I kicked off our coverage of the latest New Haven Restaurant Week with a Sunday visit to that bastion of Italian-American tradition—Wooster Street.
My lunchtime destination was Consiglio’s Restaurant, an old Elm City favorite with longtime roots.
The Consiglio family settled in New Haven more than a century ago, opening a small restaurant called The Big Apple in 1938. In the early 1960s, they moved the restaurant across the street and renamed it Consiglio’s.
My companion and I were immediately greeted by the third
and fourth generations of the family.
As soon as we were seated, good bread and even better olive oil were brought to our table.
Our waiter, Chris,
took our order.
Consiglio’s Restaurant Week menu provided plenty of choice, with four appetizers, eleven entrées and three desserts. And fortunately, Consiglio’s, a restaurant known for its generosity as well as its scrupulous adherence to tradition, reduces its lunch portions to survivable quantities of Italian fare. First, the starters… Our first appetizer was the stuffed mushrooms, which were filled with sausage, Mozzarella and spinach and finished in a lemon garlic sauce.
Wow, I exclaimed, because Consiglio’s stuffed mushrooms were far more flavorful than most, sporting a nice lemon bite and that lovely fennel seed taste that one finds in really good Italian sausage. Accompanied by a vibrant marinara sauce, our second appetizer, Consiglio’s fried calamari,
were incredibly fresh and tender, the lightly cooked rings and tentacles appearing to be seasoned with salt, pepper and crushed red pepper.
We fared just as well with our entrées, trying four in all. Of course, we had to order the cavatelli, which we elected with a beef braciola rather than meatballs.
Handmade by Aunt Marie herself, these cavatelli, a mixture of ricotta, flour and egg, were fashioned the same way that the Consiglios have been doing it for the last seventy-two years. A big square of lasagna was nicer and lighter than most.
Porcini, shiitake and portobello mushrooms graced a wild mushroom risotto garnished with grated Parmesan.
And finally, chicken Anna proved to be a luxurious mixture of chicken breast, wild mushroom, roasted red pepper, spinach and Gorgonzola cheese sauce served with a mound of mashed potato.
Consiglio’s housemade desserts also delivered a pleasurable wallop. We resisted the large cannoli, instead trying a spectacularly chocolatey yet light mousse cake
and a nice, creamy Godiva tiramisù.
Throughout this most enjoyable meal, I observed that others were having an experience similar to ours.
By two in the afternoon, the dining room was completely full. Some chose to eat in the bar area, others to wait
until a table was available.
But we were struck by how calmly and efficiently the restaurant operated—grace under pressure.
When people are really happy to be dining at a restaurant, there’s a shared quality to the experience. We ended up talking with a number of our neighbors, and in some cases, even photographing them.
A big part of the dining experience is the warmth and kindness of the Consiglio family. Here, from left to right, you see members of the second, fourth and third generations (Marie, Matt and Trish).
As you can see, I absolutely adored Aunt Marie.
And I was terribly impressed with Matt, who is already showing remarkable restaurant instincts. Here is young Matt posing with a card that announces Consiglio’s upcoming dinner theater,
and here’s a close-up of that card.
And here’s a close-up of a signboard outside the restaurant announcing Consiglio’s spectacular weekday lunch specials.
And now for some bonus New Haven coverage… On this gorgeous Sunday afternoon, the cherry trees were in full bloom and the usual queue had formed outside Frank Pepe’s Pizzeria.
Flyers advertised the Cherry Blossom Festival at nearby Wooster Square.
I wandered a short block over to the park and took these photographs that I feel capture the flavor of the Elm City (even if the sun disappeared behind cloud cover).
Consiglio’s Restaurant, 165 Wooster Street, New Haven, 203-865-4489