Spruce Tips? The One Dish You Need to Try at Plum Cafe & Kitchen

Foodies have been waiting more than three years for the opening of the Plum Cafe and Kitchen in Ohio City. But their patience has been rewarded with a bold, funky, sometimes off-the-wall New American menu that even chef and co-owner Brett Sawyer wasn’t so sure about. During the restaurant’s first few weeks in April, Saywer and his kitchen crew served only lunch and evening cocktails in the bar area. The strategy gave Sawyer time to tinker with dinner items before launching the menu in mid-May. “We would test out dishes on people sitting at the bar,” he says. Now-popular offerings such as crispy chicken feet may have been too intimidating otherwise. “I might not have done [them] if I didn’t have people sitting there telling me how much they enjoyed it,” he adds. The results show his fearlessness in the kitchen. The creamed spelt ($9) uses familiar ingredients such as English and sugar snap peas with an unexpected tarragon cream cheese sauce and blackened lemon. But the dish’s most interesting element is the spruce tips — the budding ends of the coniferous evergreen. “You get these little pops of brightness and citrus in every bite,” says Sawyer. “It just really marries everything together.” 4133 Lorain Ave., Cleveland, 216-938-8711, theplumcafeandkitchen.com