A fixture in Ridgefield's marketplace, Cello Restaurant seems to be in a perpetual state of experimentation. The last dining experience I had there was at an East meets West Sake dinner (Paul is Italian and his wife is Japanese) where their mult-course menu blended their native cuisines, pairing them with wine and sake. Running into Paul at The Marketplace (a group of artisan gourmet food and craft shops) in Ridgefield one afternoon, the conversation turned to his latest passion for the interesting cuts of meat he is procuring from Craft Butchery in Saugatuck. Although I was intrigued to share a 36-hour Confit of [Pork] Jowel, it seemed a bit ambitious for the majority of home cooks who may not yet have sprung for a sous vide supreme. So we settled on sharing his recipe for lamb bacon. Paul pairs this to the jowl dish which is served with a rosemary parsnip puree and braised red cabbage.
In the new book Mycophilia: Revelations from the Weird World of Mushrooms, Eugenia Bone, food writer and frequent contributor to Saveur and Food & Winetells the story of how her mother went into labor with Eugenia in a restaurant in Florence while eating tagliatelle with truffles. Tables were hastily cleared for Eugenia’s birth and thus began her lifelong affinity for mushrooms.
Bone, who is also the co-president of the New York Mycological Society, will be reading from her new book at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum this Sunday, March 4 from 3 to 5 pm in Ridgefield, CT.
A book signing, wine reception, and wild mushroom tasting will follow, including a tasting of truffle fontina risotto balls, wild mushroom crostini, and cheese and charcuterie platters featuring black truffles, generously provided by No.109 Cheese & Wine. To RSVP for this event or request more information, please contact Lise Sharfin, lsharfin@aldrichart.org, 203.438.4519, extension 26, during regular Museum hours.
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is located at 258 Main Street in Ridgefield, CT. More information at aldrichart.org/events.
Sarah & Monica's EXCELLENT Birthday Wine Tasting Dinner will be held on Sunday, January 27 @ 7 PM [UPDATED]. This party is a true celebration of great food and great wine, with musical stylings courtesy of the Kelly Mittleman Trio! The event features Ridgefield's finest with Bernard's Restaurant, Sarah's Wine Bar and Monica from 109 Cheese & Wine. Check out the menu below:
Carly Monson is our roving 10 yrs old food critic. This week, she reports on a kids classic...
Is your sweet tooth pulling you towards some candy and a scoop of ice cream? Then you have found your place, SWIRL! Swirl has about 11 different flavors of ice cream and millions of different candies. My new favorite ice cream flavor is Swamp. Swamp tastes very much like Oreos and the chocolate chips and M&M’s in it give it a nice crunch. Another flavor of ice cream that I love is good ol’ fashion chocolate. I think that Swirl’s chocolate is a little sweeter than other places but definitely in a good way. They have recently added a new flavor, Eggnog. I thought their Eggnog surprisingly tastes a lot like peppermint and is very sweet. My brother’s favorite flavor is Mud. I think that Mud tastes like a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup. I don’t like peanut butter but my brother says Mud is awesome.
Swirl also has one of my mom’s favorite, vanilla frozen yogurt.
Looking for that perfect restaurant to woo your significant other this Valentine's Day? Try one of these great romantic spots in Fairfield County, CT.
Schoolhouse - WiltonThis quaint renovated schoolhouse is the quintessential special occasion spot (if you can get a reservation). Local ingredients and nuanced flavors highlight this menu.
Paci - Southport Nestled in the Southport train station, Paci's unique interior combines a renovated freight depot with urban modern chic. This Southport favorite has been serving some of the best Italian fare in FC since 1996.
Long before a group of gourmet purveyors began staking claim to what is now a blossoming culinary corner of Ridgefield known as the Marketplace at Copps Hill, Southwest Cafe has been roasting, grinding and blending red and green chilies into dishes that serve as the cornerstone of its New Mexican cuisine.
Just over twenty years ago Barbara Nevins opened Southwest Cafe inspired by a life in New Mexico and a love for its cuisine largely defined by the chile. Toss any notion of that green grocery store bell pepper out of your mind. A chile in the New Mexican sense is a nuanced creature with multiple personalities that restaurants such as Southwest Cafe exploit to their fullest and many New Mexicans trade as currency
“Sustainability,” “Farm to Table,” “Locavore.” These all describe a culinary trend toward using locally raised ingredients. This philosophy has created a groundswell of top-tier restaurants in Fairfield County including Napa &Co., LeFarm, Harvest Supper, The Schoolhouse at Cannondale, Nicholas Roberts, and The Boathouse. But Brendan Walsh, owner-chef of Brendan’s at the Elms in Ridgefield, has been creating some of the best locally sourced “farm to table” food in Fairfield County for over ten years.
Eat, Pray, Love - you’ve heard of it, right? Well in the words of Willy Wonka, “Strike that, reverse it” - The CAKEBOX in Ridgefield has it all in the correct order - Pray (if you must), Eat (as many cupcakes as you can), and Love (absolutely!) This ESSENTIAL new dessert-stop in the Copps Hill Commons shopping center in Ridgefield is a cake and cupcake lover’s Shangri-La. Ridgefield native Jordan Gregory and her partner, Robert Byrnes, opened The Cake Box in April and have been whipping up extraordinary cakes for all occasions (including, eventually, custom wedding cakes), cupcakes by the dozen, and individual cupcakes, cookies, and macaroons at the store for your perusal and MASS consumption! Ms. Gregory received her pastry training at the Institute for Culinary Education in NYC and Mr. Byrnes, who has a degree in hotel and restaurant management, designs the custom cakes. Trust me, they know their stuff!
