The New Culinary Math WHY HAVE JUST ONE RESTAURANT WHEN YOU CAN HAVE TWO OR THREE? As more and more talented chefs achieve success, more and more of them ask themselves if one restaurant is good, why not two? Or three? Or more. There are plenty of examples out there. Look at all those Maxes. All those Barcelonas. Look at Todd English, with enterprises ranging from Tuscany at the Mohegan Sun to Ça Va in Manhattan. Look at Mario Batali with his Tarry Lodges, Babbo, Il Posto and on and on. Who’s next? We decide to go see. Sorella ✭✭1/2 Hartford Moving with the finesse and fancy footwork of a fencer or lightweight boxer, the young chef quick-steps right, left, forward and back as he maneuvers the long-handled paddle he uses to position four pizzas in a woodburning oven, where temperatures are meticulously controlled to vary from 900-1,000 degrees, at the top, to 750 at lower levels. “Now I’m going to give this one a nice char,” he says, and we watch as he raises, lowers and slides out the most authentic, perfectly charred Neapolitan-style pizza Margarita in downtown Hartford. The crust is paper-thin in the middle puffing up into a rolled edge so crisp it elicits an audible crunch when cut with a sharp knife. Made with strictly authentic ingredients—the venerable Caputo company’s finest 00 flour imported from Italy, Marzano tomatoes, mozzarella di buffala and sea salt—Sorella’s Margarita is one of the state’s purest renditions of a beloved classic. A tall order for a new restaurant, but this one is owned and operated by Billy Carbone and Dan Keller, both consummate pros whose popular restaurant Dish is across the street, so Sorella (sister in Italian) always has the expertise of big brother close at hand. Does Hartford need another Italian pizza-plus restaurant? The answer is yes if the plus is as good as the pizza. At Sorella, the menu is impressively extensive, affordable and intriguing. There are dozens of choices. Classics. Classics-with-a-trendy-twist. Bold, subtle, simple, complex. Everything is neatly labeled or categorized: Carne, Formaggio, Verdure, Mare, Pasta, Pizza. Primi, Secondi and Alti (i.e., “whatnot”). _ is makes it easy to compose a traditional Italian meal if you so choose. It also makes it easy to order with wild abandon driven only by inclination. I consult my dining companions and we plot our strategy. Everybody gets a favorite, everybody gets to share. We order in flights of two, three or four small plates at a time. There are only three secondi so we order all three. As haphazard as the scheme may sound, it turns out to be hedonistically exhilarating, largely because almost everything we sample is a riff on delicious. For our opening salvo we choose small plates of baby artichokes, semolina-fried oysters and black-truffled chicken liver mousse. The artichokes, instead of being roasted, sautéed or deep-fried, have been gently poached. Tender as love, they’re sprinkled with Pecorino and tiny young leaves of fresh mint. Roasted cauliflower, too, is a brilliant interplay of unlikely flavors— golden raisins, anchovy and chili flakes. Who says cauliflower has to be bland? Breaded with semolina for extra crispness, fried oysters arrive piping hot on a bed of ice-cold citrus-marinated sliced fennel. The flavor combination works well but the temperatures cancel each other out. Within minutes everything is room temperature. I’d prefer my fried oysters on a hot plate with fennel salad on the side. A beet salad gets everything right. Cubed roasted beets arrive drenched with dark, sweet, dense vincotto syrup, garnished with whole pistachios and salty, nutty ricotta salata. Grilled baby octopus, with a nice smoky char and cumin-scented chermoula sauce, is served at the same time and goes beautifully with the beets. And who could resist veal sweetbreads on the alti menu for $8? Two pieces of sautéed sweetbread, gently crisp on the outside, velvety within (each large enough to cut in half and share), arrive with cipollini onions and vincotto. For eight bucks, that’s a lot of luxe. But Sorella loves largesse. The fettucine carbonara we order turns out to be far more opulent than the simple (but good) baconand-egg affair I occasionally whip up for unexpected guests. Sorella’s carbonara is an elaborate