In New Haven, I kept hearing about The Kitchen Table,
a restaurant that reportedly was loosely associated with the nightclub Gotham Citi Café. The word on the street—Crown Street—was that The Kitchen Table
was committed to the use of sustainable food. So in early December, before all of this snow started interfering with our enjoyment of winter, curiosity led my friend and me to check the restaurant out. The results were decidedly mixed.
We were greeted warmly by this comely hostess.
The restaurant’s interior was extremely attractive,
one that we could see ourselves returning to often.
My friend and I sat at this table, he in the chair, I on the banquette, an icy draft cutting my legs off at the knees.
We found it odd that there were so few customers.
Our waiter, Chris, proved to be very sharp.
The food, however, was wildly inconsistent. We began with homemade dinner rolls and orange cranberry biscuits
served with herb butter and maple cinnamon butter.
We appreciated the chef’s creative impulses, but neither baked item showed a great touch, the salty chewy dinner rolls too heavy, the biscuits too dry and crumbly.
Two pizzas were offered. We didn’t order the caramelized onion, thyme, smoked Gouda and toasted pine nuts pizza because the ingredients were used in other dishes we intended to get. Our mistake, friends later told us. While our pizza of local Blue CT Ledger cheese, Mozzarella and local greens clearly featured fresh, high-quality ingredients, it was as if the crust and the toppings were in a snit, refusing to have anything to do with one another.
The arancini, though a tad heavy, were much better. These fried risotto balls coated with bread crumbs were stuffed with smoked Gouda and served with a roasted red pepper dipping sauce. It was a nice combination.
Also more successful were eclectic purple potato gnocchi in an herbed butter and garlic sauce.
Unfortunately, a warm beet salad with goat cheese and toasted pecans in a fresh fig vinaigrette offered beet of an inexplicable leathery texture, as if the chef couldn’t decide whether to dry them or cook them.
While no one should expect a proper beef Wellington for just $12, giving a dish that name does raise certain expectations.
While bearing little resemblance to any beef Wellington I ever came across, lifting its puff pastry crown revealed flavorful tenderloin from sustainable New England cattle.
A half-pound burger from sustainable New England cattle with Berkshire Blue cheese, sustainable bacon, local greens and cider mayonnaise was pretty successful, as were the housemade sweet potato fries that accompanied it.
But an apple crisp suffered from the same problem as the pizza, ingredients that seemed to want to have nothing to do with one another.
It doesn’t matter how good your ingredients are if you can’t get them to come together.
The Kitchen Table shows real originality at times and a serious commitment to sourcing with sustainable local ingredients. There’s real potential there. Hopefully, the kitchen will work out some of the kinks. If anyone has visited the restaurant in 2011, I’m sure our readers would like to hear about your experience.
The Kitchen Table, 128 Crown Street, New Haven, 203-787-5422
www.thekitchentablenewhaven.com