housemade sarde shell pasta – foraged mushrooms, soft cooked egg, green garlic pesto. This is my favorite dish at The Lake House hands down. It’s an al-dente pasta, lovingly wrapped in clingy egg yolk with pesto and I swear a hint of truffle. Just pop these in your mouth, one at a time, and savor the chew, the silkiness, and the richness of this dish. Like carbonara moved up north in Italy.

honey nut cheesecake – with house fennel seed granola and raspberry sorbet. That’s a squash cheesecake that tastes kind of like sweet potato, but a little more stringy and not nearly as sweet. The granola is addicting and the sorbet is a punch of tart flavor to mix things up. It oddly works?

braised beef short rib cappelletti – baby beets, watercress, black truffle truffle sauce, fresh horseradish. Precious squid ink tinted with truffle oil topping delicate pillows of cappelletti. It’s a bit of the ocean mixed with a bit of the farm, and if I could, I’d lick the sauce out of the bowl. Beets and watercress for balance to cut the richness of the dish.

grilled niman ranch pork chop – quince, brussels sprouts, baby turnips, anson mills white cheddar grits. Look at the color on the pork chop – see how tender and juicy it looks? That’s how pork chops should be done! The grits give it a bit of a southern flare.

mad hatcher farms chicken in three preparations – mashed yukon potatoes, crispy brussels sprouts, fermented fresno chile hot sauce, chicken gravy, smoked blue cheese aioli. Fried chicken – nothing fancy here in terms of spices, but it’s juicy and tender. Those hot wings – they are extremely spicy! Grilled pesto chicken seems positively boring compared to the rest of the plate, but it’s the healthy meat to take home for lunch tomorrow. Mashed potatoes – they tended to pool with oil, but they are so smooth and truffled, which makes up for all sorts of sins in my book. Brussel sprouts – yay, veggies! Roasted the way you would want them to be and a good balance for all the strong flavors in this sharing platter. It’s probably enough food for 3 people.

curry roasted cauliflower – curry spice, green apple, herb hummus, preserved lemon, kale pesto. The cauliflower itself could have used just a little more roasting for a bit more char, but one really just cares about the combination of curry, apples, and pesto. It’s a party of flavors that have great chemistry!

grilled octopus – with chorizo aioli, green chickpeas, fennel, castelvetrano olive. Nice char, but I didn’t taste much chorizo in the aioli. Amazingly fresh chickpeas for a nice bright spring flavor in the middle of winter and a perfectly cooked tendril that wasn’t too chewy or too mushy.