Intriguing Small Plates At Cafemantic

When it’s your job to describe good food with appropriate adjectives, it’s kind of problematic when a dish’s quality knocks you speechless. So thanks for that, Cafemantic’s jerk chicken.

But all is forgiven. The meat is meltingly tender, its crisp skin infused with subtle spice. It’s delicate, almost graceful, as it dissolves in your mouth. It’s beyond superlative. There’s a warm potato salad on the side, flecked with herbs, but that almost gets lost in the shuffle.

Willimantic’s Cafemantic is a special little enclave in eastern Connecticut, driven by the vision of passionate owner Andrew Gütt and talented executive chef Jonathan Hudak. It began as a daytime coffee shop several years ago, but later evolved into a full-service farm-to-table restaurant with beer, wine and a fluid menu of eclectic, locally influenced small plates (well-priced at $4 to $15.)

Some of those plates, like the jerk chicken, are permanent fixtures, but more are driven by the availability of seasonal ingredients. Late summer’s bounty facilitates fresh and light preparations: Mystic oysters with tart yuzu, heirloom tomatoes with goat’s milk feta, crispy pork belly with watermelon.

Taking advantage of dry, mild weekend weather, we chose to sit on the restaurant’s backyard patio, our table framed by sunflowers. Soon we had a visitor, a sociable orange cat, who instantly brushed up against our legs. “Oh, that’s George,” said our server. (I suspect George, too, is a big fan of that chicken.)

Cafemantic servers suggest tables order two or three small plates per person, and dishes arrive as they come out of the kitchen, tapas-style. Our half-dozen oysters disappeared quickly, and we next made short work of the excellent beef and pork meatballs in a bright marinara and griddled local calamari with chorizo, salsa verde and fingerlings.

The best dishes for sharing are the spreads, for sure: plentiful portions of rich housemade ricotta and indulgent chicken liver pate, both served with thick toasted slices of Farm to Hearth country bread. Pork rillette and colorful pickled vegetables round out the pate plate.

At neighboring tables, groups dug eagerly into the five-cheese macaroni, made with speck and sweet peas, and herb-roasted skirt steak with chimichurri – dishes already on the list for our next visit. But after our savory tour, we only had room for one more item; a perfect affogato, two scoops of vanilla ice cream immersed in dark, smooth espresso and crisp biscotti on the side. The caffeine fueled us for the 45-minute ride home, while we plotted the best back-roads route for our return.

Cafemantic, 948 Main St. in Willimantic, is open Monday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Tuesday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday, 11 a.m. to “late; Saturday, 10 a.m. to “late”; and Sunday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Brunch is served Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Information: 860-423-4243 and cafemantic.com.