mélange involving guanciale, Parmigiano-Reggiano, speck and tiny green peas. Somehow these extraneous ingredients blend into a sybaritic whole. Secondi offerings, larger by definition, are more straightforward. Meat, fish and chicken are dutifully on offer. Grilled swordfish, notably fresh, sails in with an Italian passport of young broccoli rabe. Good but not remarkable. Hanger steak, perfectly prepared medium-rare, is tender and flavorful thanks to a tangy herb marinade. (Not sure what to make of the huge bouquet of watercress it wears as a topknot, we decide to be grateful for large favors.) Chicken al mattone replicates in look and taste an age-old Italian recipe that calls for splitting a small bird, opening it out like a book, placing it in a heavy iron pan, and flattening it with a second heavy iron pan, a brick or in modern times a ceramic mattone. To its credit, Sorella does not make a fetish of authenticity. Antique recipes are often the product of making do in hard times. But tradition has much to recommend it and Sorella is comfortable with the genre—enough so to doodle with it, especially when it comes to small plates. When it comes to dessert, anything goes. Brioche gelato sandwiches arrive looking like three good-sized sliders, each puff of pastry filled with a different flavor—vanilla bean, dark chocolate and zabaglione. Affogato is a deconstructed ultra-sophisticated ice cream sundae consisting of cherry amarone gelato, toasted almonds, chocolate sauce and a jigger of hot espresso to pour over it all. There’s more, lots more—ricotta pie, banana Nutella panini, tiramisu—and, whatever you order, there will be a lot of it. Presentation is not Sorella’s strong point, nor is decor, although with its wall of charming old family portraits, the place is infinitely more attractive than when Zuma was housed there. You could say it lacks POW! appeal, but the smart crowd couldn’t care less. They’re here for an old-fashioned Italian dining experience. Mangia, mangia. Sorella 901 Main St., Hartford 860/244-9084, sorellahartford.com Monday through Saturday 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday 4 to 10. Wheelchair access. Major credit cards. Price range: appetizers $5 to $9, pasta $12 to $18, pizza $10 to $14, entrées $18 to $24, desserts $7 to $8. Primary Food & Drink ★★1/2 Greenwich When Chicago chef Graham Elliot, restaurateur, entrepreneur and media darling, decided to take on Connecticut, he knew exactly what he wanted to do and where he wanted to do it. He chose Greenwich for the same reason the infamous safe cracker Willie Sutton gave when asked why he robbed banks: because that’s where the money is. Having selected his customer base as precisely as trial lawyers choose a jury, chef Elliot and his partners spent money to make money. It shows. The launch was notably professional, the soft opening exclusive by design, and the premises impressive. Occupying a prime piece of real estate on Greenwich Avenue, Primary Food & Drink is dark and mysterious, edgy and suggestive. You might walk right by without peering in but I bet you can’t. We couldn’t, although we were supposed to go in and claim a table while Ed parked the car. Viewed through square panes of glass, the bar looked like a movie set. Suits and heels and hair, elbows bent holding martini glasses in the air above the milling crowd. Prime is where it’s at. When Ed arrived we went in and were surrounded, engulfed, smothered with earsplitting din. We were dismayed. We didn’t begrudge the beautiful people their high-decibel revel, but I had a job to do, and Kevin, a wine connoisseur, likes to spend a little quiet time with the wine list and confer with the sommelier. “Is there a back room or something where we can be seated?” I shouted to the attractive young woman at the lectern. She said there was and she led us there. Unequivocal about what they intend to serve at Primary Food & Drink, Graham Elliot and executive chef Merlin Verrier state it plainly: Contemporary American cuisine. The ambience as well as the food exemplifies the concept. The retro-trendy white subway-tile flooring in the bar and the low-top Keds foot gear worn by the male waitstaff couldn’t be more urban-hip, while the framed scenes of farms and