Still River Café
cuisine: New American
entrées: $28 – $36
address: 134 Union Road, Eastford
phone: (860) 974-9988
credit cards: All major
5 Stars… Extraordinary
Still River Café Runs Deep
One of Connecticut’s most intriguing, and cutting-edge, restaurants is Still River Café, located improbably in the town of Eastford. Frankly, I sometimes wonder how this restaurant survives its isolated location. From any significant city, it’s a substantial trip (it’s just 15 minutes from Storrs). But the fact that Still River Café not only survives but thrives is a tribute to the extraordinary dining experience it provides. Although I live more than an hour away from the restaurant, I have made the trek three times, and undoubtedly will do so again.
Still River Café’s far-flung location is also part of its charm. If you’re coming from the Hartford direction, as probably the majority of its patrons does, your GPS device will lead you past pretty Bigelow Hollow State Park with its rock ledges, evergreens and natural ponds. If you’re early, you may want to stop by, as I sometimes have, and absorb the scenery and serenity.
You’ll find scenery and serenity at Still River Café as well. The restaurant is located in a refitted 150-year-old barn surrounded by 27 acres of farmland, with rambling stone walls and rolling pastures providing a scenic backdrop to the dining experience. Its greenhouses and gardens generate much of the produce used by the restaurant, the menu emphasizing seasonality and organic ingredients. During our late April visit, freshly risen daffodils and a bright orange tractor added splashes of color to the landscape.
When you think of some of Connecticut’s most beloved restaurant couples—Jean-Louis & Linda Gerin, Rebecca Kirhoffer & Reza Khorshidi, Arturo and Suzette Franco-Camacho, Roy Ip and Winnie Lui—you have to add Kara and Robert Brooks. The Brooks were both practicing corporate lawyers, but don’t hold that against them. Like yours truly, they left the legal profession and are indulging their passion for fine food. Kara, who is self-taught except for an apprenticeship at vaunted Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Westchester County, handles the kitchen duties and is my vote for Connecticut’s top female chef, while Robert handles some front of the house duties and the garden.
The gardening operation is as intriguing as the kitchen. The greenhouses are solar-powered. No pesticides or commercial fertilizers are used in cultivation. The Brooks are passionate about specialty vegetables grown from heirloom seeds, so you’re likely to enjoy produce that you can’t find elsewhere. On their website, StillRiverCafe.com, you can peruse the list of vegetables they cultivate, which is so esoteric it may drive some browsers to a food dictionary (e.g. burdock, kohlrabi, crosnes, Blue Hubbard squash, cardoons, salsify, delicata squash, and so on). All part of the fun.
Inside the restaurant, you’ll find a setting that is, in equal measure, historic and modern. The restored barn has “great bones,” its rough hewn crossbeams and support pillars reminding one that, before the Industrial Revolution, everything was done by hand. Of course, at Still River Café, everything pretty much still is done by hand—from the gardening to the food preparation in a kitchen which eschews processed products. White walls, chairs, tablecloths, napkins, lamp globes and even the enclosed bases of support columns contrast beautifully with all of the natural wood, lending an air of modernity and refinement to the dining room. Lights are adjusted perfectly so that you can read your menu but still find the lighting flattering. And as we all know, flattery will get you everywhere.
We arrived at a quarter till five, 15 minutes before Still River Café even opened, only to find eight eager beavers ahead of us in line. As a staff member used a remote to key up the music, one of the other waiting guests asked if he could make the selections. “Sorry,” answered the staffer, but the guest could have trusted in the owners’ inherently good taste. Throughout the evening, we were treated to music that ranged from 1940s Edith Piaf to 1950s blues to 1960s jazz to more contemporary pieces like Madeleine Peyroux’s sublime cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me To The End Of Love.”
If the ambiance could hardly be improved upon, so too the food and service. In my three visits, I noticed only a couple of minor service glitches—for instance, a waitress forgetting who had selected the wine. More telling, the staff are intelligent, friendly, well-schooled in the menu and unafraid to venture an opinion, if asked. I can’t abide answers like “everything’s good” or “it depends if you like lobster.” At Still River Café, you receive meaningful guidance.
And the food! The food! Everything is beautifully plated. Flavors are instinctively contrasted or combined, textures juxtaposed. There are small flourishes, but the food’s not overly precious. The cooking’s inventive, but each dish is sufficiently tethered to the familiar so that the diner doesn’t feel adrift in a sea of uncertainty. It’s creative—but not confusing. Sometimes you’ll find yourself wondering: now why hasn’t anyone else thought of that? And because everything that Still River Café offers sounds fantastic, you may experience menu paralysis. We certainly did.
