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October 6, 2008
Island Dining: The Inn on Pamlico Sound offers
a restaurant, catering, and private chef services
By JOY CRIST
A small strip of Frisco's maritime forest tucked
along the edge of the Pamlico Sound is an unlikely locale for a fine
dining restaurant. But the Inn on Pamlico Sound has been generating a
lot of buzz, both in online reviews and by plain old word of mouth, as
one of the finest restaurants on the island.
Steve Nelson, owner of the Inn on Pamlico Sound bed and breakfast and
accompanying restaurant, private chef service, and catering business,
credits a big chunk of his little inn’s success to Hatteras
Island locals, and because of this, he makes it a priority to stay open
all winter long.
- “Locals
have been so good to me since I got here,” he says. “I was
from New Jersey and people were nice to me, just accepted me like I
belong. I always felt like I needed to pay that back.”
-
The Inn on Pamlico Sound technically began during a typical family
vacation, and Steve’s first visit to the Outer Banks. A business
executive living in New Jersey and working in New York City, Steve
found something special in the island, like many folks, and found it
subsequently impossible to leave.
“It was like I had never been home before, and didn’t know
what home was until I came here, and I just got here as quick as I
could,” says Steve.
He bought a house during his first vacation to Hatteras Island.
“Almost immediately, I just knew this was where I was supposed to
live,” he says. “It was like I had always belonged
here.”
He worked for a while for the same company in New York, but as the
island lifestyle steeped in, it didn’t take long for Steve to
leave his job and move on to other ventures.
“I had one foot in Hatteras Island and one foot in New
York,” he says. “And New York started looking very
strange.”
The Inn on Pamlico Sound opened its doors in December of 2003,
initially as a 5-bedroom bed and breakfast. Based on a good first
season, the inn closed for the first, and only, winter, so Steve could
remodel it and turn it into a 12-bedroom bed and breakfast instead.
The original building was gutted to the studs, and after making a few
friendships on Hatteras Island, Steve had all the help he needed to
revamp his bed and breakfast inn. “Everything was done by friends
- all by people I knew,” he says. “I knew right away who
was going to do what, and it worked out perfectly.”
After the new Inn on Pamlico Sound opened, Steve noticed another
amenity he could provide to his guests, who were the emblematic
clientele of a four-star establishment.
They wanted fine dining, and with limited opportunities on secluded
Hatteras Island, Steve decided to open a fine dining restaurant, as a
pilot venture, in May, 2006.
After two weeks, the reviews popped up on tourism web sites, all
glowing. The phones lit up, and the restaurant was booked solid.
It was obvious. The restaurant was an undeniable success and had to stay, and Steve never looked back.
After the successful pilot period, Steve’s friend Bill Kelly, a
four-star restaurant chef in New York City who was the original
executive chef of the Pilot House, confided that he was interested in
returning to Hatteras Island full-time.
“He said, ‘If you’re serious about running a gourmet
restaurant year-round on Hatteras Island, count me in,’”
says Steve.
Billy was quickly recruited, and the result is a fresh menu that
changes every single day, and keeps the guests coming back and the
great reviews pouring in.
The restaurant itself is small and intimate, with only 24 seats, so reservations are recommended.
After securing a table, patrons are encouraged to take their time.
“I thought of the little bistros I loved in Italy,” says
Steve when reminiscing on the concept of the restaurant. “They
were small bistros where you could have a cup of cappuccino for four
hours and no one thought that was weird.”
“Once you sit down here, it is your table for the night,”
he says. “You should expect dinner to take three hours. Not
because we’re slow, but because that’s how long fine dining
should take. Guests are welcome to stay as long as they would like,
enjoy our soundfront decks, and take their time.”
“If you have too much to drink, we’ll find you a room someplace,” he adds with a chuckle.
The full dinner menu changes every day, a result of having the majority
of their bed and breakfast clientele dining strictly at the restaurant,
and wanting fresh flavors for every meal.
On a typical evening, the chef prepares two different appetizers
and two salads. The entrée consists of a selection of two or
three fresh catches, prepared a multitude of ways, and usually pulled
from the water the same day.
“Nick at Buxton Seafood Market takes the catch out of the net at
11 a.m.,” explains Steve, “and it’s on the plate by 6
o’clock.”
The entrees also include an organic beef or bison selection; an organic
chicken selection; a secondary meat selection, such as lamb or pork; an
alternative poultry selection, such as duck, and a fresh seafood pasta
dish.