barns on the back-room walls are almost Wyeth-like in their evocation of rural Americana. (The paintings are, in fact, the work of Nicholas Berger, a highly regarded American artist who lives in Hudson Highlands and counts among his credits a sold-out two-man show with Andrew Wyeth in Tokyo.) So much is expected of celebrity chefs that the brevity of Primary’s menu is almost a shock. On a single page, five categories with four choices each are listed: cold, hot, sea, land, sweet. No caps. No shouting, please. Graham Elliot doesn’t care if his cooking doesn’t sound scintillating and sexy because he knows it is. It’s also full of surprises. Spoiler: Primary’s deconstructed Caesar salad consists of Twinkie-sized rectangles of brioche dough baked with cheese inside, and loosely wrapped leaves of romaine lettuce and a tiny Spanish anchovy on top. A delectable little package if ever there was one. Pricewise, Primary Food & Drink is an unabashedly uber-upscale establishment. Albeit coddled with crème fraîche, black trumpet mushrooms and sinfully lush truffle coulis, a tiny “filet mignon stroganoff” set us back $42. Salmon cost $35, but it was Scottish salmon, which is farmed so meticulously it often tastes wild. Unfortunately, ours was overcooked. When we mentioned the fact, it was quickly whisked away and replaced with another piece, medium-rare, rosy-hued and silky, garnished with tasty slices of d’Anjou pear. Still, nothing could compare with lobster schnitzel, playfully luscious and subtly satisfying large pieces of lobster meat, tender and sweet, crisply breaded and briefly fried. At $39, it was served with a royal array of chervil sprouts, shaved asparagus, lobster bisque and cauliflower mousse. For me, it was the highlight of the meal. Nobody’s perfect, however, and there were missteps, at least from our point of view. In this rarified atmosphere six raw oysters went for $18. We ordered 12: Blue Points, Malpeques and Beausoleils. We were looking forward to comparing the different flavors. Alas, the oysters arrived doused with a foamy, lemonspiked mignonette that obscured whatever flavor differences there might have been. For the most part, we New Englanders don’t like our raw oysters gussied up too much. But Graham Elliot cooks to a different drummer and sticks to his guns. Originality is the essence of his talent and what he comes up with usually works splendidly. One of the few exceptions was his Moroccan lamb. Roasted and shredded and mixed with chickpeas, it was mealy, bland and dry. The curry yogurt and green gremolata served alongside helped, but the meat itself seemed to beg for more spice and sauce. On the other hand, a barbecued Berkshire pork chop was tender and bold, served with a spicy-sweet root beer barbecue sauce, grits and collard greens and popped up with corn nuts. Nothing like a sprinkle of snack food to liven up a dish and spark a conversation. “Sweets” were gemlike mosaics of edible treats. Carrot cake came with pineapple, ginger essence, Neufchâtel gelato and walnut brittle—everything a heart could desire in miniature. “Chocolate quartet” consisted of a tiny chocolate doughnut and dabs of incredibly rich chocolate cream, chocolate mousse and chocolate ganache. Mixed berries prepared various ways featured unusual flavors like lavender and cardamom. Primary Food & Drink is not the place to go if you’re feeling famished or frugal. The wine list is not shy about aggressive markups, and double-digit small plates, darling as they are, can add up to sticker shock rather quickly. But restaurants like this have other things to recommend them. Like travel and theater, they expand our cultural horizons, deepen our sensual perceptions, and keep the fun in the game. As Graham Elliott said when he announced he was opening a restaurant in Greenwich, “It will be a nice fun spot . . . The menu will have something everyone can relate to with whimsy. No dress code. Come as you are and just enjoy.” Primary Food & Drink 409 Greenwich Ave., Greenwich 203/861-2400, primaryrestaurant.com Open Monday through Thursday 5 to 10, Friday and Saturday till 11, Sunday till 9. Wheelchair access. Major credit cards. Price range: appetizers $12 to $16, entrées $29 to $42, desserts $10 to $12. Table Talk BY ELISE