Hot menu alert: get your blue crab fix at Nico Oysters, fresh eats at Basic Kitchen

Fall into your plates

October 11, 2018

comment

Nico's Blue Crab Special includes 10 crabs for $26, served with drawn garlic butter, aioli, and a side of french fries. - ANDREW CEBULKA

Andrew Cebulka
Nico's Blue Crab Special includes 10 crabs for $26, served with drawn garlic butter, aioli, and a side of french fries.

We may not get the leaves changing color here in the Lowcountry, but we do have restaurant's changing their (menu) stripes, ever so slightly, with some autumnal adjustments.

Over on Shem Creek, Nico Oysters + Seafood is serving up daily specials Mon.-Thurs., from blue crabs to baked oysters. On the peninsula, Basic Kitchen is shaking things up with new chef, Nick Wilber, at the helm, while still keeping things fresh AF (think snapper crudo and wild rice). Get all the tasty deets below:

NICO

There's nothing like a freshly steamed blue crab. Crack that sucker open — and make sure there's some melted butter within arm's reach (depending where you're from, of course, we know butter on crab is, to some, a sin) — and you've got yourself one messy and delicious party. While most of our from-the-sea fetes take place on newspaper-draped picnic tables, sometimes we wish we could enjoy the fruits de mer in the comfort of a chic restaurant. The Blue Crab Special ($26) includes 10 blue crabs, drawn garlic butter, aioli, and a side of french fries every Tuesday.

NICO's new fall menu features new menu items like duck breast a l'orange with tomato provencal and orange butter; shrimp and escargot served with a baguette; and gnocchi Parisien with shrimp, calamari, broccolini, and merguez.

Location Details NICO

Dinner (Daily), Lunch (Fri.-Sun.)Sun. brunch 10:30 a.m.-2 p.m.

French and Seafood

Map

Steve Freihon
Roasted Wreckfish at BK

Basic Kitchen

Over at Basic Kitchen, new executive chef Nick Wilber launches the restaurant's new fall dinner and cocktail menus starting next week, Oct. 15. According to a press release, Wilber's menu "stays true to Basic Kitchen's mantra of serving seasonal, local ingredients that are nourishing and energizing while introducing some more substantial and satisfying dishes to the mix."

Related Basic Kitchen brings on NYC's Fat Radish team to oversee day-to-day operations: Simply radishing

Basic Kitchen brings on NYC's Fat Radish team to oversee day-to-day operations

Simply radishing

This February, Basic Kitchen hosted NYC restaurant The Fat Radish (Basic Kitchen co-owner Ben Towill opened the spot nine years ago, but had since left the restaurant) for a Friday night bar takeover and a Saturday evening four-course dinner crafted by executive chef Nick Wilber. At the time, Towill said of the pop-up event: "When we opened The Fat Radish 9 years ago, one of the most exciting things we did were pop-up events. We did them all over the world — in Paris, Rio, Tel Aviv, to name a few. And while I am no longer a part of the restaurant, we are definitely still great friends and I love what they are doing."Such great friends, in fact, that Basic Kitchen decided to permanently collaborate with the Fat Radish team — Nick Wilber now serves as executive chef with Natalie Freihon taking on daily operations alongside current GM Kellie Holmes.

By Mary Scott Hardaway

Eat

New menu items include roasted Wreckfish with three pea salad, arugula, and green beans; mushroom rillette with grits sourdough, grainy mustard, and pickled cornichons; a 'farmer's bowl' with potatoes, string beans, local cherry tomatoes, kale and hemp seed pesto, and wild rice.

Basic Kitchen's new cocktail menu features fresh choices like Stalk or Heart, made with vodka, St. Germain, celery juice, and lime and saline and the Lean Mean Green, with tequila, a parsley cilantro verdita, lemon, and chili salt.