Le Petit Cafe
225 Montowese St.
Branford
Town Hall Avenue
203-483-9791
By ROBIN GOLDSTEIN
New Haven Advocate
June 17, 2005
Le Petit Café, a lovely yellow bistro in a small, cute house on the Branford Town Green, has started to seem more... provincial, in the best possible sense of the concept. Swing by the restaurant in the early afternoon, and you'll see cheery chef-owner Roy Ip softly elbowing his way through his little kitchen full of counters, ovens, and crowded gas ranges, with recipes tacked up on walls and fresh vegetables everywhere.
Perhaps you'll catch Mr. Ip masterfully deboning a young D'Artagnan free-range chicken, or carefully de-veining a block of Quebec foie gras. Here and there, he'll stop to nag a sous-chef, whom you'll see stopping between peels of fresh shallots to remove loaves of crusty peasant bread from the oven. The love and care that informs each step of the process is both physical and emotional.
It is primary ingredients like those fresh shallots and that top-end chicken that form the backbone of Le Petit Café's simple, consistently superb, ever-changing prix-fixe menu, whose four courses, remarkably, still cost less than $40. What a pleasure it is, for instance, to encounter the hearts of fresh artichokes in your simple vegetable appetizer, rather than the salty soak of bottled or canned artichoke hearts that take all of the wonder out of the gentle and unique acidity that makes an artichoke an artichoke. And what a nice surprise it is to encounter a salad of impeccably fresh greens and warm, creamy goat cheese topped by an emulsified vinaigrette that is balanced in the French way, not gummy or sugary as you may have come to expect from a house salad.
Another recent starter of particular note has been the Canadian sea scallops and tender baby calamari, barely poached, mixed with cilantro, in the style of ceviche. Sicilian blood orange added a citrus kick, and the plate was spiced up by jalapeńos. The effortlessly creamy lobster bisque, meanwhile, remains the best I've ever tasted.
As for that foie gras, it's offered only occasionally as a $5 supplement to the prix-fixe menu, perhaps served atop toasted brioche. Chef Ip soaks the duck liver in milk overnight, then mixes it with salt, sugar, spices, and Sauternes. He cooks it at low heat, then chills it. The terrine that results takes you on a magic carpet ride to the most sensuous reaches of the palate.
Le Petit Café is one of the only top restaurants in the area where there is no discernible drop in excitement as you move from appetizers to mains. Halibut is a clean and mild fish, and Ip's pan-roasted wild Canadian halibut filet was a clean and mild plate, set off by the low, earthy chords of trumpet mushrooms and a playful melody in the upper octaves from a Dijon-moscatel vinaigrette and garden-fresh basil oil.
The squish of a soft-shell crab is one of New England's most revered culinary sounds, and once the season arrived, Ip wasted little time in doing justice to the distinguished appellation. One night, he was preparing them with his version of grenobloise, a classic French preparation that, when applied to the crabs, fused the cuisines of France and Connecticut: Ip dressed the marvelously succulent creatures with a nutty spill of brown butter, the gentle acid of lemon, and a constructive toss of capers, whose salty, pickled contributions were unusually polite.
More assertive was a "five spice accented duck breast" with double-baked butternut squash, tomato confit, and vanilla-blood orange sauce. Ip has a way with duck, and these medallions of breast meat displayed implausibly steady gradations of color, outside to inside, brown to pink to red. Mr. Ip's sauces tend to be deferential to their meats, and here the vanilla in the sauce offset the acidity of the blood orange to create something much less cloying than your typical orange gastrique.
Among desserts, Mr. Ip's tarts have long been my favorite choices. At my last visit, his apple tart was neither overbearing nor wimpy, its pastry firm but delicate. I could ruminate at length about just about everything else that Mr. Ip has been preparing this spring and summer, but the most exciting bit of news is not a dish: It's a whole meal. He's now doing a tasting menu on Saturday nights, tentatively priced at $55 for six courses.
Some chefs are craftsmen, catering to every customer's whim, however culinarily ill-inspired. Others are artists, spilling their passion onto the plate, take it or leave it. Roy Ip is an artist with the sensibilities of a craftsman. He'll put a steak frites on every menu, because he knows that's what a lot of people want. But it's a magnificent version; under no circumstances will this chef let you eat one bad bite.
Hours: Wed.-Sat., Seatings at 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.
Sun., seatings at 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Reservations are mandatory.