MACLAY Now there is Boca. A stunning small-plate café ( the owner calls it a mezze eatery ) has opened in Stamford and now hear this, it stays open until 2 a.m. on Saturday nights, till 1 on Fridays and on Sundays till 12 a.m. It’s also hard to believe that it’s located where Telluride used to be, the space is so dramatically different now, all light and bright, like Mykonos, the white Greek island seen from the sea. Boca’s chef-owner, Biagio Riccio, who also owns Quattro Pazzi in Stamford and Fairfield, and Oceana in Fairfield, outdoes himself with this newest venture, where all the bold flavors of the Mediterranean turn up in imaginative new dishes meticulously prepared: Endive and watermelon radish with grilled haloumi cheese, kumquats, Marcona almonds and citrus wine; baby-back ribs with maple-gingerand-jalapeño glaze served with sesame kale chips. And exotic desserts with flavors like bergamot served in shot glasses. (203/724-9300, bocact.com) Have a seat, please. While it’s not unusual for gourmet markets to put out a few tables so customers can eat their prepared foods on the spot, Michael Moriarty and James Neunzig, co-owners of J.P. Gifford Market & Catering Co. in Kent, recently took the concept a few steps further—around the corner, to be exact, where they’ve opened a restaurant called Gifford’s. The new place is no cute little café; it’s an upscale white-tablecloth restaurant with seating for 75 (and an additional 40 on an awning-shaded terrace in good weather). The space, which used to house Doc’s, has been completely redesigned with bright color-block walls that evoke the later works of Piet Mondrian. As Gifford’s chef, Neunzig, a Culinary Institute of America grad who’s cooked at the Mayflower Inn and West Street Grill, uses many of the same high-end ingredients (like Duroc pork and FreeBird chicken) he used at the market. We’ve heard raves about the risotto made with arborio rice, zucchini and summer squash and oozing with Gouda and Romano, and brioche bread pudding with molten caramel sauce. (860/592-0262, jpgifford.com) Not ragin’ Cajun but a little bit Creole, Memphis, Outer Banks and Low Country, The Red House, which recently replaced Du Glace in Deep River, plays no favorites when it plays around with the multifaceted cuisines of the American deep South. Southern-fried chicken is sandwiched between jalapeño-cheddar waffles, corn bread comes with chipotle honey butter, jambalaya shares pride of place with a barbecue platter of pulled pork, ribs and brisket. And hey, no joke, whoopie pie! ( 203/526-2600 redhousect.com) Tea Turns a New Leaf Connecticut’s sipping the Ancient Brew on a whole new level. BY ELIZABETH KEYSER For a small state, Connecticut is big in tea. It’s grown some of the most recognized names in the industry. Bigelow—born in 1945, when Ruth Campbell Bigelow combined orange peel, spices and tea in her kitchen to create Constant Comment—is still headquartered in Fairfield. Harney & Sons was started in Salisbury. (The Harneys still live here, but moved the business across the state line.) In Westport, Tea Importers Inc. has been selling tea to major and specialty packagers around the world since 1958. Today, the tea industry is growing. Total sales have increased 16 percent over the last five years, according to the Tea Association of the USA. Exhibit A: Starbucks purchased the Teavana chain of mall-based tea stores in October. In Connecticut, more and more people — drawn by flavors and health benefits — are seeking out high-quality loose-leaf, often organic or sustainable teas. To experience the tea evolution for yourself, try one of Connecticut’s small tea shops for tastes, talks, tea ceremonies and afternoon tea. But first, a clarification: Tea (black, green, oolong and white) is the term used for beverages brewed from the leaves of Camellia sinensis. Herbs and herbal blends are “tisanes.” Yet today, the word “tea” encompasses all. Ever heard of rooibis? Read on. The Green Teahouse, West Hartford, 860/232-6666, thegreenteahouse.com University of New Haven graduate Ting Chaponis was raised in China, drinking premium loose tea — her family owns tea shops there. In 2009, she opened The Green Teahouse to share her passion. Loosely designed on a Chinese teahouse, with