The Blue Goat Restaurant is a beautiful new addition to downtown Amity. We stopped in as an after thought on our way back from the beach. Actually we stopped off at our old favorite Fresh Pallet which is now called Cork. They moved across the street to a bigger building and the move was not successful from my perspective. OK, I'll admit it I'm just not a fan of country music. It was blasting out of a boom box as we walked in the door and I never got over it. I was wondering what kind of red wine would go with country music, and would it come in a glass or a Styrofoam cup? (Or not cup at all?) It makes me sad to no longer like this place, it use to be one of my favorite places to stop. After waiting for a long time to get any service the idea of heading over to Amity popped into my head. The drive from the Bellevue cut off over to Amity is beautiful! And, the Blue Goat is worth the drive.The decor of the Blue Goat is amazing. Almost everything
looks to have been re-purposed which I really like. The chairs are all old school room chairs, either on their original legs, or custom welded to the tops of old discs from a combine. Their is one thing that was not recycled, and that is the custom counter top that wraps around from the front of the restaurant toward the gigantic wood-fired cob oven in the back. It's bird's eye maple and it is beautiful. When you run your hands over the counter you can still feel the subtle waves of the grain pattern underneath.
And the food is as good as the decor. We had three items which we split between us. You kind of have to have something straight from the over, so we ordered a mozzarella cheese pizza. It's a thin crust is spread with just the right amount of sauce, and quickly cooked in the hot oven. We added a wonderful salad which came with fresh goat cheese and roasted hazelnuts. We also shared the humus plates which comes with cooked greens including nettles which I'd never had before. We also enjoyed a glass of Remy's Red which paired up beautifully with the pizza.
I've said before that the wine industry encourages the renewal of towns in which it is found. No where is that more true that in Amity. The town is being transformed, from the new sidewalks on the eastern edge of town which nicely frame the new fire station to the new old time street lights that line the main drag. The folks at Coelho Winery have been working hard with the city of Amity to restore it's main street. They are doing great work. I have a feeling the success of the Blue Goat will fuel even more new business in town. It's a funky mix of cool restaurants, antique shops and store fronts from which it is difficult to guess their purpose. Go visit the Blue Goat right away. I'll try Corked again soon and hope that what I experienced was an anomaly. I really hope it was.