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Mystic/Stonington The Grange at
Stonecroft Inn The widely acclaimed restaurant on the ground floor of a renovated barn is the Stonecroft Inn’s crowning glory. From the expansive, granite-walled dining room, floor-to-ceiling, multi-paned windows yield a grand view of a landscaped stone dining terrace, a grapevine-covered pergola and a water garden. The interior is furnished like that of an English country manor, with a lounge area of high-back couches facing a fireplace and well-spaced tables set with cream-colored linens and Villeroy & Boch china It’s a thoroughly delightful setting for
outstanding fare that tied for the highest restaurant ratings in As prepared by James Veal, the inn’s original sous-chef,
dinner begins with an amuse-bouche, usually a couple of morsels –
perhaps a spring roll with apricot-fennel filling, a shumai dumpling or
a mushroom tart – that hint of treats to come. We were pleased with a
couple of sensational starters, baja-style scallop seviche with cucumber
and a grilled tortilla and the trio of exotic shrimp: curry-coconut with
spiced banana chutney, spicy Sesame-seared Asian tuna with shrimp and scallop lo mein and rack of lamb with garlic aioli are signature main courses. We liked the paupiette of veal paillard stuffed with artichokes and bel paese cheese and wrapped in prosciutto, and the pan-roasted duck breast and confit with bing cherry glaze and a fabulous brie and wild rice risotto. Desserts are knockouts. The house specialty is the night’s chocolate trio, at our visit a little pot of intense chocolate mousse, three homemade truffles and a chocolate fudge brownie, plus a bonus, chocolate ice cream with a stick of white chocolate. An equal triumph was the banana and Bailey’s Irish cream cheesecake with bruléed bananas and chocolate sauce. (860) 572-0771 or (800) 772-0774. Entrées, $18
to $30. Dinner by reservation, Wednesday-Sunday 5 to 9. Skipper’s
Dock The folks who made the Harborview into one of the
great restaurants in the state returned to its last remaining adjunct,
the Skipper’s Dock on the water at pier’s end in Ainslie Turner and her late husband Jerry turned the place into a cheery, year-round restaurant and tavern with fireplaces ablaze in cool weather and lots of nautical memorabilia and nostalgia. The result is a happy cross between the haute
Harborview (since destroyed by fire and rebuilt as the Main dishes include the Harborview’s classic
Marseilles-style bouillabaisse, a savory array of choice seafood in a
tomato-fennel-saffron broth, fillet of sole français and an old
specialty, coquilles St. Jacques. The dessert list might feature the
Harborview’s signature grasshopper pie, a The food and service seem to be best at lunch, when some of the same treats are available along with sandwiches and an exotic pan-seared duck breast and warm goat cheese salad. The fried oysters with french fries and slaw and the Grand Central pan roast, a seafood sauté with an addictive sauce, were first-rate treats at our latest lunch. Much of the fare is offered day and night in the Harbar, a high-style Colonial-look pub with framed magazine covers on the walls and boating gear hanging overhead. The best place for all this good eating, of course, is on the expansive deck right out over the water. (860) 535-0111. www.skippersdock.com. Entrées,
$16.95 to $26.95. Lunch daily,
The dining fortunes in the tony borough of The move produced larger quarters in an arty and funky, bright red and black dining area in front of a curving solid mahogany bar on one side and more close-together tables and two long communal tables in a former lunch counter area on the other. From his somewhat larger new kitchen, Walter fulfills a with-it, contemporary menu, supplemented by specials that change nightly. Typical starters are lobster spring rolls with spiced soy sauce, crab cake with rémoulade sauce, tuna tartare, escargot pot pie, prosciutto quesadilla with jack cheese and sour cream, and a warm duck salad with asparagus and sesame-orange dressing. London broil and sweet and sour spareribs conclude the all-day menu. Evening yields up to fifteen blackboard specials,
usually including seared yellowfin tuna and the specialty duck and
scallops with oyster mushrooms. Others could be Desserts vary from pear-mango bread pudding and coconut-walnut-chocolate cake to crème caramel and poached pears with ginger ice cream. (860) 535-2122. Entrées, $18 to $26. Breakfast,
Friday and Monday Noah's This endearing restaurant – long known for good food, casual atmosphere and affordable prices – has been gussied up a bit lately. The once-funky double storefront now has fine art on the walls of the main dining room, where cherry booths beneath paddle fans and a tin ceiling draw the locals in for three meals a day. A front room with a handsome horseshoe-shaped mahogany bar offers a bar menu. Co-owners John Papp and Stanley Schwartz post international specialties nightly to complement traditional dinners on the order of broiled flounder, grilled pork chops and grilled breast of chicken. The night’s numerous specials have been upscaled lately and are a tad pricier, as you’d expect for dishes like prosciutto-wrapped monkfish with chianti sauce, spice-rubbed mako shark, spice-rubbed bluefish with mango-lime relish, grilled rare tuna with wasabi and pickled ginger, and lobster and shrimp sauté. Seafood is featured, but you might find grilled brace of quail with chardonnay cream sauce, venison hunter stew with dumplings or veal flank steak with pinot noir sauce. The fare is mighty interesting, from the house chicken liver pâté seasoned with brandy, sherry and pistachios to the welsh rarebit and the Korean bean and onion pancakes at lunch (many of the same items are offered on the bar menu). A bowl of clam chowder with half a BLT and a bacon-gouda quiche with side salad made a fine lunch for two for about $15. Save room for the scrumptious homemade desserts, perhaps chocolate-yogurt cake, bourbon bread pudding, or what one local gentleman volunteered was the best dessert he'd ever had: fresh strawberries with Italian cream made from cream cheese, eggs and kirsch. (860)
535-3925. www.noahsfinefood.com. Entrées, $12.95 to $24.95. Bar menu,
$7.25 to $12.95. Breakfast, 7 to 11, Sunday to Restaurant Bravo
Bravo Contemporary Italian fare is delivered with flair at
this 50-seat restaurant with a new martini bar on the main floor of the
Whaler’s The extensive, seemingly by-the-rote menu overseen by chef-owner Carol Kanabis rarely changes. But a modicum of excitement is found, especially among the specials. Meals might begin with marinated
olives and a white bean-red pepper spread for the warm, course country
bread. For dinner, grilled shrimp wrapped in prosciutto with
skewered artichokes, seafood sausage stuffed with lobster and scallops,
and sirloin carpaccio make good starters. Pastas include fusilli with
shrimp in a sundried tomato-vodka sauce and black pepper fettuccine with
grilled scallops, roasted tart apples and a gorgonzola alfredo sauce.
