“Red snapper, flashy with a spinach pesto and happily plated with roasted onions and smashed potatoes pocked with olives, took a liking to the shellfish-infused butter sauce the kitchen whipped up.”
A short stroll up Centennial Avenue in Cranford from landmark restaurant A Toute Heure sits the intriguingly named 100 Steps Supper Club and Raw Bar. Smile at this not-so-in-house joke. It’s the heel-to-toe step count from Mama Restaurant to lovingly conceived Baby Restaurant, as divined by owners Andrea and Jim Carbone.
A Toute Heure, never light on diner traffic—and diner traffic from near and far, given the restaurant’s stellar reputation as a place for exquisite plates of carefully sourced, skillfully prepared food—begged for offspring. The Carbones, and their executive chef Kara Decker, fielded pleas from their fans for more, for another place to eat and learn from the folks who understand so well how to give a restaurant a singular voice.
They didn’t want to shortchange A Toute Heure in the slightest; not their religion. They didn’t want to leave the neighborhood; it’s their home. They didn’t want to miss a beat, ever; their mission is pure, their ethic unshakeable. When a place up the street came on the market, they jumped. Rather, they took that 100-step journey and found the perfect partner for A Toute Heure.
Jennifer Lavelle/Courtesy of Andrea Carbine
Where A Toute Heure is intimate, 100 Steps is social. It’s the difference between a tete-a-tete and a party. But don’t think noisy and uncontrolled: 100 Steps is as smart food-focused as its parent restaurant. It’s the atmosphere that’s different, open and airy, casual in a bump-into-friends, strike-up-a-conversation-with-strangers way. Since it opened a year and a half ago, 100 Steps has become a spot where folks drop in for some oysters at the Raw Bar Happy Hour Thursday through Saturdays from 4 to 5:30, then return a day or three later with the family for the Sunday Supper menu. It’s neighborhood-y, even though—as with A Toute Heure—diners are traveling a distance to partake in the hospitality and soul-satisfying fare.
I came for the oysters, scarfing down in short order Wiley Points, briny, yet meaty, from Damariscotta, Maine; Island Creeks, which finished with a snappily sweet tang, from Duxbury, MA; and Fin de la Baies, subtle and coy, from New Brunswick in Canada. Maine came to our table again, in the form of a peekeytoe crab remoulade, a chop of the sweetest crab on the planet and cornichons, capers, parsley and lemon, all bound by an aioli brightened by crème fraiche. My, this was yar.
The scallop ceviche was rockin’. Given sizzle by a shot of Calabrian chili oil and calmed by a thyme-laced buttermilk aioli, this reinvention of a standard had an elusive element to it—a riff of umami powered by miso that tasted at once charred and sweet.
Jennifer Lavelle/Courtesy of Andrea Carbine
Clam chowder plumped by littlenecks and made hearty by potatoes not just boiled or baked but given the slow-cook of confit status, should be ordered not by the cup, but the gallon. If you’re an Ironbound regular and high on the classic shrimp with garlic staple found everywhere in that ‘hood, don’t pass up a chance to up your game with the local version: Here, shrimp is sautéed with pimenton, a smoked paprika, then given a bath in butter refreshed with cilantro and sideshows of tomato and arugula. Talk about eating and learning. While we’re on the subject, 100 Steps’ charred octopus is one for the textbooks, served as it is with creamy cannelini beans, slivers of red onion and a crème fraiche topper energized by more of that smoky pimenton.
Jennifer Lavelle/Courtesy of Andrea Carbine
Only the roasted cauliflower, mushy and overwrought with a bitter pesto and served with radishes whose pepperiness wasn’t the appropriate counterpoint, didn’t make the grade in our opening rounds.
But gnocchi, sitting pretty with shiitake confit in a miraculously light buttery fondue of a sauce topped with shreds of crisped sage, warmed us. I couldn’t stop myself from hoarding the entrée known as “K’s Braise,” as Provencal a rabbit stew as you can find this side of Aix, cosseted with polenta and dotted with green olives, pancetta and currants. Everything that should be there was there.
Red snapper, flashy with a spinach pesto and happily plated with roasted onions and smashed potatoes pocked with olives, took a liking to the shellfish-infused butter sauce the kitchen whipped up. If you have kids aboard, consider booking here on a Tuesday, which is Taco Night, complete with live music. Ours loved the fish tacos, stuffed with pollock, as well as the chicken tacos.
Jennifer Lavelle/Courtesy of Andrea Carbine
I only wish my own childhood included 100 Steps’ caramel banana pudding. Vanilla drop cookies! A pop of sea salt in the caramel! Modern meets Harriet Nelson. Chocolate But gnocchi, sitting pretty with shiitake confit in a miraculously light buttery fondue of a sauce topped with shreds of crisped sage, warmed us. I couldn’t stop myself from hoarding the entrée known as “K’s Braise,” as Provencal a rabbit stew as you can find this side of Aix, cosseted with polenta and dotted with green olives, pancetta and currants. Everything that should be there was there.
Red snapper, flashy with a spinach pesto and happily plated with roasted onions and smashed potatoes pocked with olives, took a liking to the shellfish-infused butter sauce the kitchen whipped up. If you have kids aboard, consider booking here on a Tuesday, which is Taco Night, complete with live music. Ours loved the fish tacos, stuffed with pollock, as well as the chicken tacos.
I only wish my own childhood included 100 Steps’ caramel banana pudding. Vanilla drop cookies! A pop of sea salt in the caramel! Modern meets Harriet Nelson. Chocolate cake with a fudge brownie base comes with sour cream ice cream and a fudge sauce and English toffee AND salted pecans. Can life get any better? Yes. Yes, if you remember to ask for peanut butter chocolate chip cookies in a to-go bag.
The name 100 Steps
Jennifer Lavelle/Courtesy of Andrea Carbine
might, for some, inspire all sorts of puns, gimmicky one-liners and general silliness. I can’t do that: It’s too hard to find a casual restaurant with this level of conscientiousness; any assessment must be serious. The folks behind the scenes here set the bar high with A Toute Heure, yet managed to hit the heights again with a restaurant completely different in attitude and atmosphere. As I left 100 Steps, I plotted: Some night, soon, I’m going to eat dinner at both 100 Steps and A Toute Heure. I can do it, I know I can. EDGE
Editor’s Note: Andy Clurfeld has been shouldering the load on restaurant reviews since the second issue of EDGE. During that time, she was a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist in Public Service for her work exposing the flaws, injustices and abuses in New Jersey’s property tax system. Andy also has published in-depth reporting on a range of topics, including criminal street gangs, agriculture, politics and the environment. A longtime member of the James Beard Restaurant & Chef Awards Committee, she is a specialist in artisan wines and recently was appointed Wine Director at Buy-Rite Corporation, implementing educational programs, coordinating special events and developing artisan wine sections for select stores.
