With little or no fanfare, there are some restaurants that just go quietly about the business of producing terrific food in a pleasing setting. Blue Lemon in Westport is one such restaurant.
When we visited, we were offered the choice between dining more formally indoors
or more casually on the porch,
and as it was a pleasant evening and the hanging flower pots looked pretty, we elected the al fresco option.
Bob Marley and Louis Armstrong provided soothing background music throughout our meal.
When one has complete faith in a restaurant, as I do Blue Lemon, it can be a great pleasure to put yourself completely in the hands of its management, trusting it to put together a tasting menu of exciting foods and a couple of nice wines. I love the element of surprise, and the way some restaurants rise to the occasion when given the chance to strut their stuff. So when manager Angel Chacón
suggested a tasting menu, I couldn’t resist.
For our starting wine, we sipped a 2008 Finca Venta de Don Quijote Sauvignon Blanc, Castilla-La Mancha, Spain, a lovely crisp white with well-balanced acidity. We enjoyed nice dinner rolls with both a fragrant yellow olive oil and a big square of hotel butter (which we divided into two triangles for sharing).
Our first course to arrive was a yellowfin tuna tartare with avocado, ginger marinade, chipotle oil and wonton chips. There are many coarse, insipid tuna tartares out there giving the dish a dubious name, but this version was just delightful.
Our second course might also be called a standard, but again was much better than most representations of the dish that one encounters. Carpaccio of beef tenderloin was topped with nutty baby arugula and shaved Parmesan and dressed with lemon juice, capers and extra virgin olive oil.
Our third course was our first hot one—three torpedo-shaped grilled baby squid in a ginger-and-lime vinaigrette. The aroma of the grill greeted our nostrils before we even set eyes upon the dish. The combination was absolutely perfect, the citrusy sauce reining in any harshness from char grilling. There was a little side salad of arugula with tiny tentacles concealed among its leaves.
It was time to switch to a red wine, and the one that was presented to us impressed us greatly. It was a powerful, jammy, 2006 Vista Vineyards “Jon,” Mendoza, Argentina, a Malbec-Syrah-Cabernet Sauvignon blend. We could feel our happiness increasing by the minute.
The red wine held up surprisingly well with salmon, helped no doubt by echoing some of the acidity that could be found in the dish. Seared king salmon was served over ginger spinach (a great use of the root) in a preserved lemon vinaigrette with an apple-cranberry chutney.
But the intense blend came fully into its own with roasted rack of lamb in a fresh-herb-and-balsamic reduction. With the lamb came a warm red bliss potato salad with baby carrots, snow peas and a surprising horseradish aïoli.
Our great meal was about to get even better. We shared four desserts, each more tempting than the last. An apple crisp was topped with vanilla ice cream.
A white chocolate flan was a subtle marriage of flavor and texture.
A lava cake had great chocolate flavor but was not overly sweet.
And, appropriate given the name of the restaurant, a lemon tart with fresh berries was absolutely luscious.
The coup de grâce was a glass of Black Muscat.
Our tasting dinner showed the quality and range of offerings at Blue Lemon. And for those who are on a budget, Blue Lemon has a popular prix-fixe menu from which one can choose an appetizer, an entrée and a dessert for just $20. Chef-owner Bryan Malcarney, who earlier this year took over Rory’s in Darien, has a real winner in Blue Lemon.
Blue Lemon, 7 Sconset Square, Westport, 203-226-2647