Kitchen Table Beverly Looks To Scratch Surface Of City Dining Scene

BEVERLY, MA — Six months after Owner/Chef William Fogerty confirmed plans to open a new farm-to-table scratch restaurant on Cabot Street, Kitchen Table Beverly opened to strong local reviews in August.

Now Fogarty and General Manager Molly Bergner are looking to spread the word about the 140-set restaurant's atmosphere and dishes using local ingredients and a quarter-century of industry experience.

"We try to have a lot of unique offerings here and not go with what everyone else has on the bar scene," Fogarty told Patch on Wednesday. "A lot of them work with the same menus with a few little tweaks here and there. We try to be unto ourselves unique and set our own trends."

Using produce from New Entry Farms in Beverly, cheese from Valley View in Topsfield, and what Fogarty calls "clean kitchen" ingredients that do not contain additives, preservatives and dyes that he said "keeps the food real and honest," the Kitchen Table menus include dishes such as the Baked Native Hake with local Gloucester catch, giant lima bean ragout, marinated grilled pepper melange and garlic jalapeno chili crisp, as well as as a Supper Squash Ragout Pappardelle that includes local-sourced pappardelle, ragout of summer, farm tomatoes, confit garlic, herb pistou and white wine with real parmesan.

Bergner, who runs the front of the house, said that the space is broken up "slightly and subtly" in a way that it caters to whatever experience the diner is looking for in a night out.

"It can be your everyday place you go to, your special place to go, and we also have an area for an event," she said. "We've been looking to attract the slightly generation as well. We want everyone to feel welcome. You don't have to come to Kitchen Table and think you have to spend a certain amount of money."

The lighter fare bar menu includes several appetizers under $15 as well as specials like its "tailgate" which includes bacon-dusted popcorn, chili dogs, buttermilk onion rings with sink sauce and smoked chicken brochettes with tomatillo salsa all $12 or under.

"We're trying to bring fun back to dining," Fogarty said. "Sometimes it gets a little too serious and a little overdone. People forget that it's supposed to be fun."

Fogarty, who previously owned Scratch Kitchen in Salem, said one key to the Beverly location at 392 Cabot Street is the local farm and food sources.

"It makes our job easier because you don't have to mess with the food to make it taste good," he said. "You know it's already coming in as a quality product.

"We just try to be as wholesome as we can across the board."

Kitchen Table has many of the North Shore's best local craft brews on among its 24 taps and uses Maine Root sodas with no high-fructose corn syrup for its soft drinks and mixed cocktails.

He said as the restaurant becomes more entrenched in the neighborhood he expects to offer a revolving menu depending on the time of year.

"It won't be stagnant," he said. "We want to have seasonable dishes that people can look forward to."

Kitchen Table is open Tuesday through Sunday at 4 p.m. with the bar and 5 p.m. in the kitchen. The kitchen is open until 9 p.m. with the bar open until 10:45 p.m. and 11:45 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)