But few could have known, including Wagner, that a resurgent ovarian cancer would prevent Votta from surviving the year. She died in November, just six weeks after quitting the stove. But she did not leave without first passing on instructions to keep Sycamore ticking: "Sam was her first choice," said Wagner, "the only person she'd worked with that she trusted in her kitchen."
The Sam in question, 32-year-old Sam Jacobson, is yet a little-known name to most local diners. The British-born chef has spent most of his career in the trenches, working the line with Votta in Ambler, followed by a couple of years in the catering biz. But after two lovely recent meals at Sycamore, punctuated by seasonal ingredients and some surprising combinations, it is clear Jacobson is a cook coming into his own.
He wasted no time grabbing our attention with inventive little amuse bouches, Asian spoons cradling nibbles of double-smoked Lancaster ham and apple compote one night, a morsel of guinea hen atop a fiddlehead fern the next.
The "Farmer's Plate" is the perfect vehicle for prolonging the cocktail hour, a rare opportunity in BYOBs, but facilitated here by Sycamore's list of inventive mixers, a fun collection of herb- and spice-infused blends (like the cardamom-scented Indian Ocean) in icy shakers with proper glassware on the side. You bring the booze.
With highlights drawn from the restaurant's cheese and charcuterie selection - some feta-stuffed olives, raw raclette, a gold-mine-aged blue cheese, fabulous savory "truffles" of chopped chicken liver rolled in pistachios, and gossamer slices of porcini-crusted steak - it's clear this kitchen prizes a good ingredient. Add a half dozen oysters on the half shell splashed in rhubarb mignonette (tiny Malpeques one night, briny La St. Simons the other), and the evening is off to a running nibble.
