Call, Respond, Then Run to RSVP for Beautiful French in West Cornwall

Andrew Dominick August 19, 2022

Several months ago, I’m certain my reaction to my dear friend, Katy, mentioning RSVP was something like, “Yeah. That means respond.” If we’re being technical, it’s actually “répondez s'il vous plait” or translated from French to English, “respond, if you please.”

Until Katy finished her thought by telling me that RSVP a French restaurant in Litchfield County that she heard about from one of her friends who’s a bartender. “He raves about it,” she said.

As is always the case, time passed. We kind of forgot about RSVP and barely looked into it for weeks, even months. Only occasionally we’d briefly bring it up, referring it as “THAT French place in Cornwall.”

OK, so, no one NEEDS a reason to go out to dinner, we can just go. But sometimes we do, don’t we? Especially if it’s around 90 minutes from the Norwalk-Stamford area where we both live. When Katy’s birthday came around, that was one of the activities she had on her wish list, so we looked into the details.

No website. No social media. And there aren’t a lot of geotagged posts about RSVP either. All I found were Google reviews and a few random articles written by journalists.

Apparently the way to go about booking a table is to do it the old fashioned way. Pick up the phone. Call. And according to what we had gathered from the smidge of what’s online about RSVP, you have to hope you can even get a reservation should you need one on a specific day.

Charles Cilona chats up his guests normally, but he likely knows a bunch of them. FYI: if you’ve reserved before, you get dibs on being able to book a table further out (say over a month) than newbies.

To make it even more difficult, they’re only open Friday through Sunday with one dinner seating per evening, and for over 20 years RSVP was the sole restaurant in West Cornwall until frank. (yes, that period after the lowercase spelling of “frank” is on purpose) relocated there from Kent. This simply reiterates how quickly the small dining confines, including the porch, can fill up at RSVP.

So, you call, and eventually co-owner Charles Cilona will hit you back to work it out.

When Katy called, it wasn’t long until she received a call back. Cilona told her that our party of four could come in about a month later and that we “should be prompt, because dinner starts at 5 p.m. and that it’s BYOB and $140 per person, including tax and gratuity, cash or check only.” He also said to her, “Do you work from home? You sound like you do.” I liked this guy the second she told me about their phone conversation.

The one month countdown to dinner at RSVP seemed like an eternity as our excitement grew. Five mystery courses plus dessert and the added bonus of one person in your party being a big time wine guy? Hell yeah. Let’s go.

Arrive early. Take a walk through the covered bridge.

On the day of our dinner, four of us hopped in the car and drove way up Route 8 into Litchfield and past their downtown area with no signs of civilization in sight. At one point I remarked that “I find it very hard to believe we’re about to come up on a restaurant…or any signs of life really.”

But Google Maps wasn’t wrong and there we were in the middle of a handful of shops, the flowing sounds and sights of the Housatonic River, and a covered bridge.

We arrived roughly an hour before dinnertime with the intention of walking around West Cornwall’s quaint center and to shoot some photos by the river and under the covered bridge. Before we did that, we knew we couldn’t leave the vino in the car, so we asked Cilona if we could leave it at the restaurant. His reply? “No. You can’t. We have rules here.” He was totally kidding, by the way. I now REALLY liked him.

Go early. Walk around. It’s both peaceful and beautiful, and you’ll inevitably encounter friendly locals who are more than happy to have a conversation or snap a picture of you and your dinner crew.

But alas! Dinnertime!

That shirt, though! Our friend Pasha giving Chef Birster a pour.

The first order of business for this relaxed three hour meal is to use the corkscrew to pop your bottle (or four bottles in our case) of wine open. It’s around that time when you’ll meet Guy Birster, RSVP’s chef and co-owner. According to RSVP’s “law” it’s customary to offer him a small pour of your wine. Trust me, he won’t refuse. And his shirt with a cartoonish looking drawing of a chef that read “Chef” on it seemed very fitting as we recalled the lead up this meal.

Not long after, Cilona—who’s also the waiter and the busboy—begins bringing out locally baked bread, followed by the first course, an amuse-bouche. That night it was tuna tartare served partially spilling out of a phyllo dough cone with sliced avocado and wasabi ice cream on the side. We loved the creativity, the cooling kick of the ice cream and the creaminess of the avocado with the fresh tuna and the flaky, crispy cone.

Moving on, we had another fun dish that was like a play on a caprese salad…but in cold soup form! While it needed a touch of salt (a sea salt grinder was on the table), the coolness of the soup was appreciated on a warm day. We weren’t mad about the fried mozzarella ball on top either.

As the sun hid behind the house by the train tracks across from the restaurant, the temperature went down, and the meal got heavier. Out came two sizeable freshly made ravioli stuffed with shredded duck confit and topped with crunchy, salty guanciale.

Post duck confit ravioli, we were told we could take our glass of wine and walk down the street as there’d be a brief pause before the next plates came out. Don’t mind if I do! Might as well take advantage of the walk-and-drink perk because if I was spotted doing that in Fairfield County, I’d expect to be in back of a squad car.

After this, and the next course of delicately fried cod atop lentils, we kept pouring more wine for Birster, who clearly wasn’t going to refuse, and we got more of his and Cilona’s story.

The two met roughly 40 years ago at a restaurant in Pasadena where Birster was the chef and Cilona was a waiter. Cilona shared with us that they eventually worked together at another restaurant in New York before they each went off to do their own thing. Cilona—who bought a house in Litchfield County years ago—eventually called his friend to run it back in the early 90s when they opened Brookside Bistro, and ultimately opening RSVP in 2001.

As our time at RSVP ticked away, we almost didn’t want to leave. It felt like vacation. We enjoyed the conversation and the characters. Perfect food? No. It didn’t need to be. As an experience, though, it was otherworldly, and we were grateful we still had two courses left.

Out came a fork tender medium rare petit filet, perfect grill marks and all, with green beans, a raspberry peppercorn sauce, and a creamy purée of Jerusalem artichokes.

We’d see raspberry again as a sauce under a pastry cream filled profiterole and in the homemade sorbet that sat atop what was some cross between a piece of dark chocolate fudge and cake. They didn’t explain that one, but we didn’t mind.

At the end of the evening, Birster went around, shook everyone’s hand, gave out a few cheek kisses, and gave everyone on the porch a wave goodbye.

We stuck around a solid half hour more chatting with other dinner guests and Cilona, sipping on the last drops of red in our glasses, feeling like we were a million miles away from the hustle and craziness back home. Reality struck. We realized it’s Sunday, sad in a way that we all had to get back to the grind. I handed Cilona a fistful of cash and off we went, all vowing we’d unequivocally return to RSVP.

7 Railroad Street; West Cornwall
860.672.7787