What’s Cooking at Artisan House, Now Open Downtown

Winter gnocchi with Kennebec potatoes, brown butter sage, chestnuts, braised purple cabbage, cranberries, mimolette, and saba

These days, getting your hands on some “good shit” in Downtown is just as likely to mean tellicherry peppercorns, Duroc pork, coffee traced to a single root, and a glass full of Allagash, as much as it might signify anything contraband. Artisan House, which opened ten days ago on the tent city-adjacent Sixth Street block ruled by Cole’s, has these kinds of obsessively curated ingredients in spades, playing together nicely in inspired arrangements under chef Jason Ryzcek, whose career has found him in kitchens from Delphine and Fig to Baby’s Badass Burger, One Sunset, and Boa.

Riffing for the time being on locally-lead Italian and French cooking, Ryzcek maintains that his menu, executed by a close team that includes a pastry chef moonlighting from their job at Cut, is also balanced to provide a perfect nutritional ratio of carbs and proteins, with an abundance of power foods like crisped kale topping crisp flatbreads and and dandelion greens sidling up to vintage prime rib, in an attempt to stay regulars on a sound path. With both a gourmet market component of true artisan products and a pearl of a refreshed industrial-Parisian space, Artisan House vanquishes the hunger of the changing Downtown both sustainably and artfully. Check out what chef Ryzcek is preparing on his current menu in our slide show.

At the P.E. Lofts.

The menu will change seasonally.

An unusual mix of teuqila cacao, Guinness, and maple syrup with a graham cracker crust (left) and a dill margarita. Designed by Elden McFeron III, formerly of The Bazaar.

Roasted candy stripe and raw gold beets, oranges, mint, hazlenuts, black truffles, and gold balsamic.

With blackberry apple jam, tarragon foam, and herbed toastettes.

The chef’s take on white pizza finds black truffles, alba funghi, and roast garlic with fontina, tallegio, and burrata, topped with crispy kale

Ryzcek tells Grub Street he tried to take all the cherished flavors of winter and put them into this dish. Fresh Kennebec potatoes, brown butter sage, chestnuts, braised purple cabbage, cranberries, mimolette, and saba.

Rather than pound his schnitzel flat, Ryzcek’s ode to the restaurant’s Austrian manager uses a dry aged pork chop with black trumpet mushrooms in a juniper brandy sauce. Served with a side of spaetzle and red sauerkraut. Artisan House makes as much as possible by hand, with the exception of a few imported ingredients.

With tellicherry peppercorn biscotti.

The Maine-crafted beer is both baked into the sweet and poured on top.