Harvest Wine Bar: A Pleasing Change In Westport

Mario’s Place was a Westport institution. Since 1967, the bar and restaurant across from the train station served drinks to guys off the train and plates of old-school Italian-American food to generations of Westport families. After almost 50 years, Mario’s closed. The owner passed on, and the next generation was ready to move on. The demise of the old place saddened old timers who lament the town’s on-going changes.

Yet change brings good things. Harvest Wine Bar & Restaurant, a contemporary American restaurant, has opened in the old space at 36 Railroad Place. Inside the clapboard building, Harvest has an open, rustic-contemporary design in wood, black and white, with bare wood tables, black chairs with comfortable seats, and a long bar open to the room. A segment of the room is separated behind a tall wall of wine.

Kleber, Nube and Vicente Siguenza are the successful restaurateurs who created wine-centric Cava in New Canaan, 55 Degrees in Fairfield, Scena in Darien and Harvest in Greenwich and New Haven. The Siguenza family members are pros.

Harvest in Westport has been buzzing at dinner, and now at lunch (where you can sit by the sunny window and watch people run for the train). We felt immediate hospitality from Vicente, and then from the server who brought us warm bread, garlicky bean dip and olive oil. She turned out to be Nube’s sister. Our main server, who wasn’t a Siguenza family member, was also friendly and knowledgeable about the menu. He steered us in the right direction — to the salmon.

The grilled organic salmon expressed Harvest’s farm-to-fork concept. (The restaurant lists seven local farms on the menu). A thick grilled filet rested on a bounty of vegetables, topped with glistening cubes of beet ($26). Whole carrots, tapering to their roots, a bit of green sprouting from the tops, were split horizontally, and fingerling potatoes, skin on, were scattered with beets. A refreshing dash of vinegar gave the beets a sweet-sour flavor. And the salmon — juices squirted when we first stuck a fork in it.

Filet of branzino with lemon-wine sauce was served over saffron risotto, with spears of bright green asparagus ($19 at the 2-course prix fixe lunch). The dish was so simple and so pleasing. Mac and cheese was made with cavatelli, and the creamy sauce made with Cabot white cheddar clung to the soft pasta. It also comes with lobster ($17). Perennial favorite fried calamari, the bodies cut in squares rather than rings, was super tender, and compulsively eatable when dipped in spicy honey sauce.

The menu has a please-many aspect, with house-made pastas, salads with local greens, chicken scarpariello, and wood-fired grass-fed burgers, steaks, and dry-aged pork chop.

For dessert, Longford’s ice cream comes in irresistible flavors like salted caramel and espresso nugget.

Embrace the change. The food is infinitely better.

Harvest Wine Bar & Restaurant, 36 Railroad Place, Westport, is open Monday through Sunday, 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. 203-221-0810 and harvestwinebar.com.