Dining Review: Matunuck Atelier in Wakefield

Perry Raso's second, more contemporary post elevates Rhode Island-sourced shellfish and seafood in a more central South County location.

1 hour ago

Karen Deutsch,

Ceviche. Photography by Angel Tucker

PERHAPS THE MOST UNUSUAL THING about Perry Raso — the one thing that separates him from nearly every other Rhode Island restaurateur — is that people across the state feel protective of him. He’s been a leader in the Rhode Island aquaculture community, harvesting oysters in Potter Pond for more than twenty years, eventually building Matunuck Oyster Bar on its shores. When that restaurant burnt down last year, it wasn’t just the beachfront neighbors who showed up in spirit and support — the entire state did.

Lobster-vanilla dumplings. Photography by Angel Tucker

Matunuck’s identity has always been homegrown, a rarity in the field of cooking given that kitchens are often bringing a distant homeland — Europe, Asia, Latin America — to a local audience. There are certainly a large handful of seafood restaurants across the state but few — Dune Brothers is an exception — owned by individuals who touch every part of the operation.

So it’s not surprising that Raso’s newest venture, Matunuck Atelier, is already crowded. It sits just five miles from where Matunuck Oyster Bar pitches its summer tent until the restaurant is rebuilt — close enough to pull its regulars in. That’s not to say the two dining rooms overlap; far from it.

The original Matunuck was born from something similar to a beach shack perched on the pond. Even as it expanded, and more so as it sits under a tent, a meal feels like lucky real estate: sunshine on your face, sand between your toes, a visceral immediacy to the waters that house your food. You might be paying $30 for a lobster roll, but the mood is so casual that a bathing suit under your clothes seems de rigueur, as does salt on your skin.

Gochujang-glazed halibut. Photography by Angel Tucker

Matunuck Atelier, on the other hand, comes at seafood from a different angle. The restaurant is on a busy strip in Wakefield, the building is entirely new, and the interior is decidedly glossy. It’s sprawling in many ways: Staff is counted by the dozen, diners are counted by the hundreds, textiles and accents are too numerous to count at all. The walls, covered in sleek midcentury-grained wood, curve upward like the bulkhead of a ship, with thick wooden shutters over the windows. A behemoth bar sits to the side, anchored in brass and glass and home to thirty people. Blue-gray walls, a chandelier that undulates like a school of krill, and sconces that hang like beads of water all play a part in an aquatic-themed universe that isn’t near the water but reenvisions it from the inside out.

Design is paramount at this Matunuck and that extends to the food as well. Tableware is all evocative: Ceramic bowls resemble sea urchins and sculpted glass dishes shimmer like the sun hitting water on a summer day. Even plant life abounds — philodendrons hang from the ceilings, potted palms stretch out in the spaces between diners, bouquets of fresh lilies grace each table. Even the cocktails ($14–$16) glide out with orchids perched on top and rims of tajin, wasabi and five spice. All of this is to say that there’s no beach view, but there’s a lot to catch the eye. If this is a constructed world rather than a natural one, the emphasis is still on seafood.

The interior of Matunuck Atelier. Photography by Angel Tucker

Seafood bouillabaisse. Photography by Angel Tucker

The vantage point is most evident in appetizers, both hot and cold. The latter umbrellas everything from maki rolls and oysters to caviar and crudo. The dishes are often simple and pristine, thin raw slices of shima aji with nothing more than olive oil, coarse salt and a whiff of espelette ($13), or hamachi paired with shaved fennel, chili peppers and blood orange slices ($15). These dishes are sparse poems, a gentle but insistent tribute to the ocean.

Even the cooked small dishes manage to manifest an unadulterated celebration of seafood. Miso marinated sablefish ($18) is sweet and salty in a single bite while gochujang-glazed halibut ($18) is more complex, heat playing off both the fish and a bed of roasted cabbage. Even lobster-vanilla dumplings with mirin orange chili sauce ($13), which sound like there’s far too much going on, are delicate and cohesive. The real draw in these small dishes is that they’re well balanced, complex and concerned with little else than the protein on the plate.

Palm & Pearl from the raw bar. Photography by Angel Tucker

Things get a bit more wobbly when it comes to the larger plates, as the proteins coexist in a more diverse setting. The two main groupings are seafood and pasta and the kitchen gets the hardest things about both consistently right. Pasta is handmade and adeptly so, delicate but toothsome. But the cacio e pepe ($16), with its delightful tonarelli, came with quite a bit of residual pasta water, diluting the sharpness of Pecorino and pepper. Grilled tuna with vegetables ($28) is lovely on the plate but scarce on flavor, with no discernible sauce. Even halibut with yellow curry sauce ($31) seems a slight mismatch for the very sweet ube puree that dominates the dish.

This isn’t uncommon for restaurants: Smaller dishes are easier to conceptualize and frame. But since the kitchen has the technical skill to work within the parameters of simplicity, it’s an aptitude that would be welcome in the entrees as well.

Desserts ($9) tend to hit that happy medium, though. What’s often humble — pound cake, frangipane, chocolate mousse — is elevated with just enough bits of berry, citrus and salt to render the ordinary into something elevated.

When Chocolate Meets Coffee dessert. Photography by Angel Tucker

It’s worth mentioning that Raso’s reputation and popularity are very much rooted in the sense of community that’s woven into the original Matunuck and, in that sense, this restaurant is working toward that same end. It’s a big restaurant with hundreds of diners and staff is ample in an age when it’s hard to keep an enthusiastic, full team. So while the dining room is sprawling, service does come somewhere close to intimate.

With a full market attached to the dining room, hopefully coming soon, Matunuck Atelier is a blueprint for how neighborhoods are built — even far from the waterfront enclaves that built Raso’s business.

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