Chef Jeff Taibe Opens Bar Bushido Izakaya & Temaki Bar in Norwalk Restaurant Norwalk South Norwalk Opening Japanese Izakaya Sushi Sushi Bar CT Chef Homepage Sam Schwab January 14, 2025 After months of not-so-patiently waiting, the day is almost here. Tomorrow, Jeff Taibe and Steph Sweeney, co-owners of Taproot, are officially opening the doors to their new restaurant Bar Bushido, a traditional Japanese izakaya. While the restaurant is new, the idea isn’t; Taibe actually has been working on the concept for Bar Bushido for over five years. The name originates from Taproot’s former pop-up series, called “Bushido,” that took place prior to COVID. Taibe introduced the one-Sunday-per-month experience as a way to fuel his passion for Japanese cooking, something he missed dearly from his days at Kawa Ni in Westport. Bar Bushido has been years in the making, but it wasn’t until the 51 Wall Street space opened up, that it became a reality. Read More
Guide to Juice Bars and Juice Cleanses in Connecticut (2025 Edition) Features Restaurant Juice Bar Juice Cleanse Healthy Eats healthy Special Dietary Needs Highlight Homepage Carly Terzigni January 11, 2025 With the start of a new year, many want to incorporate healthy habits into their daily routines, like eating more fresh fruits and vegetables. One way to do so in an ultra-convenient method is by sipping on a cup of delicious fresh-press juice. Rather than go through the hassle of juicing fruits and vegetables yourself, many businesses across Connecticut offer juices that can be prepared and enjoyed in a matter of minutes! Many of these businesses also offer cleanses– multi-day dietary programs aimed at detoxing and reducing inflammation through juice products.If you’re looking for a juice bar, natural food market, or cafe that offers fresh-pressed juice products, this is the guide for you. This guide is broken up by county so you can quickly locate a business near you that sells an array of juices. Read More
Ways To Help Los Angeles: Food Delivery to Firefighters, Donations and More Features Philanphropy Giving CTbites Team January 11, 2025 In the wake of the devastating tragedy that continues to unfold in Los Angeles, so many of us are looking for ways to help those affected by the wildfires that have torn through the city. We encourage CT residents to review the list of resources below and donate where you can. Large organizations like World Central Kitchen are on the ground serving meals to impacted communities, and smaller initiatives like the Santa Monica based restaurant, Le Great Outdoors is allowing people to purchase meals at $20 a meal that are being delivered daily. View their interview with Anderson Cooper here. Please help if you can. Read More
Rye Bird Opens in Fairfield with Southern American Comfort Food Features Interview Restaurant American Southern Cocktails Interview Openings Fairfield Homepage Andrew Dominick January 09, 2025 Since April of 2024, a new restaurant by the name of Rye Bird, located in the longtime former home of Isla in Fairfield, teased a tasty, affordable, neighborhood restaurant concept. Operated by Post Road Hospitality, Rye Bird officially cracked open its doors on October 19 after hosting some patio preview parties prior to its grand opening. Rye Bird’s founder and president Frank Klein hopes it’ll catch on as the “next neighborhood joint” for a bunch of reasons. Read More
NYC's Cult Fave Beauty & Essex to Open at Mohegan Sun February 7 Restaurant Opening Mohegan Sun Casino Speakeasy CTbites Team January 08, 2025 This just in from Mohegan Sun Casino…Mohegan Sun has announced that it will open Beauty & Essex in collaboration with Tao Group Hospitality on Friday, February 7, 2025. This restaurant concept, co-created by Chef Chris Santos, will soon offer Mohegan Sun guests a high-caliber dining experience within the property’s Casino of the Sky, next to novelle. The 11,000-square-foot restaurant will feature Tao Group’s signature global cuisine, including popular dishes such as the Grilled Cheese, Smoked Bacon & Tomato Soup Dumplings, Tuna Poke Wonton Tacos, Classic Beef Wellington, Grilled Double Cut Lamb Chops as well as exclusive menu options crafted specifically for Mohegan Sun.Known for its eclectic menu, speakeasy vibe and sophisticated ambiance, Beauty & Essex has an innovative design that starts in the restaurant’s entrance with a well-curated modern day pawn shop, featuring a collection of vintage jewelry, custom musical instruments, one-of-a-kind art and more, curated by Gold Girl, Lauren Kaminsky. Everything in the shop is available for purchase and each item tells a story, inviting guests to discover luxury in the most unexpected places. Read More
