Green Street Café
64 Green St., Northampton, 413-586-5650
Hours: Mon.–Fri. from 5 p.m., Wed.–Fri. 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday brunch–10 a.m.-2 p.m.
Wine Bar Wed.– Sat. 5 p.m. to midnight.
Entrées to $24.
Finally, the day after Halloween, Green Street Café emerged from an eight-month slumber with a new, five-year lease on life. Featuring a new wine bar and gorgeously painted mural depicting the restaurant staff at a Last Supper with Smith College’s wrecking ball in the background, the landmark has reopened.
The hue and cry coming from the community about expansion plans for a new engineering school is said to be the reason for this reprieve. Jim Dozmati, the famously taciturn owner, says he has no idea why Smith College president Carol Christ decided to back off, but doesn’t care. He’s happy to be back behind the bar, on the floor and in the kitchen of the restaurant he and partner John Sielski opened 15 years ago.
The night we visited, we enjoyed the fire, a new wine list and dishes from a hand-written menu. “Our food is American seasonal with French influences,” said Tony Shaw, the restaurant’s newly minted chef, who added that “French” means that stocks are made on the premises, vegetables are caramelized and everything is (within reason) in season. For example, in January he will offer baby shrimp from Maine with a risotto. Mark your calendar.
An extensive list of Spanish wines and a smattering of French whites were offered. Chef Shaw believes that Spanish reds provide a better value to quality ratio, which seem true based on the bottle of Marques de Riscal Rioja 2003 we had with dinner and subsequent glasses of red at the wine bar in the restaurant’s lofty foyer.
Beginning with an exquisite appetizer of mussels with a curry cream sauce and “air-cured ham” masquerading as lardon, we glided over to a “warm fall vegetables salad”: tiny cubed squash and parsnips paired with a goat cheese, frisee, and fanned pear slices was pungent, peppery (the greens) and soothing (the caramelized vegetables). A main course, chicken with apples and hazelnuts with akai rice grain, was hearty and elegant. The wild rice, spiked with pearl barley, was impetuous and cooked to perfection while the chicken with succulent flesh encased in crispy skin reveled in its cider reduction.
On a tiny chalkboard, the bistro menu in the bar lists such classics as brandade, tapenade, duck wings and other Gaelic nibbles. A pianist performs in the shadows Wednesday through Saturday. Beers include Peak Organic from Portland, Maine as well as Berkshire Brewery brews, Dogfish Head and Brooklyn Lager. This establishment has a four out of five Locavore rating because all beef is from New England and grass fed, cheeses are from the region, root vegetables are local and fish is chosen based on the shortest distance between its origin and the restaurant.
What a relief to have Green Street back, especially in winter! Be sure to make reservations and try to get a table near the fireplace. A closer look at the Last Supper mural (painted by Jeff Mack) on the wall of the dining room reveals cracks in the plaster under the painting. It could be a premonition of what is to come… or not. As Leonard Cohen said, “There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”