As for libations, oenophiles will appreciate a wine list (bottles $30-$150; glasses $8-$9) that draws from around the world and includes some affordable vintages. For those looking to spend in the $30s, I might recommend a 2006 Vionta Albariño, Rias Baixas, Spain ($34) or a 2006 Grayson Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon, Paso Robles, California ($36). For those looking to spend in the $40s, I might suggest a 2006 Huber Grüner Veltliner, Alte Setzen, Austria ($45) or a 2006 Felsina Berardenga Chianti Classico, Italy ($45). For those looking to spend in the $50s, I might commend the 2006 Hess Su’skol Vineyard Chardonnay, Napa, California ($50), the 2004 Muga Rioja, Reserva, Spain ($58) or the 2005 Pesquera, Ribera del Duero, Spain ($58). And for those for whom money is no object, I’d still stand by the Muga and the Pesquera. They’re that good.
For most of us, money is an object, and lately, dining at Still River Café has become one of the best deals in the state. Never mind that, in my opinion, Still River Café is one of the ten, possibly five, best restaurants in Connecticut. For the time being, Friday’s three-course prix-fixe is just $39, which not only includes an appetizer, entrée and dessert, but also an amuse course at the beginning and a petit four or two at the end. Just keep in mind that, as of this writing, Still River Café is open only Friday and Saturday for dinner, and Sunday for brunch.
The amuse proffered during our visit included three treats: a mussel ceviche served on the half shell, a tiny shrimp spring roll served over lemongrass aïoli, and a shot glass of asparagus soup capped with miso foam. The spring roll won my admiration not only due to its flavor but due to firsthand knowledge of the difficulty of rolling such a tight, tiny and symmetrical one. The citrusy ceviche sported a nice texture and hinted of lemongrass, cilantro, chili and raw ginger. The soup was served sans spoon, its shot glass presentation communicating how it should be consumed.
The starters offered by Still River Café are delightful and diverse. It was difficult to pass up the North Ashford farm salad—simply because I don’t know where one can get a better one. It was served in a large white bowl that tilts slightly toward the diner to exhibit its treasures. Pretty cross-sections of watermelon radish, as radiant as tourmalines, made up the base, while a crispy ramp leaf garnished the top of the salad. In between, there was mâche, frisée, romaine lettuce, baby arugula, shaved fennel, orange and yellow bell pepper, toasted pumpkin seeds and Lynnhaven Farm goat Feta, all lightly coated in a Dijon-white balsamic vinaigrette. Every ingredient was stunningly fresh. If the salad erred, it erred on the side of being underdressed (which, as with my elegant wife, is no error at all).
Ramps also made an appearance in a ramp vichyssoise, the wild onions substituting for leeks in the classic chilled potato and leek soup, rendering it greener and less creamy but delicious nonetheless. The unexpected verdancy contrasted beautifully with an island of Parmesan flan set in the center of the wide shallow soup bowl, a Parmesan crisp jutting from it like ruined Loch an Eileen castle.
Rope-farmed Blue Hill Bay mussels were carefully stacked, not thrown into an interlocking jumble of gull-winged shells. There were no broken shells, grains of sand nor bits of beard—each mussel a study in perfection. Beneath them lay an exquisite, startlingly yellow, Sauvignon-blanc-and-saffron-Dijon sauce. The only possible quibble I could have had was needing to offload a few mussels to reach the broth beneath them, a small price to pay for creating a perfect union. So good was the mussel broth that, although miniature housemade baguettes were served with chive-and-parsley butter, it was with the broth that I consumed the most bread.
Housemade flatbread, lotus chips and candied kumquats accompanied a duck-and-chicken-liver mousse rich enough so it might have been better shared. Also garnished with lotus chips, house-smoked Kobe beef carpaccio was fashioned into “dumplings” filled with Parmesan custard, their richness more effectively offset by a small salad of arugula and shaved Parmesan in a miso-ginger vinaigrette. And finally, balancing upon slices of golden and Chioggia (candy cane) roasted beet was a ruby beet rollup containing avocado purée, microgreens, and Bush Meadow Farm goat cheese enhanced with shallots, white wine and fresh herbs. Toasted pistachios and a delectable goat cheese parfait served in an egg shell rounded out this highly original offering.
Don’t look for simplicity in Still River Café’s main dishes either, because most are actually done three ways, tripling the featured meat, fowl or fish. This is really a bonanza for diners, allowing them either to treat a main course as a three-item tasting (if a serial eater) or consume all three in combination (if a melting-pot type) because of their thematic compatibility.
