Clean Slate's Scallops Went From About $16 a Pound to as Much as $52. Dinner Is $135.

The whole offer fits in one sentence on Clean Slate's reservations page: a six-course tasting menu, "+Surprises," at $135 a person, tax and gratuity not included.

The rest of the page is house rules. There's one seating, at 6:15, on select days, and the restaurant is always closed Sunday and Monday. Reservations are by phone only, taken in the order they come in.

Before you dial, do the math. Two people at $135 is $270, before tax and tip. The page lists the wine pairing as an additional $55. If that's per person, two pairings bring the pre-tip total to $380. Extra courses can be added at the table, at an added cost.

What you're paying for, in part, is proximity. The Boston Globe and The Infatuation both count 16 seats. The restaurant's own description is "dinner and a show," with every course cooked and plated in front of the people eating it.

Which leaves a fair question. How does an address on Route 28 in West Dennis end up here?

Clean Slate opened in April 2016, Edible Cape Cod reported the following year, with eight seats at the counter and eight more at high-tops. Chef-owner Jason Montigel grew up in Atlanta, spent years in St. Croix, and trained on Nantucket at Company of the Cauldron under Al Kovalencik, according to a 2026 HyperLocal Cape Cod profile.

Then came what the restaurant's About page calls a pause for "covid and a little soul searching."

The restaurant was too small to social distance, Edible Cape Cod reported in 2024, so Montigel turned to tacos. Edible calls it La Tacodilla. HyperLocal calls it Tacodilla and describes a taco window and truck. Edible wrote in June 2024 that it was still running. That April, after what the About page calls "a four year hiatus," the tasting menu came back.

Before any of it, by one account, the address had a sweeter life.

HyperLocal's profile says Clean Slate opened "out of, among other things, a former Del's Lemonade location in West Dennis." It's the only source we found for that. If you remember a lemonade window on that stretch of Route 28, we'd like to hear about it.

Ingredient prices moved, too. Montigel told the Globe in July that he used to pay around $16 to $18 a pound for scallops, "which I thought was expensive." Now, he said, he pays $38 to $52.

Scallops come right after the bread on the tasting menu posted on the restaurant's site, which runs from a dayboat scallop with collard greens and ham hock potliquor to carrot cake with caramelized carrot ice cream. The Infatuation says it changes weekly.

One footnote for dessert people. Clean Slate's contact page lists its executive pastry chef at a "wstancil" email address. A Whitney Stancil was named a 2026 James Beard semifinalist for Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker, listed by the foundation under Cuvée at Chatham Inn in Chatham.

The $135 dinner isn't the only door in. The restaurant's à la carte page lists Tuesday hours of 5 to 10 PM, plus Friday and Saturday from 8:45 PM until close.

So here's the question every Clean Slate conversation gets to. Is one $270 night for two, before tax and tip, worth more to you than three dinners at the place you already love? Tell us which way you'd go.

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