Abalone (Closed)
cuisine: French
entrées: $11.75 – $24
address: 595 Main Street, Stratford
phone: (203) 375-7400
credit cards: All major
4 Stars… Special
These are increasingly difficult times for restaurants. The economy seems clearly headed to recession (if it’s not there already), restaurant advertising has fallen off, there have been a number of unexpected closings (even of chain outlets), fuel and food costs are rising rapidly, and restaurants have been afraid that raising their prices will drive already-pressed consumers to dine at home. It doesn’t take a genius to know that there’s likely to be some sifting in the restaurant scene. The strongest and the most adaptable establishments have the best chance of surviving.
I’m not going to urge cash-strapped consumers, who have seen their own food, fuel and other costs rise dramatically, to get out and support the restaurant industry. Each individual is entitled to make his or her own spending decisions. What I will say is that when consumers decide to dine out, they may want to give some thought to which eateries they decide to support. Quirky and unusual eateries are probably the most vulnerable to economic downturns. In Hamden, for instance, I just lost a Brazilian sandwich shop called Copa Café that I just adored—and it’s irreplaceable.
One restaurant that I hope people will turn out and support is Abalone in Stratford which, despite a Main Street address, is not located near town but out by Sikorsky Airport. Abalone is neither a seafood restaurant nor a contemporary American restaurant, as its name might lead one to believe, but a French restaurant. Its charming owner is Yves Crouzet, who has worked in several of Fairfield County’s top French restaurants, including a stint as opening pastry chef of Saint Tropez. Ironically, while Crouzet currently operates a French restaurant in the United States, he previously operated an American restaurant in France. Located in Gif-sur-Yvette, a Parisian suburb, his restaurant Epicure featured Yankee specialties like steak and barbecue. I guess while in Rome, don’t do as the Romans do.
This Gallic nonconformist has already done much to adapt to the sputtering economy in the seventeen months that his restaurant has been open. Adaptations include hosting banquets, catering for private jets and even retaining a few menu items from the preceding restaurant, including pizzas. (After all, the restaurant came with a large back room, a nearby airport and a pizza oven.) I’d be hard-pressed to come up with another sit-down French restaurant in Connecticut that has both take-out and delivery service.
The exterior of the former Rose’s Family Restaurant is pretty nondescript, a large boxy brick building overhung with steep, brown-shingled eaves. Don’t let that put you off, because better things await inside. On your way to your seat, you will pass a pastry case and even a cheese case, which you should take as good omens. There are well-spaced booths and tables and even modernistic drop lights. Framed and glassed photographs show a wide cross-section of humanity in varying time periods and situations. Apparently, only three are of Crouzet’s own family (which photos is anyone’s guess), but all are intriguing and reward browsing. Nice piped-in piano music also adds atmosphere.
On the occasion of our visit, we honored a northern French tradition by sipping an apéritif of kir ($4.50) made with Chardonnay and Crème de Cassis (a black currant liqueur) while nibbling pieces of startlingly orange-hued Mimolette cheese that had been aged 18 years and dusted with a little pepper. Already, we were experiencing French food in new ways.
The more we sipped and nibbled, the more our appetites increased, which of course is the point. Abalone’s mostly French and American wine list ($20-$95) was arranged first by origin, then duplicated by varietal. There were twenty wines by the glass ($5-$8.50), a goodly selection. Crouzet wants to encourage exploration and refuses to impose big markups on his wines, unlike most American restaurateurs. No wonder we’re still a predominantly beer guzzling nation. But not our table! My companions and I cracked open a gutsy tannic 2005 Domaine de la Chanteleuserie, Borgueil, France ($32) from one of the few Loire Valley appellations devoted primarily to red wine.
In fact, Crouzet is all about teaching people how best to enjoy dining. He is an enthusiastic follower of the slow food movement, which was founded in 1989 to counteract the fast food lifestyle and its erosion of locally produced food, sustainable cultivation and community values. Appropriately, the slow food movement is symbolized by the snail. Since his restaurant is located near the ocean, Crouzet named it for another mollusk instead. He points out that, like his restaurant, abalones aren’t especially attractive on the outside but they’re pretty and good on the inside.
Warmed French bread and triangles of good butter were brought to our table. Soon after, we were enjoying a succession of seafood appetizers. Well, sort of. Unlike sea snails, periwinkles, limpets, conchs and yes, abalone, escargots do not dwell in the ocean—but how else can one categorize them? As shellfish? Well, they may have shells, but the preferred variety, Burgundy escargots, are land snails and don’t even dwell in water, making the fish part of it nonsensical.
For convenience, restaurants tend to lump anything vaguely fishy or with shells into the seafood category. I suppose I can’t blame them. Thus, escargots, crayfish, catfish, trout, barramundi and innumerable other freshwater or land-based items fall into the seafood category, and there’s not much point splitting hairs, er scales. I have even seen frogs legs listed as seafood. Never mind anadromous fish like salmon that blur any such distinction, beginning their life in fresh water, living most of their life in the ocean and then finally returning to fresh water to spawn.
Regardless of origin, six of the plump little gastropods ($8.20) were served out of their shells in an escargot dish, each compartment brimming with butter, garlic and parsley. Clams casino ($7.95) featured six beauties topped with garlic, scallion, shallot, white wine, olive oil and copa ham instead of bacon. Also delicious, seven green-lipped New Zealand mussels ($9.50) were finished with garlic, scallion, shallot, white wine, butter and shaved Parmesan.