Typical entrées are crab cakes topped with lobster-chive sauce, a
saffron-seasoned seafood stew, osso buco and braised lamb shanks.
Grilled local ostrich with a sweet corn sauce was a special at one
visit. Another was sautéed tilapia over risotto with
haricots vert and chopped.
??? The lengthy dessert roster includes the obligatory tiramisu as well as tartufo, fruit napoleon with mascarpone cheese and ricotta cheesecake with grand marnier sauce. (860) 536-3228. Entrées, $15.95 to $24.95.
Lunch, Tuesday-Saturday
Colonial-style food, cooked as of 200 years ago and served by waitresses in period garb. That’s the formula for success created by this unusual restaurant’s founder and continued by the same kitchen team under the ownership of the Mashantucket Pequot Indians, best known for their nearby Foxwoods Resort Casino. Up to 75 dinner patrons gather at 7 o'clock in a small taproom where they pick up a drink, popcorn, crackers and cheese before they tour the farmhouse dating to 1685. Then they watch cooks preparing their meals in antique iron pots and reflector ovens in an immense open hearth in the old keeping room. Dinner is served prix-fixe in three atmospheric but spartan dining rooms. There’s a choice of four or five entrées, perhaps roast capon with wild rice stuffing, roast ribeye beef, roast pork loin, hearth-grilled salmon and Nantucket scallops with scallions and butter – a signature dish that is truly exceptional. The meal includes soup (often onion or Shaker herb), anadama or spider corn bread, squash or corn pudding, a conserve of red cabbage and apples, and desserts like apple crisp, Thomas Jefferson's bread pudding or pumpkin cake. Lunch, with similar food but less fanfare, is à la carte and considered great value by local innkeepers. Entrées are $7.95 to $10.95 for the likes of hearth-roasted chicken sandwich with maple mustard, beefsteak pudding, New England cod cakes and broiled lamb chops with boiled red potatoes and cranberry conserve. Don't worry about that hearthside heat in the summer. The structure is air-conditioned. (860) 599-4540. Prix-fixe, $39. Breakfast daily,
7 to 11. Lunch, noon to 2, weekends to 3. Dinner nightly, 5:30 to 9. Abbott's Lobster in
the Rough For more than 50 years, this old lobstering town has
been the home of a lobster pound like those you dream of and too seldom
find. Gourmet it's not, but people from all over manage to find their
way to the hard-to-find spot at the mouth of the You sit outside at gaily colored picnic tables placed on ground strewn with mashed-up clam shells. You order at a counter and get a number – since the wait is often half an hour or more and the portions to come are apt to be small, bring along drinks and appetizers to keep you going. A 1¼-pound lobster (about $14.95) comes with coleslaw, a bag of potato chips and a paper bib. Also available are steamers, clam chowder, mussels, shrimp in the rough, lobster or crab rolls and a complete lobster feast. Adjacent shacks dispense desserts and shellfish from a raw bar. If lobsters aren’t your thing, head to Costello’s Clam Shack, just beyond in the Noank Shipyard, an open-air place beneath a blue and white canopy right over the water. Now owned by Abbott’s (they’re Abbott’s and Costello’s, in friendly competition with each other), it’s smaller and less crowded. Although you can get a lobster dinner here, it’s best for its fried clams and fried scallops. (860) 536-7719. www.abbotts-lobster.com. Entrées,
$15 to $23. Open daily, Costello’s: (860) 572-2779.
www.costellosclamshack.com. Open daily, noon to 9, Memorial Day to Labor
Day. BYOB.
Material excerpted from Getaways for Gourmets in the Northeast, by Nancy and Richard Woodworth, copyright 2006, and Inn Spots & Special Places in New England, by Nancy and Richard Woodworth, copyright 2004.
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