Hemma Kitchen: Locally Sourced Organic Meal Delivery in Fairfield County Features Meals To Go Meal Delivery Fairfield County Caterer Stephanie Webster January 08, 2025 Some days, you just don’t want to cook at home, but you want to serve yourself or your family a healthy delicious meal. Sure, you can order in from a local restaurant, but those dishes seldom come with an ingredients list, and more often than not, are a long way from locally or organically sourced. Enter Hemma Kitchen, a Fairfield County based meal planning solution to the never ending conundrum…what do I serve for dinner tonight?In Swedish, the word "hemma" embodies the concept of home. In today's fast-paced world, the significance of eating at home and having healthy meals cannot be overstated and directly impacts our quality of life. Eating at home provides an opportunity to take control of our nutrition, allowing us to prioritize wholesome ingredients. Hemma Kitchen allows you to enjoy healthy home cooked meals every day of the week. At the helm of Hemma Kitchen is a chef with whom you may already be familiar, Chef Molly Healey. Healey was the owner of the much beloved Manna Toast in Westport before launching Hemma.Hemma Kitchen offers an a la carte menu, easily browsable online, that changes weekly. Menu items are based on the seasons as well as what Healey can procure at local farmers’ markets and specialty stores carrying organic ingredients. For Healey, finding the very best organic ingredients, sourced as locally as possible, is critical to her mission. 100% of her meat is from Matt Storch’s Saugatuck Provisions. Her organic salmon is from Maine. Everything you find on the Hemma menu is also free from: refined sugar, seed oils, preservatives, gums and fillers Read More
First Look: Mighty Quinn's BBQ Opens at The Waypointe in Norwalk Features Ingredients Interview Restaurant BBQ Norwalk Mighty Quinn's BBQ Openings Interview Homepage Andrew Dominick January 07, 2025 Most Connecticut residents who were unfamiliar with Hugh Mangum before he and his family started making donuts in Wilton four years ago, may be oblivious to a few tidbits. Mangum, you see, isn’t only a French Culinary Institute graduate who worked under Jean-Georges Vongerichten, but he’s the founder of the popular Mighty Quinn’s BBQ. Now that his family’s donut shop, Rise Doughnuts, has gone from a pop up to its own physical location, paired with the fact that the Mangums reside in Wilton, the time to open another Mighty Quinn’s in nearby Norwalk in the former Bobby Q’s and the short lived Lechon Smokehouse space at The Waypointe. Read More
Ore Hill Offers Elevated Micro Seasonal Dining in Kent Restaurant Kent Litchfield County Fine Dining Opening WIne Farm To Table New American Erik Ofgang January 01, 2025 Somewhere between the main course and dessert round during a recent tasting at Ore Hill the palette cleansers arrive in the form of a sorbet. The secret ingredient in the dish is habanada peppers a selectively bred variant of the better-known habanero peppers that Executive Chef Ryan Carbone explains retain the flavors of a habanero without the spice. So you get all these green vegetal notes and it feels like it’s about to get spicy but the heat never comes, Carbone says. The sensation, which Carbone describes perfectly, is one of a kind and exactly the kind of flavor that makes dining at Ore Hill such a treat. The ultra-select, ultra-high-end fine dining experience offers a multicourse immersion in local ingredients and chef-driven cuisine and the kind of big-city tasting menu rarely found in Connecticut. This is accompanied by high-end cocktails and a natural wine-driven wine list that doesn’t shy away from bringing some intriguing and intentional funk. Read More
Casadoro Opens in Newington: Family Friendly Italian from The Doro Team Restaurant Opening Newington Italian Pizza Lunch Leeanne Griffin December 31, 2024 The DORO Restaurant Group has covered French brasserie fare, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern and upscale northern Italian cuisine with its three West Hartford Center restaurants. For its newest concept, the group has planted a flag in a new town, with a southern Italian red-sauce menu friendly to families.Casadoro, from the owners of Treva, Àvert Brasserie and Zohara, soft-opened at 2929 Berlin Turnpike in Newington Wednesday night. The group also owns and operates the DORO Marketplace cafe locations in Wethersfield, West Hartford and Windsor Locks and Artisanal Burger Company in Manchester.The new spot features casual Italian dishes, including pizzas, housemade pastas and its own takes on classics like chicken parmesan, lasagna and veal Milanese. Scott Miller, DORO’s chief operating officer and partner alongside CEO Dorjan Puka, said Casadoro’s cuisine is “a crowd-pleaser menu.” Read More