Individual denizens of the deep (or not so deep) were well and good, but how about something that combined the best fruits de mer? A seafood crêpe ($9.50) could hardly have been lovelier. Topped with a tail-on shrimp, the half-moon-shaped package gift-wrapped a lighter-than-air filling of scallop, mussel, clam and shrimp in a sumptuous saffron cream sauce. I made sure I got my fair share of this cher fare.
The call of the sea may be irresistible at times, but there’s nothing wrong with the pleasures of terra firma, either. Abalone’s leek soup ($5.50) was thick, creamy, pale green, barely salted, not overly puréed and slightly sweet from the leeks. It reminded me of some of my favorite soups from my pre-restaurant-critic days when I actually used to cook, rather than eating out every night of the week.
And that’s the secret to Crouzet’s food—it’s haute cuisine combined with really good French home cooking. I know what that’s like, because my mother, at whose side I learned much of my cooking, learned much of her cooking from a French countess with whom she resided. Crouzet’s quiche recipe is his grandmother’s, and you won’t find a better one. The crust is splendid and the filling is light, eggy, quivery and not terribly cheesy. His quiches come with a small salad coated in the house mustard vinaigrette. He offers four varieties of quiche, and we tried two: the Lorraine ($10.50), which is flavored with French ham and Comté cheese, and the Scottish ($9.50), which is flavored with smoked salmon. And anyone who thinks “real men” don’t eat quiche, well—Them’s fighting words!
A little salad with a quiche is a nice offset to the savory pie’s natural richness. But when I’m in the mood for a full salad at Abalone, I go for the Roquefort ($5.75), a nice bowlful of vinegary greens covered with a giant serving of cheese similar to a slice of meatloaf. Apparently, one customer actually complained it was too much. To which I say—Take home, buddy! Don’t spoil it for the rest of us!
Abalone’s menu may not contain any abalone, but being a French restaurant, has duck in several forms. On a prior scouting visit, I had tried Abalone’s duck à l’orange ($21) and found the generous half duck in the classic sauce to be quite pleasing. On our review visit, Abalone was having a mallard duck fest, with five additional duck specials. With so much duck on offer, we decide to try two versions. Although sorely tempted by every item, we passed on a salad vigneronne with smoked magret ($14.50), on sautéed foie gras with seared apple ($19.50) and on duck magret in a green peppercorn sauce ($24.50). On the lighter end, we enjoyed a lentil salad with duck confit ($15.50), although the big Frenched drumstick turned out to be pretty generous. The confit was delicious, and not as salty as some, the lentil salad kissed with a raspberry vinaigrette. On the heavier end, cassoulet toulousain ($26) featured duck leg, shredded duck, veal sausage and Toulouse pork sausage with starchy giant northern beans.
Obviously, a craving for duck would be reason enough to visit Abalone, but visitors shouldn’t duck the remaining entrées, either. There are menu sections offering pastas, risottos, steaks and burgers. The seafood section includes monkfish in an asparagus and saffron sauce ($22.50), spicy snapper ($24.50), simple grilled salmon ($24.50) and the peculiarly named salmon unilateral ($22.50), which is cooked in a Madeira pink peppercorn sauce. The meat section includes chicken Basquaise ($21), veal Normandy ($19.50), Provençal rack of lamb in a mustard thyme sauce ($21) and pork chops ($19.50).
We settled on the spicy snapper, which was a generous triangular fillet pan-seared and served with mussels in the half shell, diced potato and flavorful Merguez sausages. Also a winner was Abalone’s pork chop, served “butcher style” in a white wine sauce with gherkins. This dish, we learned, was typical of northern France. There was a vegetable medley that included green beans, wax beans and baby carrots. But the detail that pleased us most of all was straight out of our childhoods—a mountain of mashed potato that, like a re-creation of Crater Lake, had a deep depression at the top filled with the delicious sauce.
Given Crouzet’s background, we expected the desserts to be good, and we weren’t disappointed. His tarte Tatin ($5) wasn’t fancy but it was absolutely scrumptious. You’ll profit by ordering his profiteroles ($5.50), the fresh pâte à choux filled with vanilla ice cream and swimming in chocolate sauce. He makes a nice vanilla crème brûlée ($6.50), although the crust was a little thicker and more sugary than ideal. We absolutely loved his rich, almost buttery, chocolate mousse ($5.50) with pieces of mandarin orange served in a cocktail glass. But our favorite dessert was all orange—Crouzet’s crêpes suzette ($6). Two quarter-folded, beer-battered crêpes were served with mandarin orange and flamed with curaçao.
I still haven’t gotten to my favorite part of the meal, though. Some people like their cheese plate ($9.60) as an appetizer, while others prefer it as a separate course before dessert. I like my cheese plate with dessert, because I’m both lactose intolerant and not especially sweet of tooth as I grow longer in the tooth. I find the cheeses and sweets neutralize each other so I can enjoy more of both. Abalone may not have a tremendous cheese selection, but it always seems to have a handful of exceptional cheeses. On this occasion, we savored Tomme de Savoie, Saint-Nectaire, more of the wonderful Mimolette and shavings of Tête de Moine.
Crouzet is an affable fellow, and his restaurant is an enchanting slice of Gallic life. With its commitment to “life in the slow lane,” Abalone sits squarely on the intersection of haute cuisine and good French home cooking.