RED NEWT RE-INVENTED

All talk of dowsing, lay lines, and other pseudo-geological hocus-pocus aside, lay of the land can affect the very core of our beings, or, at the very least, our moods. Driving west from Trumansburg across Searsburg Road, it’s difficult not to feel a sense of relaxation and a kind of elation when, coming over the rise, Seneca Lake and its broad valley and crazy-quilt of vineyards spread out before us.  For me, it imparts a near-giddy feeling that world-weariness has been lifted, and that all’s about to be very, very well.

And it was with that sense of relief and coming pleasure that we approached the recently revised Red Newt Winery and Bistro with dinner on our minds. The folks at Red Newt re-opened their newly reconfigured dining facilities on May 1, survived the crush of local college and university commencements, and, say the waitstaff, emerged with their own senses of relief – everything still works, perhaps better than ever.  The winery and bistro have been through some changes in the past few years, and, we’re happy to say that they’ve come through adeptly, classily, beautifully, deliciously. 

We chose to dine in the re-configured tasting room, its bank of high and low tables facing through a wall of windows over the deck, with its recent pergola addition and rustic picnic tables. The Bistro, which has also been changed a bit, has given up its linen napery in favor of a more relaxed presentation. If you time it right on a Friday or Saturday evening, you may be witness to one of those spectacular Seneca Lake sunsets.

In the tasting room, as in the Bistro, there’s a set menu, and a few specials.  For wine trail visitors who need sustenance to maintain their equilibrium as they ramble (stagger, perhaps) from tasting room to tasting room along the wine trail, there are plates of cheeses, cured and prepared meats, or spreads (sun-dried tomato and olive tapenade, spicy cheddar cheese spread, and garbanzo sesame spread), as well as small plates of olives, pickled vegetables, or rich Marcona almonds.  But we were hankering for a substantial meal and were pleased with what we found.

A good-sized bowl of tomato soup was rich, creamy, hot, and spicy, perfect for that cool evening. The grilled cheese sandwich du jour, on the house’s substantial bread, was stuffed with local cheddar and crunchy asparagus spears, and was a perfect reminder of juicy fresh asparagus’ fleeting availability in relief from its year-round woody supermarket cousin.  The roasted garlic gnocchi was pure comfort food, its sauce of roasted garlic and cream napping fennel, kale, and chunks of sausage. The special of the day was a hearty slab of bacon-wrapped roasted pork loin served on a bed of barely sautéed greens, among them kale and celery-like lovage lightly kissed by an agrodolce dressing.  As ever, the focus is on local and fresh, same as it’s been since the winery’s inception (can it be?) twenty years ago. All this, along with a glass of Riesling and one of Gruner Veltliner, came to a rip-roaring $54.

Among the changes at Red Newt is the rotation of personnel.  Dave Whiting, occasionally spelled by his son, Brenton, has donned the toque, creating a limited but imaginative menu.  The wines are as topflight as ever, though he has ceded most of the winemaking duties to up-and-coming winemaker Kelby Russell, with a couple of new releases out on the Kelby James Russell imprimateur.

We left happily sated, snagging a case of their Circle Riesling on the way out.  Circle Riesling is our new favorite, less austere than many bone-dry Rieslings, its residual sugar balanced by a pleasant acidity and all that nice fruitiness that marks Rieslings at their best, great for pairing with spicy Asian cuisine, or for lifting the mood on the back porch after a day’s communion with the computer and the phone.

At Red Newt, the tasting room and the Bistro are open seven days a week, from 11:30am to 6:00pm, and until 8:00pm on Fridays and Saturdays. Phone 564-4100 for reservations and information.  3675 Tichenor Road, Hector, NY.

Café DeWitt: You'll run into EVERYBODY there!

The Café DeWitt, rounding on its fourth decade, started life as a coffee shop tucked into a hallway -- one wag called it the “plus-chic bomb shelter in town” -- in a trend-setting re-purposed school building in downtown Ithaca.

In the beginning, café owners Sigrid Pauen and a friend baked their own bread, sewed the table cloths, and gave birth to the curried tuna sandwich. The fact that the Café has grown and thrived,  still in that hallway,  is testimony to Pauen and co-owner Josh Eckenrode, a young chef who, while not classically trained, grew up cooking with his family, and has studied in depth on his own.  Both focus on creating brilliant stuff from local meats and produce.  Both are longtime community members, products of Cornell University, she in German literature, he in business management.