“All our dishes are fresh, organic, local, or all three,”
says Steve, “and this is a big point of pride with us.”
There is also a daily selection of three to seven different desserts, depending on what the chef chooses to create.
As a result of such a fresh, scrupulous menu, the restaurant is almost
always full, despite the season, before the day’s menu is
actually posted.
“On a Monday in late September, we were full by 2 o’clock,” says Steve. “That was cool.”
But last-minute locals, take heart. Sometimes, exceptions can be made.
“One of our returns to the local community is that no matter how
busy we are in the peak season, we’ll try to get a local in. Try
me on that sometime,” he adds. “Ask to speak to the
innkeeper. We might not get you in until quarter ‘til 9, but
we’ll do our best to get you in.”
In fact, because of local requests, in October Steve is reinstating the
inn’s Sunday brunches that were popular all summer long, but took
a hiatus during the month of September.
“We’re restarting for the locals,” he says,
“because locals asked if we would consider doing it, so that all
winter long there would be something special to do after church.”
Like the dinner menu, the Sunday brunch menu changes every week, with
too much fare to mention, but there are a few staples that make a
regular appearance on the menu.
Brunch-goers can expect fresh omelets with organic ingredients, Belgian waffles, and a variety of fresh and unusual fruits.
“Santa Claus melons, tiny fresh watermelons, papayas and guava are common around here,” says Steve.
Reservations are recommended, and Sunday Brunch is served from 9 a.m. until noon.
This year was a remarkable one for the Inn on Pamlico Sound, as Steve
successfully launched two fledgling branches of his popular restaurant
-- a private chef service and a special event and wedding service, in
response to the growing wedding business that attracted barefoot brides
to Hatteras Island.
“We wanted to partner with respected rental firms that had these wonderful event homes,” says Steve.
The venture has, not surprisingly, been a hit as
well. And with a unique approach to their catering and private chef
menus, it’s easy to see why.
“We do it backwards,” explains Steve. “Most catering
companies say ‘Here are our menus and prices.’ We do the
opposite. We ask you, ‘What is your vision for the wedding? What
are your favorite foods? What are your mother-in-law’s favorite
foods?’ and we build every menu specific to that event. There are
no canned menus here. Our process is backwards, but it really
works.”
As for private chef services, visitors and locals of Hatteras Island
can call in advance and have a chef at their home to prepare a
sumptuous four-star meal (and, perhaps best of all, clean up
afterwards), so guests can enjoy the dining out experience without
technically dining out.
“Sometimes you’ll have 20 people in one spectacular rental
home, and it’s not always convenient to get a reservation for 20
people at a restaurant,” says Steve. In such a scenario, the inn
brings the fine dining experience home.
With an eye for quality and not necessarily volume, the Inn on Pamlico
Sound nevertheless has catered 40 events in 2008 to date, with
phenomenal feedback.
Steve chalks it up to their backwards approach.
“It’s nice to have a menu that’s built for you, and not for the catering company,” he says.
The Inn on Pamlico Sound has certainly garnered its fair share of good
attention, and has enjoyed high ranks from national publications, such
as the National Geographic Traveler magazine and Brides magazine.
Considering Steve bases his marketing on word-of-mouth alone, he
couldn’t be more pleased.
“I had two goals when I came to the island,” he says.
“One was to bring business that had never been here before, and
90 percent of the bed and breakfast guests have never been to the Outer
Banks, 10 percent are from Europe, and many have never heard of
Hatteras Island before.
“My other goal was to create full-time, year-round jobs, and the
inn is a full-time, year-round business,” he adds.
“We‘re blessed to stay fairly busy during the winter. One
of the things that makes the difference for us is strong local support
all winter. Locals keep us going during the winter, and they eat in the
restaurant all winter long.”
Steve plans on expanding the catering service and private chef
services, partnering with vacation rental companies that offer special
event homes, but not expanding anything else.
“The inn and restaurant will stay the same size. It’s
exactly the size I want it to be,” says Steve. “I always
thought I would build the place I wanted to stay in, and the restaurant
I wanted to eat in, and I’m just glad other people like it
too,” says Steve.
And with Sunday brunches on the way and a year-round restaurant,
private chef service, and catering service to boot, locals will have a
lot to look forward to this winter as well.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
For more information on dining, catering, or private chef services, go the Inn on Pamlico Sound Web site, http://www.innonpamlicosound.com/
Or call the inn at 252-995-7030
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