|
|
|
|||||||
|
Restaurant of the Week Charlotte Antiques. Innovative cuisine. An atmospheric wine bar. These are the hallmarks of an unusual establishment opened by two culinary enthusiasts who met as students at the New England Culinary Institute and talked of launching a restaurant together. They named it for the owner’s black labrador retriever. No ordinary restaurant, theirs. It’s very contemporary, yet ensconced in a handsome white house dating to 1775. James Simpson, the proprietor-sommelier, worked for a large wine importer in Boston. His focus is on the main-floor wine bar offering cheeses, exotic light fare and flights of wine (there’s also a living room where customers wait for tables or play backgammon). Aspen-trained chef Charles Norman heads the kitchen, sending innovative plates upstairs to a spacious dining room where all the tables and chairs are different and the furnishings are for sale. They are provided by Hammertown Barn, the great country furnishings store across the New York line in Pine Plains. Diners can purchase the mostly one-of-a-kind antique tables and decorative accents that Hammertown owner Joan Osofsky turns up from England and France. Chef Charlie, a Montana native, apprenticed with George Mahaffey at the four-star Little Nell in Aspen before moving to a neighboring four-star hotel, the Sardy House, where he was executive chef. He returned east to be best man at Jamey’s wedding to the former Dana Osofsky. There he met (and soon married) the bride’s cousin. He brought to Charlotte several Southwest dishes imparting a cosmopolitan flair that he describes as “new world bistro.” Consider such starters as Southwest caesar salad enlivened with red peppers, jìcama, roasted corn and chipotle dressing; a salad of duck confit and quinoa tossed with matchstick apples, morels and leaf lettuces; a terrine of foie gras with pistachio, leeks and pomegranate syrup. Most unusual is the beet carpaccio: thinly sliced roasted beets and matzoh-encrusted herbed goat cheese drizzled with clove oil and twenty-year-old balsamico. Main courses vary from grilled Atlantic salmon on lemongrass mashed potatoes with a carrot-ginger emulsion and wasabi pesto to roasted duck breast and leg confit served with penne pasta, peas, carrots and haricots verts in a mushroom sherry cream. Charlie touts the potato and swiss chard lasagna, served with basil pesto and red pepper coulis. We liked the sound of roasted squab on a ragoût of sweetbreads, apricots, oyster mushrooms and walnuts. Dessert could be warm chocolate cake with raspberry coulis and Ronnybrook mint-chocolate lace ice cream, poached bartlett pear stuffed with eucalyptus honey and goat cheese, or peach crisp with Ronnybrook toasted hazelnut ice cream. Downstairs, the wine bar menu offers a changing selection of lighter fare, from Thai-steamed mussels to cassoulet to Irish lamb stew. A favorite in both venues is the house-smoked salmon with a trio of tasters: ossetra caviar, shaved fennel salad and “tartare” on rye crisps with honey crème fraîche and potato galette. The wine list typically offers more than 80 selections, focusing on varieties from the Rhone Valley as well as their domestic counterparts. (860)
435-3551. Entrées, $17 to $28. Dinner nightly except Wednesday, 5:30
to 10. Sunday brunch, 11:30 to 2:30. Material
excerpted from
next edition of Getaways for
Gourmets in the Northeast, by
Nancy and Richard Woodworth. Copyright
2000.
E-mail feedback to: Home
page |
Full destination index | |
|
|||||||||||||||||