handcrafted wood shelves, ceramics and scrolls, the tasting room offers 100 premium loose-leaf teas. Chinese tea ceremonies here (for groups of four, reservations required) are interactive educational experiences that reveal “the beauty and harmony of the art of making, pouring and tasting tea,” says Laura Neves, store manager. “The Chinese realize that tea utilizes all five senses. The sound of tea being poured into cups, the warmth of the cup, the smell of the tea, the flavor . . . It’s not just a beverage to gulp.” A second Green Teahouse just opened in New Haven, with more seating and a focus on food — including dishes that use tea as an ingredient. Savvy Tea Gourmet, Madison, 203/318-8666, savvyteagourmet.com Tea is an art to Phil Parda, co-owner of Savvy Tea Gourmet, and he’s devoted to teaching people about it. On Saturday afternoons at the Madison shop, he gives tasting classes on “The Famous Teas of China,” “Natural Remedies” and “The Opium Wars and Tea Production in Sri Lanka,” among other topics. Since the 1970s Parda’s made hundreds of trips to China, visiting tea shops, gardens and factories, and carrying home by hand “tea treasures” so special he was unwilling to trust them to luggage. Tea is “an invaluable cultural custom in Asia,” he says. “When people come together, tea comes out. It’s not even a question. It just appears and creates a connection. It’s an instant conduit for conversation. The components in tea are conducive to this. Tea has cognitive benefits.” Customers can book tea tastings or British afternoon tea with finger sandwiches. Mrs. Bridges’ Pantry, Woodstock, 860/963-7040 A traditional cozy British teahouse, Mrs. Bridges’ Pantry specializes in afternoon tea. That is the proper term for the genteel 4 p.m. ritual. (Americans take note: “high tea,” is different, it’s the working class’s 6 p.m. evening supper. As in “I’m ’aving me tea.”) Mrs. Bridges carries over 300 teas — bags, sachets and loose-leaf varieties. Unlike bags, sachets are filled with “what is essentially loose tea,” says co-owner Pamela Spaeth. Yorkshire Gold is an “ethical brew” supplied to the Prince of Wales at his London residence. It’s a blend of teas from India, Kenya and Rwanda, strong and brisk, with a note of malt. Harney & Sons teas are served too. Afternoon tea features scones made especially for Mrs. Bridges’ Pantry in the British style, small, round and not too sweet. And if it’s high tea you want, no worries, mate, you can take home a pork pie. Arogya, Westport, 203/226-2682, arogya.net Arogya’s niche is holistic healing (they also offer acupuncture and massage). The shelves of this 16-year-old shop are filled with teas and herbal blends packaged in clear bottles that reflect their tonic intent. Customers ask for teas to help them sleep or renew energy. The popular turmeric-ginger tisane has anti-inflammatory properties, with the “hui gan” quality valued by the Chinese. “When you drink it, the flavor isn’t sweet, but there’s an aftereffect of sweetness,” says owner Wei Huang Bertram. For the true connoisseur, Arogya specializes in vintage pu'er teas, fermented teas from China that have earthy, rich flavors and health benefits. Arogya offers tastings for groups. Their teas are also served at Sugar & Olives in Norwalk. Bean & Leaf, New London, 860/701-0000 Bean & Leaf takes an environmental approach, carrying loose, organic and fairtrade teas. Loose tea is “a higher grade” than bags, explains Melissa Cokas, an owner of the seven-year-old family business. When tea is bagged, “it’s put on screened trays, and the little bits that fall through the screen go into the bags,” she says. Bean & Leaf employs reusable filters for those enjoying a cup at the café, and unbleached paper bags for take-out. They sell tea by the ounce for home use. Many customers are interested in holistic health. In blustery weather, Unity tea, a caffeine-free, herbal blend flavored with ginger, lemongrass, licorice, peppermint and black pepper with “immunity-enhancing” properties, is a popular choice. So is Apricot Escape (brewed from South African red bush), mixed with fruit and flowers. The Drawing Room, Cos Cob, 203/661-3737 “Tea is truly one of life’s simple pleasures,” says Kenleigh Larock. “It’s that moment to be quiet and