Siblings Kleber, Nube and Vicente Siguenza have been busy opening restaurants in southern Connecticut. Good ones, I might add. Their holdings include Cava Wine Bar & Restaurant in New Canaan, Scena in Darien, 55 Wine Bar & Restaurant in Fairfield, and the Harvest Restaurant & Wine Bars in Greenwich and now New Haven.
I took a nice dinner with a friend at the Harvest in Greenwich last September, appropriately on the cusp of fall. The atmosphere was contemporary casual, the clientele decidedly upscale, the food imaginative and good. With glasses of Stag’s Leap Chardonnay and Skyfall Cabernet Sauvignon, we enjoyed an octopus starter, a Bibb lettuce salad, a veal chop, a grilled meat sampler and a banana pudding.
I enjoyed an early January lunch at the new Harvest in New Haven, which is located in the unusual, subterranean, elevator-accessed Yale space previously occupied by Scoozi that looks out upon a sunken courtyard. My dining companions were Dorjan Puka and his beautiful wife Mira, owners of Treva and A’Vert in West Hartford and Artisanal Burger Company in Manchester.
From Harvest’s two-course, prix-fixe lunch ($18), we got to try items like the shaved Brussels sprouts salad, the spicy salmon tartare, the baby kale salad, the crispy artichoke salad, the beer-steamed mussels and the market fish of the day. For dessert, we enjoyed carrot cake and Nutella crêpes with espressos. The space was attractive, the staff attentive, and the restaurant seemingly positioned for success.
THE VERDICT: Judging by a supper at Harvest in Greenwich and a lunch at the newer Harvest in New Haven, these creative American restaurants should appeal to a great number of people.
FEEDBACK: Tell us about your experiences at either Harvest restaurant.
CONTACT INFO: Harvest Wine Bar & Restaurant; 372 Greenwich Avenue, Greenwich, 203-869-4080; 1104 Chapel Street, New Haven, 203-777-2500; harvestwinebar.com