Can-do Attitude
We'll reach for a bottle of craft beer over a can of Budweiser any day. But Crumb and Spigot chef and co-owner Karen Gorman convinces us to put aside our beer snobbery and enjoy the succulent-on-the-inside, crispy-on-the-outside pleasure of the beer can chicken ($19), cooked — you guessed it — with a bird jammed onto a half-full can of the Great American beer. "It adds a little bit of moisture to the cooking process on the inside," she says. To make the straightforward dish, Ohio chicken is brined overnight and cooked on a Budweiser can in a convection oven until 80 percent done. Then it's finished in a wood-fired oven and served with roasted carrots and fingerling potatoes drizzled with a chimichurri made from carrot tops. "It's fun and it's good and it's simple," Gorman says. "Good food does not have to be complicated." Although Gorman usually takes the dish off the menu for the winter, regulars asked to keep it. She obliged but still only makes 12 each night, so it's more of an insider reward for dining early. "There's rarely a night we don't sell out," she says.16783 Chillicothe Road, Bainbridge, 440-384-3035, crumbandspigot.com
