom as well as some broth made from matsutake bits. Topping that was a perfectly cooked piece of sturgeon, some pickled mushrooms and a dashi steeped with nettle broth. Water green, chervil and many other tiny fresh greens made the roof of the dish. It was excellent, although it was difficult to eat with the spoon given to the diner.
Paper is another regular component of the artist’s work and the next bit was indicative of that. Some cherry blossom sorbet was topped with cranberry and sheets of rice paper. It was an interesting mix of sweet and sour and everyone got a different little spoon to eat it with.
Duck was in 3 ways with sweet and habandada peppers (a sweet heatless habanero pepper), orange kosho and fried rice. A piece of roasted duck breast was first cooked sous vide to 54°C and then roasted. It turned out to be tough and dry. The duck sausage with made with orange, garlic and ginger but had a mushy texture. Both of these were topped with sweet charred peppers and sitting on the fried rice. The side roulade was made with leg meat, orange and topped with kosho. The sauce on the plate was sweet and made me think of a “sweet and sour” dish at a Chinese takeout when eating it with the rice. This plate didn’t work for me.
Pavlova was made with apple, pear, sesame and caramel. The artist liked the tactile process of art and this was the thinking when the pastry chef created this Pavlova, a meringue based dessert. It was to represent the broken shards that happen in the process of making pottery. This dessert had a molasses crust topped with panna cotta then pieces of apple, pear, crab apples and meringue and finally cookies and brittle. It was not too sweet but filled with wonderful flavor and textures galore. The apples managed to maintain some crispness and the crust was delicious.
As a parting gift, we each were given a pair of pistachio butter cookies which were nice and a live song.
