Chicago Tribune • Travel Sunday July 8, 2007

Fennville: Saugatuck side dish: A taste of Fennville
by Phil Vettel

The one traffic light in this tiny (population 1,459) western Michigan town merely blinks yellow, cautioning Main Street traffic to slow somewhat but never demanding an actual stop.

And that has been a realistic way of viewing Fennville as a whole-a town viewed in passing, on the way to someplace else. The someplace else usually being Saugatuck, the lakeshore town 10 miles to the northwest, luring tourists with its artistic community, its summer festivals, and a plethora of boutique shopping and casual restaurants.

But these days, those driving along Fennville’s Main Street have reasons to apply their brakes. A hot American-contemporary restaurant, an under-construction Mexican palace and a re-energized roadhouse-not a tourist cliché in the bunch-are putting this sleepy town on Michigan’s foodie radar: It’s far too early to declare Fennville to be the area’s new dining destination. But it’s not hard to see the potential.

Journeyman Café
Saugatuck justifiably can brag about its many eating options, bu the single best restaurant in the area may well be this brick-lined café along Main Street, where chef/owner Matthew Millar and his wife, Amy Cook, put together a stunning menu built mostly from locally sourced, organic ingredients.

“It helps to stick out a bit,” says Millar of his restaurant’s off-the-beaten-path location. “We always knew we were going to have to draw people, wherever we were, so it didn’t make sense to pay four times the rent (in Saugatuck) when we don’t offer what tourists are looking for anyway.”

That last assessment may be somewhat harsh. Rack of veal with Jerusalem artichoke veloute may be a little beyond what most tourists order(it’s fabulous, by the way), but certainly Millar’s brick-oven pizzas, with their blistered thin crusts and imaginative toppings, would be in demand in any tourist town in the world-especially because Journeyman offers them at lunch and dinner. It’s quite a workout for the wood-burning oven, which also roasts meats and vegetables, and produces the restaurants breads.

Though it’s been open since 2003, this summer is Journeyman’s first season as far as Millar is concerned.

It’s our first season with everything in place,” he says. “For the first six months we operated as a coffee house while we built out the back, and we didn’t get our liquor license until last October. So we’re kind of going into this summer as a brand-new restaurant.”

Viewed as a new restaurant, Journeyman is doubly impressive. Starters include a charcuterie platter that skips the imported prosciutto in favor of thin-sliced cured meats from local producers. Cheese plates are all-American, of course. And a multilayer salmon terrine consists of salmon that was smoked on the premises, layered with cream cheese from Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor.

Main courses include a pair of juicy grilled quail stuffed with spinach and goat cheese, an superb, soft-fleshed black cod with Manila clams in a light lemon broth with olives and capers. Chitarra, or “guitar string” pasta isflecked with salty bits of house-cured salmon, local asparagus and crème fraiche-sort of a Midwestern Alfredo. And there’s always a vegetarian option or two.

The wine list is brief, affordable and gradually growing, as the debt-averse Millar and Cook grow their business gradually.

“A blockbuster wine list is not in the cards,” Millar says, “but we find vineyards and producers who are doing the right things and aren’t featured on too many other lists.”

Millar handles the cooking, while Cook, an architect who designed the Journeyman’s interior, does just about everything else. “She’s the general manager, the CEO, and she makes sure we can open the doors and the paychecks don’t bounce,” Millar says.

So far so good.