When Cast Iron Soul moved from New Haven to Hamden last year, locating across the street from Knight’s X-Treme Cuts, where my man, Rob Williams, a first-rate barber and foodie, has a chair, it was real cause for celebration.
My buddy and I wasted no time getting over there to try the cooking of Steve Ross, shown here with his wife Shayla.
Ross brings a noteworthy culinary background, including a long cooking stint at Zinc in New Haven, to his renditions of Soul Food classics.
The atmosphere of the restaurant is simple but attractive.
The walls are decorated with memorable jazz and blues prints and other African-American themed artwork.
Everyone is most welcoming.
During our numerous visits, nice, buttery, not-overly-sweet cornbread always kicks off the meal.
Often, we’re drawn to the wings.
My buddy often goes for one of the po’ boys, which are obviously pretty substantial.
Occasionally, he goes for one of the simple dinners ordered with two sides, like this one,
and once I follow suit, finding it plenty of food.
But usually, glutton that I am, I go for the Fat Boy, two entrées plus four sides—then live to regret it.
Sometimes, we’ve staggered out of the restaurant unable to consider dessert. Sometimes, the restaurant has run out of the dessert we want. But most of the time, we somehow find room to fit a little more food in, like this sweet potato pie with homemade whipped cream,
this peach cobbler,
or especially, this fabulous pineapple coconut cake, which we also order out for family birthdays.
Food like this creates anticipation like this,
all thanks to Steve and Shayla.
Flat out, this restaurant serves the best Soul Food I’ve found in the Northeast, and takes me back to some of the great fixins I enjoyed in Ypsilanti, Michigan in the early 1980s, when folk who had migrated up the Appalachian spine in search of automobile factory jobs had to create other enterprises to survive when those jobs were eliminated.
Cast Iron Soul, 1012 Dixwell Avenue, Hamden, 203-495-8400, www.castironsoul.com