A familiar fixture in Ridgefield for the past ninety (!) years, Ancona’s Market will celebrate their anniversary this Saturday, July 24 with an open house and evening benefit.
The day-long open house will be “in full-swing by noon” and feature activities for children, live music and tasting stations from many vendors including Ola Granola, Simmons Family Farm Yogurt, Arethusa Farms Milk, and Wave Hill Bread. You can also stop next door atAncona’s Wines and Liquors to sample their usual Saturday tastings from 12 noon to 3 pm and 3 to 6 pm or stroll through what has to be one of the most diverse and well-stocked walk-in coolers around (and also where you’ll find me).
If you're looking to give your brown bag a break or if you just can't face another sandwich, you'd be hard pressed to find a better and more affordable lunch alternative than Thai Pearl in Ridgefield. With a prix fixe lunch menu featuring ten traditional Thai dishes and three courses starting at just $8.95, I'd say it's easily one of the most affordable and most satisfying lunches in town.
On a recent snowy afternoon, I began with the shumai as a warm and savory amuse bouche to start the meal. A combination of shrimp, tofu and vegetables fill three wonton wrappers. I presume these are steamed and then pan fried given their chewy exterior and crisp edges, and then finished with a chili and soy sauce. The other lunch appetizer options include soup, salad or spring roll. One course down, two more to go.
There’s good reason the parking lot at Little Pub is jam-packed before noon—and through the wee hours. When you step inside, you’ll swear you’ve entered a lively Austrian ski chalet, complete with distressed wooden ceilings, stucco walls, wrought iron chandeliers and a blazing stone fireplace.
Whether you cozy up to the hopping bar or take a seat next to the fire (if you’re lucky enough to snag one), this relative newcomer feels like it’s been here for ages. In actuality, Little Pub, which sits on busy Ethan Allen Highway in Ridgefield, was home to an antiques shop until four months ago, when Daneen Grabe, of Fairfield, worked her magic on the space, transforming it into one of the area’s most popular hangouts, drawing fans from across the state, and a large contingent of Europeans who find it feels like home.
Back when I lived in the city, I hit my corner bistro when I craved comfort food. There’s one on practically every corner. But since I moved to Westport, the authentic bistro has been elusive. That is, until friends turned me onto Café Luc’s, a homey, out-of-the-way Parisien gem tucked behind Ridgefield’s main drag, for real-deal peasant fare in one of the town’s oldest and most rustic buildings.
To get to Café Luc’s, you cruise up the winding Rte. 35, past antique farmhouses and sprawling country spreads, until you hit Ridgefield’s postcard-quaint town center.
Admittedly, it’s a bit of a schlep for a weekday lunch, but the payoff is a steaming crock of soupe à l'oignon gratinée or a heaping bowl of moules marinières with addictively thin and crunchy pommes frites—perfect cold-weather food. It’s a taste of Paris secreted away in the ‘burbs.
I am convinced that one of the best kept and most unfortunate secrets in the wine world is how good wines from Beaujolais actually are. Yes, that’s right–Beaujolais. The word itself creates a certain conundrum. It has been misappropriated and used as a gigantic ruse to convince the American wine drinking public that Beaujolais is actually that thin, fruit juicy froth that Georges Duboeuf has celebrated for years. Quel disastre!
Let me break it down: red wines of all stripes are crushed during harvest (the vendange), racked and barreled to age. Some wines – like great Spanish Riojas don’t get released for 7-8 years after they are harvested. The wait is worth it and the wines benefit from age. Not Beaujolais Nouveau. Beaujolais Nouveau is crushed and rushed into the bottle mere weeks after being picked. And it tastes like it. What the heck was Dubouef thinking? Obviously he wasn’t.
Fall is here. And beyond the obvious weather changes: frost alerts, foliage color and the end to most farmers’ markets, there are other exciting changes in the lives of wine enthusiasts: Fall marks the start of the red wine drinking season!
Sure we drink red wine in the Summer, but enthusiasm for the darker reds is tempered by the weather, and the kind of red wine experiences that appear easily from a slight chill in the air can at best be forced in the heat of outdoor dining.
But as the leaves start falling and people begin to spend more time indoors, out comes the Le Creuset for stews, Emile Henry for roasts, the cast iron skillets for, well, that restaurant style pan seared rib eye. We all know that wine is made for food – and Fall food is made for red wine.
So, here, in an inaugural ditty on wine in CT Bites, we wanted to share with you not only our unfettered enthusiasm (break out the mandolines – we’re talking the kitchen variety not featured instrument in Rod Stewart’s Maggie) for thehigh season of food and wine with some recommendations about what to try and buy across the next few months leading up to Winter. (See our local resource guide with recommendations below.)
The day-long open house will be “in full-swing by noon” and feature activities for children, live music and tasting stations from many vendors including Ola Granola, Simmons Family Farm Yogurt, Arethusa Farms Milk, and Wave Hill Bread. You can also stop next door at 
