Smiles behind masks at reopened restaurants
Eateries now allowed to serve diners inside
After successfully bringing back outdoor dining, the state began allowing indoor service as of June 17. Seating is limited to 50% of capacity, and everyone is asked to wear masks and social distance to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
As we did with outdoor dining, we sent some reporters out to see what the scene is like in restaurants from Stonington to Old Saybrook.
Il Pomod’Oro, East Lyme
My first time eating indoors after Connecticut restaurants reopened felt rather — dare I say? — normal. Imagine that. Of course, the expected coronavirus protocols were in place. (And aren’t those protocols feeling weirdly normal now?) The tables were spread out in social-distancing fashion, for example, and servers wore masks and gloves.
That was the scene Friday night at il Pomod’Oro in East Lyme.
When I ate outdoors at some local restaurants during phase one of reopening, it was more of a takeout vibe. (Plastic forks and knives, food in takeout containers, and so on.)
Il Pomod’Oro, though, was a full-on fine-dining experience. A friend and I checked in when we arrived, and the greeter found our reservations and led us to a table.
The venue was busy, with people sitting outside on the front patio and others like us eating inside. People seemed to be following the coronavirus-in-Connecticut guidelines, including wearing masks until they were eating and drinking.
I will say that one nice consequence of the COVID-19 era at all restaurants is the social distancing of tables. You don’t have to talk over someone sitting who sometimes feels very close to you, and you don’t feel crowded. Ah, the joys of elbow room!
At il Pomod’Oro, the waiter brought us glasses of water, regular utensils, menus, and bread and olive oil. I ordered the pasta special, which boasted vodka sauce, spinach, mushrooms and sausage. My friend got the homemade tagliolini al profumo di mare, with mussels, clams, calamari, shrimp and garlic white wine sauce. Il Pomod’Oro highlights its handmade pasta on its website, and yes, indeed, it lives up to the hype.
We shared dessert, warm apple crostata a la mode, and left quite content with our first phase-two, inside dining experience.
Whitecrest Eatery, Stonington
A bandanaed Johan Jensen visited our table shortly after we had finished our appetizers on Father’s Day to welcome us to his Whitecrest Eatery and, in his Danish accent, tell us how much he’d missed seeing and chatting with customers during the COVID-19 shutdown.
The chef and owner is delighted that he and wife Abbey Hemmann are welcoming customers for inside dining again. Whitecrest served takeout throughout the shutdown but didn’t have outdoor space to reopen for phase one. Now, they’ve moved to the cavernous atrium at Stonington’s Velvet Mill, where their restaurant is located, able to seat 40 customers at tables more than 6 feet apart, and ringed with fernfilled planters. That’s just two seats short of their indoor capacity, which included the bar.
The chef said he is grateful to be healthy and back in business. With takeout, his menu was limited, but with indoor seating, he’s offering dishes such as seared bonito with shakshuka, orzo, Kalamata olives and herbed yogurt, and a summer schnitzel, with mushrooms, peas, asparagus and lemon. We ordered both and were delighted.
There is more joy in cooking for people seated at a table in your restaurant, and seeing their reactions to your food, Jensen said.
For the waitstaff, it was equally exciting. Our waitress told us that although we couldn’t see it, she was smiling beneath her mask, as she scribbled our order with gloved hands. It is the employees who have more steps to cover, to carry food and beverages from inside the eatery out to the new dining room in the atrium.
Business is resuming, Hemmann told us, and the restaurant was busy its first weekend. Reservations are recommended and are easily made through the website, whitecresteatery.com.
Guests are asked to arrive with face masks, and to wear them whenever they leave their tables. We felt incredibly comfortable and more than adequately distanced from other diners. And, with no air-conditioning running and all the old mill’s big doors wide open, it was pretty close to alfresco dining with a roof and big glass windows over our heads.
Little Pub Restaurant, Old Saybrook
Dining indoors felt like a silly idea when I met a friend on a summer Wednesday evening at the Little Pub restaurant on Boston Post Road.
Exterior tables with umbrellas beckoned from both sides of the Tudor-style building, and the weather was perfect. But we were here to sample indoor dining, a privilege unavailable until last week as we Connecticut residents quarantined at home for months and grew weary of our own cooking.
