Review preview: Bittersweet

Mark Manger

I started to review Bittersweet three months ago. After dinner at the then-three-month-old restaurant, I learned from chef-owner Olav Peterson, who's hyper-focused on seasonality and fresh local ingredients, that he was about to change the menu. And not just make a few tweaks -- Peterson was getting ready to scrap his entire spring board and re-rig it for summer.

So I put the review on hold. Two months later, I returned to Bittersweet -- and this time around, I got my first glimpse of the gardens Peterson was planting on his patios, gardens that would produce ingredients that would later be incorporated into his dishes. I ate my way through the new, summery list and got ready, again, to review Bittersweet.

But when I called Peterson to get some details, he told me he was taking a summer break to fix the grease trap. Since repair jobs often do not go as planned, I again put the Bittersweet review on hold. (A fire had closed Ototo three days before my review of that restaurant was going to press, and I quickly wrote a replacement -- a good move, it turned out, since the repairs took longer than anticipated.)

Bittersweet is now definitely back in business, though, serving the same menu I sampled -- although Peterson says he's getting antsy to make some more switches.

Before he does, find out how well the current menu works when the review is posted here tomorrow.