Best Restaurants of New England
Elms Restaurant & Tavern
By NANCY AND RICHARD WOODWORTH
Web Published: 8/19/2002

Celebrity chef Brendan Walsh returned to his hometown to take over the aging restaurant in Ridgefield's oldest operating inn (1799) and give it a new take on 18th-century New England cuisine. The master of innovative Southwestern cooking helped create the trend of small plates called "grazing" at Arizona 206 in New York. Here, he elevated stews, roasts, spoon breads and puddings to new culinary heights. His renowned "food of the moment" now is refreshingly familiar, its presentation new and exciting.

For starters, consider the hunter's consommé bearing pheasant quenelle and diced root vegetables or the signature shepherd's pie, masterfully done with lobster, peas and chive mashed potatoes. The signature Connecticut seafood stew arrives in a tomato, fennel and leek broth. The pan-seared Atlantic salmon wears a mushroom glaze. The maple-thyme grilled loin of venison is glazed with buttered brandy. The grilled duck magret rests on baby greens beside macoun apple chutney.

Desserts are new twists on traditional themes. The apple pandowdy is teamed with tahitian vanilla yogurt. The pumpkin mousse comes with cranberry granité and cinnamon cookies, and the Indian pudding with roasted pecan ice cream.

Brendan's wife Cris, a decorator and graphic artist, stenciled the restaurant's four small dining rooms in 18th-century patterns, painted the walls white with "lantern-glow yellow" trim and cloaked the well-spaced tables in white over 18th-century fabric for candlelight dining as it would have been in a Colonial drawing room.

A more casual tavern menu is offered for lunch and dinner in the handsomely refurbished, Tudor-look tavern, which opens onto a canopied patio for outdoor dining.

This content is excerpted from Best Restaurants of New England, by Nancy and Richard Woodworth, copyright 2002, published by Wood Pond Press.