thoughtful and enjoy the tea in its own right.” The Drawing Room sells loose organic teas, and owners Kenleigh and husband Mike Larock, who learned about tea during their travels in Europe, extoll the virtues of tea as a cooking ingredient. Kenleigh makes short ribs with lapsang souchong, a smoked China black tea. “It has an amazing bouquet,” she says, “You’d think you smoked your ribs for hours.” Black lavender tea “is beautiful in crème brûlée.” She also uses The Drawing Room’s ginger-lemongrass tea to make syrup for mojitos. Afternoon tea is offered Monday through Saturday. Chef Lucci to Go on ‘Iron Chef’ Restaurant cooking is a highly competitive profession any day of the week, but this month Joseph Lucci, executive chef at Market Place in Danbury, will be competing on a whole new playing field as a challenger on the Food Network’s “Iron Chef America.” With well over 1.3 million viewers a week, the show could be a game changer for Lucci, a possible first step to becoming a nationally recognized chef, and a way to put Market Place on the culinary map big-time. At age 26, Lucci has been executive chef at Market Place since it opened in Danbury’s thriving dining district on Mill Plain Road in 2012. The Culinary Institute of America grad is a protégé of Thomas Keller, the chef-owner of such acclaimed restaurants as The French Laundry in Napa Valley and Per Se in New York City. (Keller is the only American-born chef to hold multiple three-star ratings in the Michelin Guide.) Chef Keller thought highly enough of Lucci that he contacted his friends at the Food Network and arranged for him to be a contestant on “Iron Chef America.” (The episode airs in November.) Lucci was a little boy when he was first introduced to great food and time-honored cooking techniques at the home of his grandmother, Emilia, an immigrant from Abruzzi, Italy. Joe loved being with her in the kitchen while she prepared homemade pasta, sausage, meatballs, bracciole, Italian wedding soup, and all manner of cakes, cookies and pastries. Savory or sweet, the results were always amazing, says Lucci. As he got older, his grandma would let him help out. Young Joe’s interest in cooking was nudged up to the next level at age 8 or 9, when he saw his first episode of “The Essence of Emeril” on the Food Network. He remembers that Emeril looked very young— and he was skinny! In the ensuing years Joe “graduated” and became his grandmother’s sous chef. “I loved food,” he says, “but I hadn’t considered it as a career.” That inspiration came when he was in high school and joined a class trip to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. By the time he got home, he knew he wanted to go to the CIA. After graduation, Lucci got an externship at Per Se. “I didn’t cook much,” he says, “generally I just followed executive chef Jonathan Benno around and watched.” Keller emphasizes that chefs must know why they do what they do. For example, when making stock, peel the carrots or they will impart a bitter taste to the stock. And always strain a sauce four times to achieve a smooth, silky consistency. “Chef Keller drives his young chefs to settle for nothing less than perfection,” he says. Chef Lucci carried these lessons with him to Market Place, where he strives for sophisticated, modern American cuisine that will exceed diners’ expectations: He cooks his short ribs for four hours; he braises his pork belly in duck fat. He wants to hit all the tastes on every plate—sweet, sour, salty, spicy, and what the Japanese call “umami,” which can be translated roughly as “deliciousness.” The team at Market Place has positioned their restaurant as the area’s premier farm-to-table establishment, serving inventive, local, seasonally inspired dishes. Produce comes from organic farms in Connecticut and the Hudson Valley. His duck comes from Long Island. Salmon’s flown in from Scotland, Kobe beef from Japan. So, which of the Iron Chefs will Lucci challenge? Lucci’s decided to take on Michael Symon: They’re both perfectionists in the kitchen though their tastes are a bit different: Symon loves pork fat; Lucci loves foie gras. “I have so much respect for what chef Symon has accomplished,” Lucci says. “He’s an inspiration to young chefs.” | THOMAS J. CRAUGHWELL |