Bites Nearby: Dish, A Restaurant

It’s one of the first steps of the day. At around 11 a.m. each morning, when the mise en place is being organized and the produce deliveries are stacked up outside waiting to be brought into the kitchen, the short ribs go into the oven. There they’ll braise for a good five hours before finding their way to a costumer’s plate.

It’s fitting that the man behind points to the short rib when asked to identify the one menu item that best represents his White Street eatery. It begins as a tough cut of beef and takes hours to break down, in this case braising with assorted vegetables in a liquid combination of veal stock and Guinness, before it ends up on a diner’s plate, succulent and full of flavor atop maple glazed sweet potato mash.

For Chef Anthony Ferrando, sometimes the best things take time.

“It’s warm,” Ferrando said, sitting in his chef’s coat at the front table in his cozy restaurant on a middling weekday night. “It’s very comforting. It’s very rich and fatty and fattening, and it warms your soul.”

The short ribs have been on the menu at Dish, going through some subtle changes over time, for the better part of four years now, Ferrando said. It’s the perfect winter entrée, so rich and heavy in its preparation that waiting out the season in a deep sleep after eating it almost seems possible. Once, there was an attempt to take it down from the menu for a time, swap it out in favor of something a bit lighter, more season-appropriate, during the summer months. Dish patrons objected and the short ribs went back up.

Dish offers a kind of hearty, home-style menu Ferrando says comes without the fine dining frills. Along side the stout braised short ribs are glazed double cut pork chops, rosemary lemon roasted chicken, and Tuscan seafood stew among a number of items all prepared fresh and with seasonal fare.  

“You’re going to get a solid meal. It’s not fluffy. Everything comes with a starch and a vegetable,” he said.

In a foodie town like Red Bank, Dish has been able to carve out its own niche with a menu that’s both a catch-all and still unique. It’s American food, but with the definition of what, exactly, American is changing as often as dinner specials, there’s always room to innovate and experiment.

Ferrando opened the place a little more than seven years ago with business partner Judy Matthew. Ferrando, 50, settled on Red Bank after training in Italy and spending years in New York kitchens, including Harlem’s own - impossible to get a reservation - Rao’s.

The name of the restaurant came from a simple, no-compromise concept.

“He called it Dish because he didn’t want to be limited by what he could put on a plate,” Matthew said.

As he’s grown the restaurant and started considering new creative food outlets – Ferrando said he’d like to open an authentic Italian place at some point, maybe even here in Red Bank – he’s also made developing relationships with other restaurant owners a priority. Not only is Dish a part of Flavour, but Ferrando and other restaurant owners have made meetings and discussions about how to attract customers to the borough a regular occurrence.

“We all kind of work off of each other now,” he said. “We’re all competitors, but we’re not cutthroat. If your restaurant is busy, it’s good food the town. That’s how we look at it now.”

Visit Dish's website at www.dishredbank.com for up to date menus and hours.