Circa Restaurant
57 Center Street, Northampton
413-586-2622
Hours: Tue.–Thu. 5 p.m.- 9 p.m.
Fri.–Sat. 5 p.m.-10 p.m.
Small plates $5-$10;
large plates $15-$22.
After hiking up one of the peaks of the Mt. Tom range to observe the rising of the full moon and the setting of the sun, we came off the mountain exhilarated, exhausted and starving. While nature was doing what it does in the sky, a chef in a tiny French kitchen was achieving alchemy on Center Street.
Circa in Northampton is a fitting place for astral projections of the culinary kind. The food is French, the ambiance ridiculously casual. Once the eating starts, time stops.
The mood was festive and international when we staggered into the intimate yet simply adorned restaurant. While the elegant menu outside under a little light suggests a venue for marriage proposals and the celebration of Nobel prizes, this crowd inside was very casual. One side of the restaurant was taken up by a long table of revelers in international garb, trading insults and pronouncements about health care and Hillary. We took our place at one of the smaller tables and were welcomed by a server in jeans and the look of a Catholic novitiate on her pale face.
To start, we shared the cheese and meat plate with “house made” sides—a humble description of the dish. Perhaps Circa typically sends out whatever is left over in the larder, but what leavings! The plate had three rich cheeses, a Mahon, a perfectly aged Tallegio and a very assertive yet compelling Gouda. The cheeses were joined with two sauces, a sofrito (cilantro) and a romesco (roasted tomato sauce) as well as thinly sliced Italian meats, salty and fortifying. Bread from Hungry Ghost (a bakery with a wood-fired oven down the street) accompanied this repast–the kind of food that might found in the packs of Swiss mountaineers.
There was so much of this dish that it provided nourishment for days afterward in the fridge. We also had the seared scallops with citrus salad and mint. What the menu doesn’t tell you is that the fish is dusted with fiery spice for the searing—only enough to take the heat and challenge the splayed slices of grapefruit.
A famished friend ordered the salmon main course without hesitation. Although the dish looked rather beige, it was truly succulent, combining the moist, well-cooked fish with long strands of leek in wine sauce and cream. There were mashed potatoes decorously arranged to create negative space near the fish in a new twist on plate painting.
Another hungry hiker ordered, as is his wont, the red meat: in this case, a striploin in what was described in the menu as simple sauce (gravy) with mache (spring greens). Again, in this case, the presentation befitted the aspirations of this restaurant. A hefty chunk of beef was surrounded by a tangled halo of potato ribbons setting sail from the shore of a lake of thin brown gravy. He described the dish as “good, really good,” which by his lights means exactly that. From a man of few words, this was high praise.
The small hot plates looked so beguiling that I tried two as a main course, combining duck crepes with an order of mixed mushroom and porcini cream risotto. The risotto was clearly cooked the full 20 minutes required for creamy, rich rice that best supports the ethereal combination of porcini in cream with cheese. So rich and intense was the mushroom and rice dish that this small plate could easily serve as a main course. Unfortunately, crepes with duck confit, chard and walnuts came with spinach rather than chard, a much mellower green. Like Popeye, spinach can pack quite a wallop in terms of flavor. The thin pancake and lackluster duck didn’t stand a chance in this small hot plate smackdown.
After sharing a nice bottle of Pinot Noir, we then shared a nice pot of cappuccino crème brulee. Far superior to something as mundane as a cup of coffee, the subterranean layer of egg, cream and coffee with a burnt sugar crust required some excavation. But, like our arduous journey up the little mountain, it was worth the effort.•