Restaurateur Jody Pennette Opens Live Music Venue Meets "French Dive Bar" Music & Industry in Norwalk Features Interview Restaurant Cocktails Bar Live Music French Norwalk Music Homepage Interview Andrew Dominick December 29, 2024 Veteran restaurateur Jody Pennette is no stranger to opening restaurants and bars all over the world, but his latest, Music & Industry in South Norwalk is different from the rest. This one, you see, is his, and his alone. “This is the 505th one I’ve opened, and it’s the only one I own,” he says. “I’m like a songwriter versus being a singer—I’m creating things for other people to perform. I size them up to see what I can do for them and try to deliver something that’s going to be a market worthy story.” Read More
CTbites Staff Picks For Top Eats of 2024 (+Special Guest Eaters) Features Restaurant Best CT Restaurant Best of CT Top Eats Highlight Homepage CTbites Team December 29, 2024 It’s that time of year, when the CTbites staff temporarily puts down our forks, and contemplates our most memorable annual eats. 2024 saw an explosion of restaurateurs and chefs entering the Connecticut culinary scene, and the CTBites team, alongside some special guest reviewers below, did our best to eat it all. There were some clear standouts, restaurants that you’ll find repeated in the “top eats” lists below, and some hidden gems you should add to your dining dance card. Here are CTbites’ TOP EATS for 2024. Read More
The Tasty Yolk Opens 3rd Location in Branford: Ultimate Breakfast & Lunch Sandwiches Restaurant Opening Breakfast Sandwich Breakfast Lunch Branford Sandwiches Stephanie Webster December 21, 2024 The uber popular Tasty Yolk has opened their third third location in Branford this week at 539 Main Street. For those not yet familiar with The Tasty Yolk experience, Chef Felitto (Food Network Chopped Champion), his wife Allison McHale, and partner, Michael Bertanza, have created the gold standard for to-go breakfast and lunch comfort food, primarily sandwiches and wraps (and then there is that loaded potato and the buttermilk pancakes with citrus mascarpone and crumbled bacon…drool). These are not just ANY Bacon, Egg & Cheese sammies. Read More
The Foundry Opens in Hartford January 16 with Sweeping Views & Exciting Chef Team Features Restaurant Opening Hartford Fine Dining Date Night Bar Menu Tasting Menu Leeanne Griffin December 20, 2024 Hartford’s best restaurant view returns next month, as The Foundry opens on the 20th floor of the Hartford Steam Boiler building January 16. The former ON20 Restaurant, known for its soaring views of the Connecticut River and other area landmarks, has been fully renovated and reimagined, with even more stunning panoramic vistas of the capital city. The industrial-chic interior has an expansive bar, an open kitchen with gleaming stainless-steel appliances, private dining spaces and jaw-dropping glimpses of the sky from nearly every vantage point.ON20, a celebrated white tablecloth establishment for many years, closed during the uncertainty of the pandemic in 2020, but two years ago, Hartford Steam Boiler’s leadership began reaching out to key people to start conversations about reopening the restaurant. Read More
60+ CT Restaurants To Celebrate New Year’s Eve & New Year’s Day (2024 Edition) Features New Years Holiday Homepage Hannah Goodman December 19, 2024 Every year has its ups and downs, its highs and lows, and 2024 was no different. Maybe it was your best year yet or maybe it kind of stunk and you’re looking forward to 2025. Either way, I hope you were able to eat great food and share yummy drinks over inspiring conversations with family, loved ones, or by yourself if that’s what you really wanted (alone time is okay!). So no matter the type of year you’ve had, it’s important we all go out with a bang, collectively. This list will provide you with the many New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day dinners, parties, brunches, and celebrations that our great state of Connecticut has to offer. The list is also broken down by county, so you have no choice but to throw some glitter on, dig out your 2024 glasses that you’re planning on turning into 2025 glasses somehow (you’re creative, you got this), and get yourself to a great restaurant or a rockin’ club. Do we love clubs 364 days out of the year? Maybe not, but on December 31st, we do! Happy New Year to my fellow CT brethren and here's to 2025! And don’t forget the advil…you’ll thank me later. Read More
Luna Wood Fired Pizza - Close to Pizza Perfection in Naugatuck Restaurant Naugatuck Pizza Jeff "jfood" Schlesinger December 18, 2024
