Photography by Paul Shoul

Mezze Bistro's dining room reflects founder Nancy Thomas' city savvy.

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It's not the sign telling you that you're entering the town of Florida. It's not the increasingly rolling hills or even the more frequent pulloffs with coin-operated binoculars along the Mohawk Trail. You know you're smack in the Berkshires when your ears pop at that treacherous hairpin turn seventeen hundred feet above sea level. The turn is in Clarksburg and at the bend, the Hoosac Valley spreads out beneath it.

On a misty day, the lush green mountains surrounded by fog look ancient, undiscovered, as if they belonged on a remote island nation in far-away temperate seas. But the signs of New England are everywhere in the foreground—peeling white paint on weathered fences and words left over from the Native Americans who used to populate the valleys—and in the Berkshires, a local pride is palpable.

In the case of Nancy Thomas, founder of Mezze Bistro in Williamstown and co-owner of the Mezze Restaurant Group (which includes Mezze Bistro, Café Latino in Mass MoCA, Allium in Great Barrington, and Mezze Catering), that pride could not be more apparent. Mezze Bistro has been cultivated, under her direction, to play a supporting role to the culture of the towns nestled in those verdant hills.

"I think the destination is the Berkshires," says Thomas. "It's our role to be part of that culture, to add a dining experience" that enhances the plethora of art, music and theater that coaxes throngs of city folk to the area each summer.

No one understands better the welcome respite of expanses of greenery and a quiet pace of life to city dwellers. Thomas herself has lived in almost every major city on the Northeastern seaboard before tucking herself into a corner of Western Massachusetts. At eighteen she began working as a dishwasher in a restaurant in her home state of Oklahoma. Since then she has done stints at restaurants in Austin, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and New York, the city she left in the mid-'nineties to come to Williamstown. Her city-savvy is on display at Mezze, which is tastefully yet colorfully decorated with an eclectic mix of white tablecloths and simple silverware and bold art and exposed brick. An intricate mural in pencil by Jasper Rockwell (son of the famous illustrator) greets patron as they enter. Thomas herself has the bold but polished fashion sense of a confident woman. During our interview she wore a multi-colored silk dress and bright pink sandals. Her toenails were painted blue.

With over a decade of restaurant experience, Nancy left her post as a waitress at Cobble Café on Spring Street in Williamstown and opened a small, forty-seat tapas bar down the street from Mezze's current location at 16 Water Street. Inspired by the food prepared in her childhood by her Greek-Morroccan mother, Thomas created small Morroccan and Mediterranean plates—at first, all by herself.

The first version of Mezze was conceived to fill a gap in the local bar and restaurant scene. In 1996, the Williamstown/North Adams area was buzzing with Internet startups. Dubbed "Silicon Village" by industry insiders, the towns were hit with a huge spurt in the population of twenty- and thirty-somethings. "I felt that the bar scene in Williamstown was geared toward college students and not for adult socializing," Thomas explains. "I worked really hard at creating something I thought would help people to congregate and socialize as adults."

Her hard work paid off, and Mezze was "terrifically popular" from the getgo. The tiny tapas bar was so busy that Thomas soon had to pull in help. "I'd cook all week and he'd cook on the weekends," Thomas says of the arrangement she had in the early days with a chef from the Culinary Institute of America. The input of other chefs in her kitchen along with the fact that "there were a lot of people in 1996 who weren't ready for a real tapas bar" led to the gradual evolution of the menu. It progressed from a la carte Mediterranean small plates to what it is today: a selection of first courses, entrees and desserts in New American cuisine featuring local farm products.

Mezze itself has evolved since then, too. In 1998, Thomas joined forces with Bo Peabody, founder of the startup Tripod. The company has since been sold to Lycos, but at the time of Mezze's conception and infancy, Peabody had just hired a hundred employees, most of whom would patronize the welcoming tapas bar down the street. "There was a lot of serendipity there," Thomas remembers. "We were both kind of coming up together at the same time." It made sense for the two to join forces and expand the business.

In 2001, Mezze Catering had been established and Café Latino was in the final stages of renovation in Mass MoCA when Mezze Bistro number one burned to the ground. It was a total-loss fire. Determined to keep the brand alive, Mezze's base of operations was relocated to the spot intended for Café Latino. Thomas and Peabody found a spot on Water Street, about ten miles west of that famous hairpin turn, and after two months of extensive renovations Mezze Bistro reopened in May of 2002.

For the past two years, Mezze's menu has been guided by a talented young chef from Michigan named Joji Sumi. Sumi's productions were lauded recently by a long-time guest who told Thomas that "the food has never been better." Sumi employs a farm-to-table philosophy, using French preparation to translate local produce, meats and cheeses to the plate. He utilizes the rich, high-fat ingredients the French are known for—like butter and foie gras—but, surprisingly, the food tastes light. Somehow the heavy flavors of an easily greasy hunk of pork belly seem delicate, almost healthy. Sumi rubs the belly with chile and serves it with chewy local collards braised with bacon in a tart, flavorful broth. Sprinkled over the top, adding a touch of whimsy, are the seedlings of carrots (he grew and trimmed them himself). The micro greens look very much like any other seedlings— two leaves shoot from the top of a tiny purple stem—but they taste like carrots: sweet, crisp, floral and familiar.

There's a touch like those carrot greens in each of Sumi's dishes that sets him apart from other chefs with similar cuisine; his food is unique, but not flashy. As a special, the chef prepared a chilled soup of fresh local peas (in season for a sadly short window). The soup was delicious on its own, but a spoonful along with a bit of the minty Jonah crab salad served on top was blissful. While the soup was being devoured, Sumi worked on a main course of organic salmon served with sautéed leeks, chanterelle mushrooms and tender bits of garlic scape. The fish was served with a foie gras coulis, a sauce that sounded bastardized and bizarre but in the end was excellent, and worked magnificently with the tarragon in the dish. A cold tumbler of Lambrusco (a sparkling red wine) went with it perfectly. For dessert, strawberry shortcake made with berries fresh from the bush that morning and served with a scoop of sour, unflavored frozen yogurt was refreshing. A perfect accompaniment was the sweet, pear-flavored Belle de Brillet brandy from the digestif selection.

Mezze Bistro lures with such indulgent dishes. But for a over a dozen years it has remained a place where patrons can socialize casually, eat at the bar, or have a craft beer. Three women who sit at the bar every Sunday chat over sweating glasses of white wine and behind them, a server crumbs the table after the first course is whisked away. Thomas has created a concoction of incongruous elements in Mezze Bistro, but has ended up with a place that seems as organic as its produce.

"After nine-eleven, all the startup disappeared," says Thomas. That development pretty much drove away the clientele she had intended for her restaurant. "The landscape changed and I'm really thrilled that we figured out ways to evolve and continue to be important to the community. I like that you get rewarded for staying in business. And I feel like staying in business and sticking to your guns and staying consistent and working and working and working makes people go, 'OK.' People need that grounded security in New England."

Mezze just works. Beautiful to look at, intimidating at first, Mezze bridges elegance and comfort.