(upbeat music) - On "Restaurant Road Trip," a surf and turf could mean a steak and lobster, or it could mean hotdogs and oysters.
We're in Southbury right here on the green at a great restaurant called Lucas Local where fresh seafood, a thoughtful cocktail program, and great service are all paramount.
And I'm going inside.
You should come with me.
Come on.
Vince, thanks for having us out here, man.
I'm so excited to finally get here and see this place.
Did you design this like from the bottom up?
- Yeah, we opened this restaurant about a year ago.
Inspired by the New England coast focusing on oyster bar.
For a full service restaurant to have an oyster bar with the selections that we do have is awesome.
And that's what we wanted to bring here to a small town, and we've attracted some people from all over.
- Let's talk about the food here a little bit.
You've had a chef with you for a long time now.
- Yep, Chef Derek has been with us for over four years.
He's been incredible, inspiring, and challenging himself to create unique dishes that are still familiar to our guests.
- If there's something I have to try on this menu, what would it be?
- [Vince] We have to have the Mussels Isabella.
It's a family recipe for 25 years.
- And some oysters, I hope, right?
- Oh yeah.
Oh, we're gonna blow you away.
- Oh, I can't wait.
- Blow you away.
- This will be fun.
Thanks for having us.
I appreciate it.
I'm gonna go get in this kitchen and see if I can find Chef, all right?
- Got it.
- Excellent.
- Have a good time.
- Chef, we're gonna make signature dish you guys have here.
- So it's called Mussels Isabella.
- All right, let's do it.
I'll jump in here, chef.
Let me see.
We get a pan going here.
Get it hot.
- [Derek] Get the pan nice and hot.
- So I guess a little oil, right?
- Yeah, olive oil in the pan.
- Little oil.
- That's good.
- [Plum] And then we're doing garlic and shallots.
- [Derek] Yep.
- A little shallot in here.
- And then some of the chiffonade sage right there.
- Put on the sage in there now?
- Yep.
- All right.
- Right there you got a portion of mussels.
We're gonna toss that right in on top of those aromatics.
- A couple of portions of mussels here.
Yeah.
There we go.
Okay.
All right.
Sorry.
There we go.
- [Derek] All right, and then right behind you here I got some Chablis white wine.
- Yep.
Little white wine.
How's that look, chef, all right?
- [Derek] That's looking good.
- [Plum] Let it ride?
- Let it ride.
All right, so now we're starting to get some open.
Just give it a little splash of stock.
There we go.
- Beautiful.
- So right over there, sage cream, that's heavy cream.
Sage, garlic, shallot, thyme, and we slow cook it down for six hours.
- Wow.
Six hours.
And you make a "cream dubla," they call it.
Let it ride for a second, chef?
- Yeah, let it ride.
Once all the rest of our mussels are open, then we're gonna add some pesto to it to finish it off.
- Give a spoonful here.
Little pesto in there.
Give a nice little mix around.
Looks great.
And now this gets a piece of bread too, right chef?
- [Derek] Yeah, char some bread on the grill.
Garlic oil on it.
You need something to sop up all that delicious sauce in the end.
- Oh yeah.
So then we'll scoop the mussels out into this crock right over here.
Pour a little bit of the sauce right on over the top of 'em.
- [Plum] All right, a little sauce right on top.
- [Derek] And then we'll crisscross the bread on top of there, and then we'll top it.
- Mussels pick up, here we go.
Oh yeah, that's right.
Pick 'em up.
Pick 'em up.
Pick 'em up, brother.
(upbeat blues music) Chef, one of my favorite things to eat has gotta be oysters.
You give me a plate of oysters, some lemons, a little bit of horseradish, and a cold beer, I'll stay at your place all day long.
- Well, that's great to hear 'cause we'd love to have you stay at our place all day long and keep ordering oysters.
- [Plum] Let's talk about the oysters we have here.
We have a lot.
So right now we have four varieties on.
So we get everything from the East coast so we get everything nice and fresh.
We go everywhere from Prince Edward Island up in Canada, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine.
- And then we serve these, we have obviously little a cocktail sauce here.
- Yeah, our house made cocktail sauce, extra horse radish for those guys that like the spice, and then our house made mignonette.
- Can you show me how to shuck one of these?
- Absolutely.
So start with a sweet petite over here.
- Oh, the oyster sweet petite.
I thought that's what your nickname was in the kitchen.
- Yeah, clearly this girlish figure.
