Another place my dining adventures are likely to land with some frequency is Restaurant Bricco in West Hartford, a personal favorite. After I spent this past Saturday and Sunday evenings bestowing our editorial awards upon winning Taste of Hartford restaurants (see next article), I grabbed dinner at Bricco, figuring Hartford had received enough attention lately.
Despite rainy weather one night and chilly weather the next, Bricco’s patio dining was almost full.
The bar area was packed,
as was every part of the dining room.
Wherever one looked, one found people, like this attractive young couple, having a terrific dining experience.
I’m guessing the last time Bricco wasn’t packed was during the last major ice storm. Or the last Ice Age.
Bricco isn’t a place of great mystery. It features an open kitchen,
and if you ask chef Billy Grant how he does something, he’s only too happy to tell you. Forgive me if the following photos don’t do full justice to Grant’s food. If they lack some immediacy, warmth and brightness control, it’s because I’m forced to resort to my wide-angle lens after a recent camera mishap.
Grant wasn’t in the kitchen during either visit, because he was headed to Dallas to cook for Share Our Strength, which addresses the problem of America’s 12.4 million children at risk for hunger. Grant is one of Connecticut’s most socially committed chefs, yet another reason to patronize his restaurants. His absence from the restaurant didn’t concern us, because we know how skilled his kitchen staff is.
During our first visit, we dined indoors. We began with good housemade focaccia and crusty Italian bread.
I like to pair Bricco’s fruity Monini extra virgin olive oil with the focaccia and its good hotel butter with the Italian bread. Complimentary green olives, big and small, were also served.
Here is a photo of our waiter bringing us our glasses of wine in miniature carafes.
We couldn’t resist starting with a lovely seasonal salad of yellow and red heirloom tomato from Upper Forty Farm in Cromwell, buffalo Mozzarella and basil pesto.
Unlike Bricco, most restaurants don’t do a great job with caprese salad variations. This is distressing because they’re so easy to do well. I assembled a terrific one last night with buffalo Mozzarella from Costco, vine-ripened tomatoes from Trader Joe’s, pesto from Costco, balsamic vinegar from Christmas Tree Shops and Spanish olive oil from Trader Joe’s.
We split Bricco’s wood-oven-baked rigatoni with Italian sausage, plum tomato, peas, cream and Mozzarella. You’ll never find better—and it’s just $16!
But Bricco’s best dish, and a serious contender for Connecticut’s best dish, is its tantalizing mustard BBQ cedar-planked salmon. In Bricco’s oven, a thick slab of salmon cooks beautifully, its exterior caramelizing slightly. If you try it once, it will bring you back to Bricco again and again. The fish is escorted by mashed potatoes and green beans (on this occasion, wax beans, haricots verts and leeks).
This is also a bargain at $22. There are hundreds, probably thousands, of dishes around Connecticut that aren’t as good as this one and cost more.
During our second visit, we dined outdoors because it was a lesser wait. Thanks to radiant heat lamps like this one,
it was a very pleasant dining experience despite the chilly, fall-like evening.
We decided to order dishes that we hadn’t tried in the past. We selected an appetizer special of oyster mushrooms served over warm Fontina crostini with arugula.
It wasn’t Bricco’s most inspired effort, with some of the mushrooms proving to be a little woody and lacking in flavor. But diver sea scallops with a native corn, tomato and pancetta risotto were an unqualified success. The scallops were cooked perfectly and the risotto was fine accompaniment to them.
We finished with a dessert of housemade olive oil gelato, blueberry compote and a lemon-blueberry-pignoli biscotto.
Good fun, but the dessert I really recommend is Bricco’s lemon sampler with a bruléed lemon tart, lemon mascarpone mousse cake and housemade lemon curd ice cream.
Except for the mushrooms, Bricco didn’t miss a beat in Grant’s absence, the sign of a well-staffed kitchen. Bricco remains one of my preferred dining destinations.
Restaurant Bricco, 78 LaSalle Road, West Hartford, 860-233-0220