Between the two of them, and with the addition of pastry chef Barbara Brazill, “meat expert” Brent Perkins, salad-and-soup-pro Amy Pennington, and a crew of dedicated  waitstaff, the place clicks merrily along, producing and serving favorites like their rich and famous onion soup, its onions caramelized for hours to rich sweetness, obviating the need for meat stock, and their famously addictive double-glazed lemon cake.

The place and the food are important, but a good part of the draw is the people.  It’s a breakfast and lunchtime hangout for the local sisterhood of therapists, building residents and shopkeepers. The staff, many of them long-time café employees, can hold up their end of a conversation.  “Everybody here has another life,” said Pauen.  “They’re musicians, photographers, potters, nurses, EMTs, textile artists, filmmakers, librarians, film librarians.”

As like attracts like, the café has hosted arts and sciences notables. Actors John Lithgow and Gabriel Byrne (“The Usual Suspects), New York State Author and Pulitzer Prize winner Alison Lurie, economist Alfred Kahn, literary critic Mike Abrams, and astronomer Carl Sagan have broken bread with colleagues and friends at the café’s tables. 

Their oddest guest of all time, though, was a white-tailed deer that came to visit during a Sunday brunch, crashing through a store window, skittering along the café’s back bench, leaping over the back wall’s battery of fish tanks, and ending up, befuddled and dazed, in the dish room, where veterinarians tranquilized it and sheriff’s deputies removed it to a woodsier setting. While Eckenrode and Pauen pride themselves on the café’s fresh, local meat and produce, this was a bit too fresh for them.  Said Pauen, “Everybody was in shock.”

They have forged alliances with local producers.  “The thing that’s excited me the most is partnering with Autumn’s Harvest,” said Eckenrode, who sources eggs, bacon, ham, and sausages from the Romulus, New York producers. “We’ve started making our own corned beef from their brisket. It’s been a huge hit.” And every Tuesday is burger day at the café using their beef.

Said Pauen, “We’ve gone very far to remain local, with unadulterated ingredients.”  They make their own condiments, chutneys, curry spice mixes, vinaigrettes, and roast their own turkeys. Pauen credits Eckenrode not only with adding considerably to the café’s offerings but also with upgrading the café’s tools, and with taking the restaurant to new levels of presentation.  Even so, the café still has its original espresso machine, nearly 40 years old, and thought to be the first in town. “It’s like a Ferrari,” said Pauen.

On the table, the salads are dazzlingly colorful, the soups legendary, and the basic menu hasn’t changed in years – there’d be a great pulling out of hair and rending of clothes were items like the caprese salad or the curried tuna sandwich to disappear.  But daily specials provide fresh approaches to soups, salads, and omelets, often vegetarian, occasionally nearly vegan, and then they’ll hit you with the Tuesday juicy hamburger special or some of that excellent house-corned beef.  Weekends, however, any pretence of dietary restraint is off, as menu offerings warble a siren call with French toast fashioned from rich brioche and stuffed with raspberries, sour cherries, and ricotta, or pumpkin waffles with spiced apple compote and whipped cream, or their famous huevos rancheros.  And you’re bound to find something laced with chocolate sauce as well.

The group has made the best of the café’s humble locale, whose hallway configuration serves as a kind of people-funnel, particularly in winter, when visitors stroll through the hall, greeting and being greeted by friends in the café, and where sun-deprived singles and duos come to warm up with soup, or with coffee and dessert, and to get their “people fix.” The lighted fishtanks cast a flattering glow, as do hundreds of little Christmas lights suspended from white dowels, holiday décor so beloved by patrons, it was allowed to remain, spanning the seasons. The restaurant subscribes to a flower CSA, so there are always fresh flowers on the tables.

The Café DeWitt is located in the DeWitt Building, 215 N. Cayuga Street (entrance on East Buffalo Street).  Hours are Monday through Saturday 8:30-2:30 and Sundays from 10:00 to 2:00.  It’s breakfast and lunch weekdays, brunch weekends.  For a look at recent and current menus, and day-to-day gastroporn check out their Facebook page