From dishes I didn’t try, let me provide some examples. If Georges Bank scallops ($4 prix fixe supplement) were your chosen protein, you’d wind up with 1) pan-seared scallops with sautéed ramps and scallop jus, 2) scallop ceviche, and 3) hazelnut-encrusted sea scallops. If lamb ($4 supplement) were your protein du jour, you’d wind up with 1) pan-roasted loin chop with a parsnip purée and broccoli rabe, 2) lamb shank gratin, and 3) braised leg of lamb. And if rabbit were your selection (eh, what’s up, Doc?), you’d wind up with 1) poached saddle of rabbit medallions with baby carrots and a leek-filled crêpe, 2) roasted stuffed leg of rabbit, and 3) chilled rillette of rabbit.
For the meat-averse, a mushroom election would yield 1) a beet-and-saffron risotto topped with sautéed mushrooms and a soft-poached egg, 2) a hen-of-the-woods mushroom tart, and 3) a porcini mushroom mousse. For committed vegans (and they should be), the kitchen will drop the egg (so to speak). Yes, when you consider starters like the North Ashford Farm Salad, the slow-roasted beets and the ramp vichyssoise plus a main course like the tasting of mushrooms, Still River Café looks like a pretty fabulous destination for vegetarians.
But believe it or not, there were featured trios that we coveted even more than the examples I have provided. Hence, my earlier allusion to menu paralysis. My friend, Irene, ordered the Georges Bank cod. The centerpiece was a lovely piece of fish sitting in a pool of mushroom consommé with sautéed Swiss chard and mushrooms. It was flanked on one side by a panko-encrusted cod cake with chili aïoli, and by a sinfully rich cod-and-clam chowder on the other.
I ordered the Maine lobster ($6 supplement) and was not disappointed, either. The centerpiece of this dish, lightly smoked and poached lobster tail over a potato purée with caramelized leeks and Parisienne beets, while pleasurable was so soft and mild that it didn’t provide major fireworks. However, this was a dish that demanded melting pot, rather than serial, eating. By mixing in bites of my lobster-and-shrimp croquette over a lemongrass aïoli, I gained contrasting texture. By mixing in slurps of an absolutely killer lobster bisque garnished with a lobster ceviche, I gained a wealth of flavor. I felt like the title character in Alice in Wonderland, eating from one side of the mushroom to grow larger, and then the other side to grow smaller.
Howard ordered the New England pasture-raised beef ($4 supplement), and became a double winner. (He married Irene.) The centerpiece was grilled hanger steak in a red-wine-and-veal-stock reduction over fingerling potatoes. Equally substantial were slow-roasted short ribs in their own reduced braising liquid served over assorted root vegetables (kohlrabi, turnip, carrot and parsnip). And in a clever turn, a spiced Kobe beef kofta ball was served over a mint purée and yogurt seasoned with shallots.
Kara sets an awfully high bar (legal pun alert) with her starters and entrées, but manages to maintain that standard through the desserts. Her ingenious carrot dessert is a reminder that, like Noel Jones of ON20, she dabbles occasionally in molecular gastronomy. Fortunately, they no longer burn women at the stake for that. Hence, her miniature spiced carrot cake with a crumbled walnut coating was paired with a “carrotsicle” filled with ginger ice cream that looked just like a carrot. I’ll spare you the involved process by which she conjures up the “carrot.”
Garnished with an edible purple dendrobium orchid and a triangular tuile, a crème brûlée duo featured unexpected but pleasing flavors. One “burnt cream” was tinged with cinnamon and spice, the other with rosemary. But best of all was a chocolate tasting featuring three miniature dark chocolate cakes, two truffles (one dark chocolate, the other white-chocolate-and-coconut), and housemade crème fraîche ice cream perched atop chocolate foam. Sea salt crystals tucked under the truffles evoked the contrast between salty and sweet, an old Asian dessert trick that has recently become in vogue in elite American restaurants.
Think we were finished? A meal like this doesn’t just end—any more than the fat lady sings just a couple of notes and keels over, any more than a honeymoon couple just wants to hurry and get it over with. No, we still had to linger over cups of good coffee, fondly recalling the pleasures of the evening while nibbling on petit fours (on this occasion, little rosewater-flavored and lime-flavored meringue cookies). We would head back home with an inner glow that couldn’t entirely be explained by the fine wine we had imbibed.
Precious few Connecticut restaurants can match the dining experience that Still River Café affords. The Brooks have made an extraordinary commitment to quality, to affordability, to integrity, to healthy living, to sustainable local farming, and most of all, to their fortunate customers. I guess it’s true what they say—this Still River does run deep.