Great Barrington — With preserved produce care of MX Morningstar Farm in Hudson, Tom Brazie’s farm-raised pork from New Marlborough, Rubiner’s cheeses, bartender Billy Paul’s creative cocktails and H.R. Zeppelin chocolates, locavores are in for a convenient treat. As of today, all these things will be available at Mooncloud at 47 Railroad St. Open from 5 p.m. to midnight Wednesdays to Sundays with food available until closing, Mooncloud will be local night owls’ chance in Great Barrington to partake in what co-owner Paul calls their “dynamite cocktail program” and in-house cured charcuterie. “We’re about bringing the community of local things all together, and serving local foods, 12 months a year.” The 24-seat restaurant with a loungy feel is the new collaboration of Paul with Emily and Josh Irwin, co-owners of New Marlborough’s destination restaurant Cantina 229.
Mooncloud opens to the public on Friday, Dec. 13, on the auspicious cusp of the Great Barrington Holiday Stroll, when the cozy, deep blue banquettes will be a welcome respite from what looks like a steady rain.
While the new establishment does not have a kitchen on site, colorful jars of peppers, tomatoes, patty pan squash, summer squash, wax beans, kohlrabi and turnips in various stages of preservation grace the walls. Josh Irwin and Lorenzo “Ren” Price, the chef de cuisine at Cantina 229, are the brains behind the meat curing and flavor maximization operations. Customers can observe the curing in operation in the restaurant’s meat curing case, where salamis and prosciutto legs are refined at 60 degrees. Beside them are matching wine cabinets, with white wine set at 42 degrees and red wine at 55 degrees.
Reigning behind the bar is an imposing contraption that Paul calls the “Rolls Royce of meat slicers.” Soups, pates and other items will be made at Cantina and brought in, and H.R. Zeppelin, whose café is just next door, will partner on desserts.
Paul has worked with Josh and Emily for two years at the Irwins’ home base of operations. There, they “had a blast, and started to elevate cocktails, and play with fun ingredients” incorporating local fruits, herbs and vegetables. They’re bringing the same sensibility to their new venture, which occupies a cozy portion of the old Pearl’s Restaurant footprint. Said Paul of what inspired Mooncloud: “We were playing with the idea of expanding, not necessarily an expansion of Cantina, but allowing ourselves to do something fun. So many people would come to Cantina and say, ‘You guys should do something in Great Barrington.’ This is a way to express ourselves.”
Former 47 Railroad St. anchor restaurant Pearl’s, dark, sleek and expansive, first opened in 2002, and went through a few owners and iterations before closing permanently as Mario’s Tuscany Grill in 2016. Since then, the property has been given a thorough remodeling by Frameworks Properties. The kitchen is gone and replaced with a 10,000-square-foot, three-floor addition. The 12 high-end condominiums on the second and third floors are fully rented, as is, now, the first-floor retail space, with Warrior Trading, retail stores Griffin, and Alpine and Pearl, and, most recently, H.R. Zeppelin, which occupies the spot where neighborhood breakfast favorite Martin’s used to be before an oil fire shut it down in 2016. A terrace on the third floor (for condominium residents) commands a lovely view toward East Mountain.
Ian Rasch of Frameworks is thrilled that the building is now complete and has fulfilled the company’s vision for its use. “There’s a range of businesses, and there’s already more traffic up at the top of the street now with Zeppelin there, and Baba Louie’s, too. We hope Mooncloud will do more good things for the street.”
In warmer months, Mooncloud will feature outside seating as Pearl’s once did. But for now, head on in for a playful holiday cocktail like “Linus and Lucy,” a rye whiskey-based drink that Billy Paul will shake for you, with two kinds of amaro, allspice dram and a little nutmeg. “It’s Christmas in a glass.”