We hadn’t seen each other for a while, and we air-hugged as we exited our cars. Deb admired the decorative old-school phone booths outside as we put on our face masks and entered the restaurant’s vast dining room.
A masked server greeted us at the open side door, and we asked for a four top table so we could sit diagonally from one another, remove our masks and chat without swapping respiratory droplets.
With a high ceiling, generously spaced tables and open doors at both sides, the dining room felt airy and safe. Our wooden table was spotless, and big pump bottles of hand sanitizer were available at both entrances.
We forgot about COVID-19 for a while as our attentive server, Kayla, brought food and drinks. Deb had a white zinfandel and ordered the BLT sandwich on thick bread that she said she’d been craving. I had a Bombay and tonic, French onion soup and New England-style lobster roll. We both chose the sweet potato fries on the side, and they came out hot, crispy and luxurious. We considered ordering ice cream, but conceded we were too full.
Our only nitpick of the pandemic-era Little Pub, and of another restaurant where we dined outdoors recently, was that we had to ask for more napkins after unwrapping our silverware and placing it on the sole napkin provided. With heightened concerns about hygiene, restaurants should routinely provide a couple of extra napkins or even a wet wipe or two.
S&P Restaurant and Oyster Bar, Mystic
At S&P, indoor dining on the first and second floors felt spacious, sanitary and safe.
The restaurant’s reopening doubled as a debut for new decor in its sleek second-floor dining room — a colorful lighting fixture that decorates the ceiling with waves of blue, pink and orange, shining neon light down on the room. Hanging above the dining room’s floor-to-ceiling windows, which offer sweeping views of Mystic Harbor and the drawbridge, the installation brightens as the sun dims each night. The installation was designed by glass artist Jeffrey P’an.
Instead of reservations, the restaurant is offering priority seating. Guests who call in ahead of time can request a time block during which they will be seated before any walk-in guests. The restaurant’s automated messaging system suggests calling days in advance, as priority seating slots are expected to fill up quickly, but a day-of call was no trouble on June 23 for a 7:50 p.m. slot. Our table, tucked into a nook on the second floor, was ready as soon as we arrived.
Nine tables on the second floor were spaced at least 6 feet apart. Our table, at the very back of the dining room against a large window, offered beautiful views of the foggy sky and a safe distance from all other diners. Three other parties of two and one party of four were dining upstairs that evening.
The surfaces in the dining room — floor, tables and bar — looked sparkling clean and our servers changed their gloves more times than I could count. Whenever a guest left, staff swooped in to quickly sanitize the tabletops. Two waiters alternated throughout the evening, taking turns checking in, serving our food and clearing our plates. I would have felt more comfortable coming into contact with only one server. Though both were introduced to us, an explanation for the team wasn’t offered.
Disposable menus were printed on paper but everything else was standard fare — there were no offers made for plastic utensils or disposable napkins and drinks were served in glasses without straws. I would’ve preferred to use disposable utensils, napkins and straws, but opted to use what they had set out, since everything felt impeccably clean.
In addition to a new look, the restaurant debuted a new summer menu. We started off with The Saint, fizzy cocktails made with blueberry vodka, as we enjoyed our appetizers — spinach artichoke dip and a seafood crepe. The dip was served with fresh wontons and the crepe was as delicious as it was unique, filled with shrimp, crab and lobster topped with a cream sauce.
For our entrees, we enjoyed a steak prepared in an ancho coffee rub and a heaping plate of linguini alfredo topped with a half-pound of lobster tail and claw meat. It was the first time I’ve ever been served more lobster than I could finish.
Throughout our meal, the ambiance was peaceful. There was no foot traffic, no bustling staff going in and out of the kitchen, no quick turnover at neighboring tables. As slow, melodic music pumped through the speakers as the sun set, the environment felt calm and quiet.
Our servers wore masks the entire time. No other diners were wearing masks once seated, and some patrons seen wandering around the first floor to use the restroom were not wearing masks. There did not appear to be any hand sanitizer available on the second floor, besides in the restroom, but a small bottle was available on the host stand on the first floor. We, however, were seated directly by a host who was set up on the porch outside, so we didn’t pass by the indoor host stand and therefore did not have access to hand sanitizer — besides our own — before starting our meal.