A Farm Coast Feast

Photos by Michael Piazza / Styled by Catrine Kelty

Growing up in Boston and on the south coast of Massachusetts, I have always been impressed by this region’s unique bounty. We are so lucky to live in an area that’s home both to robust fishing towns and agrarian farming communities located so close to the city. 

This has inspired my career working in restaurants that celebrate this accessibility to farm and sea. When we opened Alcove on Boston’s Lovejoy Wharf, we often spoke about the “Farm Coast” as our inspiration. The more we tried to explain this to guests the more confusing it became, and eventually we reverted to “Coastal New England,” an idea people could comprehend much better! 

But this nuanced shift in the restaurant’s concept has never stopped me from wanting to tell the stories about the Farm Coast, its fishermen and farmers working in such close proximity. To explain: It’s unusual for acreage available for farming to be located along the coast; we typically save coastland for homes, business and trade, not for farmers and winemakers. So it is truly 

remarkable that New England is blessed with this un-usual landscape of farming and fishing communities flourishing side by side, by land and by sea. As we ease into summer, I am inspired by local farmers and fishermen and their hard-fought bounty; it stirs in me a renewed sense of community and place. Think about the farm share you are participating in, your fa-vorite farm stand or the places you go to pick blueber-ries with your kids. Below are four recipes that remind me of this bounty. Yes, they are set up as a complete dinner party—with a canapé, appetizer, entrée and dessert—but mainly this menu is a celebration of the seasonal ingredients I love to cook with. Ingredients that remind me why I love this season: picking herbs from my mom’s garden for salads (hint: Fresh herb stems are great in salads if chopped really fine), crabbing with my dad and visiting local farmers markets. For a lot of us in the restaurant business, this is the kind of nostalgic stuff we crave in the summertime. 

This story appeared in the Summer 2025 issue.