Steering The Paper Canoe: How Passion Keeps a Legacy Afloat
It’s not often that a restaurant keeps improving after fifteen years. Nor is it common for one to be run by a chef as young as Jean-Marc Berruet was when he took over The Paper Canoe, in Duck, NC.
Fifteen when he began working there, Berruet was 24 when he learned that the owner planned to sell. Despite having no experience as an owner, Berruet felt that buying it was the best way to sustain its legacy. That was 2022. In the four years since, Berruet – a chef at heart – has risen to the challenge of ownership.
While doing so required a crash course in restaurant operations, Berruet already had the most important thing he needed: passion. When dining at The Paper Canoe these days, if you pause for a moment and take in the energy in the room, the earnestness of the service, and the quality of the food, you can literally feel how devoted the staff are to making each guest feel loved. Achieving that result requires hard work, and it’s impossible to sustain, night in and night out, without a leader and a team who share a passion to care for others.
If you’ve noticed that The Paper Canoe is better than ever, that passion is why. It’s a credit to Berruet’s staff, and all the work they devote every day to showing their guests love. And it’s why so many OBX locals and vacationers now set their calendars to make reservations weeks in advance. Just like we do.
In 2020, I expressed doubt about fears that the pandemic would end restaurants forever. Six years later, the restaurants still standing are here because of the same reason as my doubts: passion. Grateful for Berruet and The Paper Canoe family.
BTW, at The Paper Canoe, the dish not to miss is the Seafood Pithivier — a mélange of sea scallops, jumbo lump crab, and mirepoix baked in puff pastry that I’d avoided in the past, thinking it sounded too rich for a summer beach vacation. Wrong. It seems impossibly light for a dish so rich in flavor. Pouring in the key lime beurre blanc from the little porcelain dish on the side brought back happy memories of childhood dinners with my parents at French restaurants, where bow-tied servers poured custard table-side into soaring soufflés.
Crispry Fried Oysters, house-pickled vegetables
Crab Toast – colossal blue crab, citrus, herbs, creme fraiche on grilled house-made sourdough layered with a tomato case
Duck Eggrolls – puled duck, Asian slaw, spiced honey
Key Lime Pie
