Sweet and Savory, Carmel

When party hosts sit down with Sweet & Savory chef Melissa Mudd, she listens carefully to what they envision, then helps them plan a menu to match the event. An office gathering might get a lineup of party trays. An elegant party might center on herb-roasted beef tenderloin with stone-ground mustard, or even a custom chocolate-zucchini wedding cake. Once the menu is decided, she and her team make everything from scratch, scorning time-saving measures such as premade icing.

Even when there's nothing in particular to celebrate, the aroma of freshly baking focaccia lures guests into Sweet & Savory’s café and bakery throughout the day. For breakfast, chefs drown buttermilk biscuits in housemade sausage gravy, and sauté bananas in brown sugar and dark rum to create bananas-foster buttermilk pancakes with vanilla crème anglaise. Later in the day, they heap slow-cooked barbecue pork on onion buns, then craft tartines with fire-roasted shrimp and corn relish, which pairs nicely with chilled soup or a salad drizzled with peach-champagne vinaigrette. Dinners can also be taken home to families or nests of baby birds, along with pies, cheesecakes, and other desserts.