(both laughing) So cup side, flat side on the top.
Right here is where we call the hinge, and this is where you're gonna want to dig your oyster knife into.
So what I'll do is I'll put 'em straight down like this, and I'll stabilize the oyster with my hands.
And I'll take the curve part of the knife, and I'll just finagle it into that hinge, and then I just give a little twist with just a little pry.
Pops right up.
Slide it down to cut the top muscle, and there you are.
Take the curve part, cut the other muscle there.
- [Plum] The little connector on the bottom of the shell.
- [Derek] Yep.
- [Plum] And you're ready to rock and roll.
Look at that guy.
- And then you just enjoy it.
- Wow, he didn't even give it to me.
He ate it himself.
All tight.
- Well, you gotta shuck one now - Let me give it a try.
Let's see.
Stick the tip of the knife in, give it a little jiggle 'til you feel it kinda lock into place there, then start twisting it.
- [Derek] Yep, little twist, little pry down.
- There we go and you're in.
Then I take my knife and just kind of disconnect that connector muscle there.
Right?
And then enjoy.
That's really good.
Well, I wanna try all of these now 'cause I'm so excited about them.
Chef, I appreciate it.
Thank you so much, man.
- Not a problem.
My pleasure.
- These are delicious.
Oysters are awesome.
Gentlemen, this is quite a spread we have on this table right now.
This tower is incredible.
I mean, are you kidding me?
This comes to a table like this?
- Absolutely.
- I wanna jump and hit these oysters right away.
Can we?
- [Derek] Yeah.
- Let's do it.
So how many different types of oysters we have here, chef?
- [Derek] We have three different types on this tray.
So you're digging into right now is the sweet petites.
- Unbelievable.
Creaminess, brininess, everything you wanna have in an oyster.
That's one of the best oysters I've ever tasted in my life.
Where are the clams from?
- [Vince] Little necks from Maine.
- [Plum] Okay, little necks from Maine.
You recommend anything with them?
- Nice dollop of cocktail right you're going right there.
- Let's do that.
So soft.
I love the meatiness of it.
- So that's our house done chilled seafood salad which has marinated smoked mussels, marinated octopus, fennel, caper, Argentinian red shrimp.
So on the other side is our ponzu tuna poke.
- Okay, poke.
Always better than poke B.
Big fan of poke.
All right, let's talk about this bass here a little bit.
Look how beautiful this plate is.
- [Derek] So grilled Mediterranean sea bass.
So I wanted to go with very bright fall flavors.
Fall, winter.
So you have lightly steamed mustard greens on there, Delicata squash, which is one of my personal favorites, and then we do a toasted pumpkin seeded gremolata to top it all off.
- That's delicious.
- That's so good.
- That's a great dish right there.
- That's so good.
That's a very well balanced, well put together other dish.
I love the greens on top.
- All of it.
It's got all of the elements of a great dish.
- Oh my.
Let's talk about this one right here.
- Grilled Spanish octopus, roasted fingerling potatoes, blistered shishitos, and what you're putting on there right now is toum, which is a traditional Lebanese garlic sauce, salt, lemon, water, and garlic.
- Wow, I'm usually not a big fan of octopus.
Not overly chewy, great flavor in there, and mixed with that toum, I'm telling you what, that's fantastic.
I love the shishito peppers in there too.
All right, mussels.
- Mussels Isabella named after my daughter.
This has been with our family for quite some time.
In my household, we grew up on Sundays and we would have, you know, Sunday dinner.
- Yeah.
- And we used to get my grandfather used to get the Italian bread out.
We used to slice it and put it on a fork and go on the stove, and we used to char on the gas stove.
And we used to run out of there with some sauce on it before my grandmother got there.
- The balance of the flavors, the basil really comes through from that pesto.
The cream, I was worried about being too heavy.
It's not heavy at all.
That is delicious.
That's a home run, this one right here.
- Well, these are our variety of oyster shooters.
- Oh boy.
- Oyster first.
- Oyster first.
- Okay.
- And you're going down.
- Thank you, boys.
It's been so much fun.
- Cheers.
- So awesome to have you here.
- Honestly, one of the most comfortable restaurants we've ever been to on this show.
- Thank you.
- Whoo hoo!
- What are you still doing here?
- I'm not here.
Plum left a long time ago.
No one's taking oysters.
- [Vince] I can still see you.
- I'm not here.
I've gone away.
- What a weird dude.
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