Blossom Cafe, with Asian-Fusion Brunch Items, Opens in Simsbury Restaurant Brunch Simsbury Asian Food Japanese Coffee Shop Matcha Breakfast Sandwiches Homepage Leeanne Griffin December 17, 2024 Chances are you’ve seen Japanese souffle pancakes on Instagram or TikTok – tall, thick and fluffy confections that jiggle at the slightest movement, topped with maple syrup, powdered sugar and berries. These have been hard to find in Connecticut, but they’re on the menu at a Simsbury Asian-fusion cafe that opened earlier this year.Blossom Cafe owners Amanda Liu and Albert Zhang traveled through Asia last summer and fell in love with the cafe cultures in the countries they visited, coming back home to Connecticut inspired by what they’d seen. Read More
NYC's Renown Mighty Quinn’s Barbeque Opening in Norwalk Restaurant Norwalk open BBQ Comfort Food South Norwalk CTbites Team December 15, 2024 Breaking BBQ news from Mighty Quinn’s Barbeque. We’ll bring you more on this exciting opening very soon!Mighty Quinn’s Barbeque (Mighty Quinn’s), the acclaimed NYC-born restaurant known for its all-natural slow-cooked meats, announced today the grand opening of its new location at The Waypointe in Norwalk (11 Merwin Street). The opening will kick off with a ribbon-cutting ceremony hosted by the Greater Norwalk Chamber and Mayor Harry Rilling on December 18 at 3 p.m., ahead of the grand opening on December 20. As part of the opening celebration, Mighty Quinn’s will donate 10% of all grand opening sales to Norwalk based charity Filling in the Blanks, which works to fight childhood hunger. For those unfamiliar with Mighty Quinn’s, it was the first authentic barbeque experience in a fast-casual setting after co-founder, Pitmaster, and CT resident, Hugh Mangum smoked brisket and pulled pork out of a mobile smoker hitched to his pickup truck in Williamsburg (Brooklyn). The brand’s process begins with the best, all-natural meats and poultry, seasoned with perfect spice blends and then smoked with wood for many hours until the perfect harmony of smoke, flavor and time emerges. Read More
Walrus Alley in Westport Goes Seed Oil Free! Features Seed Oil Free Westport Fried Chicken Comfort Food News Healthy Eats Southern Food Lloyd Allen December 13, 2024 Walrus Alley owner Joe Farrell has made the move to exclude all seed oils from his menus and, he’s getting quite the education. Only a week into the experiment he’s learning on the run. The popular Southern food & burger go to in Westport is now cooking with grass fed beef tallow and avocado oil. Yep! And Joe’s committed to staying the course despite the learning curve. Sure, he’s always done that popular fried chicken in tallow, used duck fat too. But it’s the fries they’re fighting with. And he and the crew are fighting a worthy fight.Walrus Alley uses a special potato for their fries and that’s just the beginning. “Cooking with Tallow & avocado oil is a new experience. We’re starting from scratch,” Joe revealed. “And we are doing this while we are open!” Read More
60+ Connecticut Restaurants & Caterers for Christmas (2024 Edition) Features Holiday Christmas Catering Guide Homepage Carly Terzigni December 11, 2024 The holidays are quickly approaching; before you know it, it’ll be time to set out your milk and cookies for Santa. This also means it’s time to book your Christmas Eve and Christmas Day reservations! Restaurants across the state will be open on Christmas Day, with even more open on Christmas Eve for a festive holiday lunch or dinner. If you plan to prepare a dazzling holiday feast at home but need an extra set of hands in the kitchen, why not call up your favorite local restaurant? Many offer catering with pick-up and delivery options, with menus including all of your Christmas needs, from appetizers to desserts. We’ve broken this guide up by county to make it easier to find a restaurant near you – Fairfield, New London, Hartford, Litchfield, Middlesex, New Haven, and Windham. Simply scroll down to the region of the state you live in (or wherever you and your family are gathering this Christmas) and check out which restaurants are open on December 24 or 25. Happy holidays! Read More
CRAzies Awards Winners 2024: Celebrating Excellence in CT's Culinary Community Features CRAZIES Awards Chef Talk Homepage Stephanie Webster December 10, 2024 The Connecticut culinary community came together last night to celebrate hard work, passion and excellence in the field. Winners from each of the eight counties around the state and the eight winners were – Materia Ristorante in Bantam (Litchfield County); Bar Rosina’s in Greenwich (Fairfield County); Restaurant Bricco in West Hartford (Hartford County); Hachiroku Shokudo & Sake Bar in New Haven (New Haven County); Monet’s Table in Tolland (Tolland County); The Essex in Old Saybrook (Middlesex County); Trigo Wood Fired Pizza in Willimantic (Windham County); and The Port of Call in Mystic (New London County). The overall winner who was named 2024 Connecticut Restaurant of the Year went to Bar Rosina’s, who earned the award over the other seven county winners and twenty-four total nominees. Read More