I don’t get to Le Petit Café in Branford
nearly as often as I would like but, if time and money were no object, I’d probably have a table there named after me. On the latest occasion, I dined with my visiting mother,
but my wife, whom you can see from this 2011 photo also loves the restaurant,
was unable to join us.
It was a chilly fall evening, but the restaurant was warm and inviting.
As soon as we were seated, we were brought a trio of small dishes
and slices of housemade crusty French loaf.
Individually, the dishes were sumptuous housemade black truffle butter to spread on the bread,
imported French olives marinated and cured with herbes de Provence,
and the wonderful roasted beets with pickled lemon in a fresh grated ginger and mint vinaigrette that years ago turned this beet-hater into a lover.
With a bottle of Côtes du-Rhône,
we were in business.
Le Petit Café, which many years (including this one) is the top-ranked restaurant for food in the Connecticut edition of the Zagat Survey, operates solely on a prix-fixe basis. For a set price of $52.50, those amenities that proceeded our wine (all drinks are extra) are followed by choice of appetizer, the house salad, choice of entrée, and choice of dessert. Obviously, there’s no point coming if you haven’t worked up a good appetite.
We had! And for our first appetizers, my mother selected the sautéed escargots in a Saint-Agur-blue-cheese-and-Cognac sauce served over herb-accented puff pastry,
while I ordered the fresh Maine diver scallops served ceviche-style with sweet red onion, field-ripened pineapple and Italian blood orange in a cilantro-jalapeño vinaigrette.
But we shared, bien sûr!
I dug into my photo archives to show you some of the other appetizers we could have ordered, including a personal favorite, the chilled jumbo shrimp served with European cucumber, soba noodles and spicy sesame vinaigrette
as well as warm duck leg confit served with fresh fruit jam, golden delicious apple and radish.
And for our salad course, we were served stunningly fresh organic mesclun greens with warm goat cheese and greenhouse tomatoes in a Dijon mustard vinaigrette.
For our entrées, my mother, who makes a pretty mean three-day cassoulet herself, enjoyed Roy’s duck cassoulet served with roasted duck breast, applewood smoked bacon, duck Armagnac sausage and flageolet beans,
while I had all-natural, milk-fed veal cheeks slow-braised with red Burgundy wine and jumbo trumpet royale mushrooms and served with red bliss potatoes over sautéed organic spinach,
shown here individually.
This time we didn’t share, we just tasted.
I dug into my photo archives to show you some of the other entrées we could have ordered, which included roasted premium Australian rack of all-natural lamb in a rosemary-bordelaise sauce with parsnip-apple gratinée, and sautéed snow peas (now haricots verts).
And I also had a hard time passing up the baked, miso-glazed, Marine Stewardship Council-certified Chilean sea bass, whose accompaniments had changed.
For our desserts, we went all-chocolate, choosing the flourless chocolate cake
and the chocolate hazelnut fondant,
both fabulous. But another foray into the archives will show we could also have had the bread pudding,
the apple tart,
and a crème brûlée (which last night was espresso flavored).
And finally, we finish with complimentary glasses
of Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise.
The hospitality of Le Petit Café continues to seduce and the food of master chef Roy Ip to amaze.
Le Petit Café, 225 Montowese Street, Branford, 203-483-9791, www.lepetitcafe.net