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In November 2001, "Connecticut Magazine" restaurant reviewer Elise Maclay selected Carole Peck's Good News Cafe as a member of the publication's Restaurant Hall of Fame. "This charter group brings the steady flame of genius to the Connecticut restaurant scene," Maclay wrote. "What makes a restaurant a legend? Excellence, of course... A sheen, a glow, an aura, an essence, a presence, an elusive magnetism the theater calls 'star quality.' And something more: Consistency. Flash-in-the-pans don't make the cut. Restaurants that retain their popularity year after year do."
Here's what Elise Maclay wrote about Good News Cafe's "Hall of Fame" selection:
Carole Peck was one of the first women to enter the Culinary Institute of America at Hyde Park when it began admitting women in 1970. Before she was 30, she was a name chef in demand at luxury resorts and top big-city restaurants. She opened her own French restaurant in New Milford in August 1988. Then she began exploring the outer reaches of nutritionally correct food, coming up with dishes so scintillating they tasted better than the rich heavy restaurant food of yore. To showcase her new creations, Peck opened the Good News Cafe in 1992. A visit is an eye-opening experience. Walls are hung with exciting contemporary art, table settings are playful, and the food is a bouquet of taste treats ranging from fresh spinach fettuccine to white coconut layer cake. Good news indeed.
Following is a full-length review of Carole Peck's Good News Cafe by Elise Maclay, published in 1994 in "Connecticut Magazine":
If you're like me, this keeps happening. You go to a wedding reception or special event, fall in love with the food, jot down the name of the caterer and lose it before you have occasion to invite 50 guests. You find the perfect restaurant, decide to dine there as often as possible, but that turns out to be not very often because it's too expen sive. You adore good food and count the pleasures of the table among the inalienable rights of man and woman, but prudence, Pritikin and the American Heart Association suggest curtailing consumption of red meat, sodium and butterfat. What's a poor gourmet to do? Hurry to Carole Peck's Good News Cafe. It's festive, affordable, wildly delicious and scrupulously NC. That's "nutritionally correct." Obviously, we are not talking about ye olde diet platter with its scoop of cottage cheese, undressed lettuce and dry melba toast. We're talking about the likes of sesame fried rice balls and scallops on fruit relish, grilled salmon on kale in fresh gingered carrot broth, spinach fettucine with chicken meatballs a dazzling menu of nutritionally correct dishes designed and executed so skillfully they actually taste better than the rich, heavy preparations we used to equate with restaurant dining.
As you may know, Carole Peck is a world-class chef, caterer and restauranteur. Her art is recognizable only in that it is uniquely her own, eluding classification as French, Italian, American or Oriental. She employs ingredients and techniques from around the world, combining and modifying them as her talent dictates. Aware of trends, she has always taken what she likes from what's au courant and gone her own way which has always been a bit ahead of the pack. So it's not surprising that her new Good News Cafe is on the cutting edge. Trailblazing is her metier and in this instance, she says, she's cooking the way she likes to eat.
For the rest of us, a visit to the Good News Cafe is an eye opening experience. The walls of the restaurant serve as an art gallery, where nationally known artists exhibit their work for sale. Table settings are playfully chic, with colored napkins in rings of lacquered wood. The cafe, bar and coffee areas are an eclectic mix of Art Deco appointments and flea-market finds with a unique collection of antique radios on display.
More than a match for the spirited decor is Peck's innovative cuisine, featuring sublimely light dishes intensely flavored and sparkling with color. It starts with the bread, baked daily on the premises and available to take home. A light brown, multigrain loaf, moist and nutty with a crisp crust, it was served with olive oil for dipping. Also in the bread basket were a few lacy, paper thin wafers, crisp as autumn leaves, which wake up the taste buds with the bite of black pepper.
Two soups were offered a rosy beet broth and an elegant fish chowder. Notable among the salads was honeyed grapefruit and endive strewn with caramelized pecans, a nice variation on a sweet and sour theme. But what caught and held our attention were the various appetizers and so called "little plates." We tried two. Both lived up to expectations. Artichoke rigatoni tasted unmistakably of artichoke. The pasta was dressed with roasted peppers, crisp cooked cauliflower, sweet peas and an olive tapenade. A brilliant combination and very labor intensive, as good cooking usually is. The complex dishes that come from Peck's kitchen are impressive, consisting as they do of many ingredients, each cooked with precisely the right technique for exactly the right length of time.
Chicken livers, for example, were grilled, but so lightly that they remained rich and creamy inside to contrast with an accompanying crisp fennel and apple salad.
Pasta went into the pot only after the order was taken. Chicken, duck and pork loin were cooked on the rotisserie and enlivened with whimsical sauces (banana, raspberry for the duck). Only the New York strip steak struck us as too ordinary to try. On a mushroom crust? With an onion bundle? Well, next time.
Exploring the menu, we tasted the wok seared shrimp and were wafted to Thailand or some such place, where spices are as mysterious as they are marvelous. Gentle in the mouth with a stunning afterbite, the shrimp were plump and fresh and sweet, shorn of every shred of shell, embellished with dribbles of homemade aioli and served with herbed potatoes. Osso buco arrived in a brothlike fresh tomato sauce, a far cry from veal shanks braised in fat and swimming in gravy. Paradoxically, Peck's osso buco (a huge, meaty shank atop an ocean of creamy polenta) was more flavorful than the traditional recipe, although she didn't load it up with garlic and onions or braise it with pancetta. The veal tasted cleanly of itself, sharpened with the tartness of tomato and scented with a whiff of saffron. A word to the wise: Approach this osso buco with a big appetite or plans for tomorrow's lunch.
And rest easy. Privation is no part of Carole Peck's plan. Two lean lamb chops, for example, were quite filling because there was no fat or gristle to cut away, and an accompanying melange of white beans and grilled mushrooms and artichoke hearts was a meal in itself.
Our order of spinach fettucine with chicken meatballs (a bargain at $10.95) was dished up as mother would have done it, the plate heaped high with homemade pasta and two huge balls of diced chicken held together with lots of creamy lemon sauce! Again, what was notable about the dish was the fresh intensity of its flavors. Close your eyes. Take a bite of pasta. Fresh spinach, no mistaking it. Chicken. Citrusy fresh lemon. No need for visual cues. The mouth knows.
Which brings us to dessert and a word of warning. If you're saving calories, prepare to spend them here. Sure, there are fruit compotes and vanilla tofutti, but you won't find a better creme brulee, chocolate cream cake or hot apple pie. I vote for the pie. Cooked just for you, served hot, meltingly tender, light as a butterfly wing, cuddled in caramel sauce, it's unforgettable. As for the chocolate lover's cream cake, a single bite is likely to induce ecstasy. Then there's an old fashioned white coconut layer cake, startlingly sauced with mango puree. I'd go for that again. The layered hazelnut and mocha mousse torte looked terrific, too, and some day I plan to try the banana pecan pie. All in good time.
Carole Peck's Good News Cafe is open all day for food and drinks, snacks and take-out. Possibilities include expresso, cappuccino and herb tea, hot mulled cider, cream soda and fresh vegetable juice of the day, red wine and white, Pilsner Urquell, Watney's Red Barrel and Pete's Wicked Ale, scones and preserves, cheese and pate and/or a peanut butter sandwich on walnut raisin bread. It's up to you.
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