So every year on my birthday, my husband picks a place to
take me for a special dinner. This year,
we had the good fortune to go to a great steak dinner the night before my
birthday, so when he asked me where I wanted to go on my birthday, I told him
to pick a “seafood place.” We have both been getting more and more adventurous with trying different kinds of seafood, so I knew he would pick
something good. His choice was the fairly new, and very popular
West Hollywood hotspot called Connie & Ted’s.
Opened in 2013, Connie & Ted’s is the brainchild of chef
Michael Cimarusti, who helms L.A.’s
pre-eminent seafood mecca, Providence.
While Providence is upscale and contemporary, Connie & Ted’s has a much
more relaxed, casual vibe. Chef Cimarusti
has re-imagined the New England clam shacks he frequented as a kid growing up
in Rhode Island. The restaurant is named
after the chef’s maternal grandparents.
His grandfather, Ted, was an avid fisherman, and obviously passed his love
of seafood down to his grandson.
The interior of Connie & Ted’s is quite large, and loud,
with an open view of the kitchen, where you can watch all of the cooks hard at
work at their stations.
It is not the kind of place to go is you
want a quiet, intimate meal. It is a bright, open dining room, with touches of a fish house everywhere you look. The light
fixtures are even made from re-purposed lobster traps. There is a very large, raw bar with a huge,
ever-rotating selection of different types of oysters, with chalk boards highlighting the daily offerings. The oysters
are supposed to be some of the best in the city. That being said, I need to include a caveat before
I can continue my review, and that is that neither my
husband, nor I, are big fans of raw oysters so we did not partake in any.
One of the few negatives I can say about Connie & Ted’s
is that even with a reservation, we still had to wait almost an hour for our
table on a Friday night. However, that
gave us time to sample some interesting cocktails on the list. I had a Narragansett Cooler, which consisted
of bourbon, orange juice, and ginger ale.
It was a light, refreshing cocktail that I was able to enjoy during our lengthy wait.
By the time we were finally seated at our table, we were
pretty hungry, so we went straight to the starters. We ordered two of the house specialties. First, we had “Stuffies” which were chopped
quahog clams mixed with breadcrumbs, linguica sausage, garlic, and butter, and
then stuffed back into their shells and baked until piping hot and crispy on
top. There was no shortage of sausage,
and the spicy kick from the linguica seemed to dominate the oyster flavor. I thought they were delicious, mostly due to the fact that the
oyster flavor was hidden underneath all of the other ingredients.
If you are looking for the complete opposite end of the oyster
flavor spectrum, I recommend ordering the “Deviled Oysters” starter. We decided to put our reservations concerning oysters aside, and go full throttle with this next dish. The order came with three, giant cooked
oysters, which were both salty and spicy. The spice helped to balance out the brininess, but overall, the oysters themselves were
a bit too large for our liking.
Next, we could not resist ordering the hot, soft, buttery
rolls. They arrived fresh from the oven,
baked in a cast-iron skillet, and topped with butter and a dash of sea salt. Delicious!
For our main courses, my husband ordered the Portuguese Fish
Stew. The stew consisted of hake, manila
clams, mussels, linguica sausage, in a spicy tomato broth. My husband is a big fan of cioppino, so we
thought this would be right up his alley. There was definitely no shortage of seafood in the bowl. It turned out to be more like a cross between a bouillabaisse and a
cioppino. It was quite tasty, but we both generally
like the broth to have a stronger tomato flavor.
My main course was the grilled halibut with lemon, herbs and
oil. The fish was very fresh and cooked
perfectly, but it was completely smothered with the herbs, which tended to overwhelm
the taste of the fish. The halibut was
enjoyable, but I would likely choose a different preparation if I were to
return.
Finally, since it was my birthday, we ordered a Blondie for
dessert (it even came with a candle). The Blondie was basically a brownie without
the chocolate, and it came topped with vanilla ice cream and salted caramel
sauce. I am a sucker for desserts, and
thought this one was scrumptious.
Overall, I would say that we both enjoyed our meal at Connie & Ted’s. Although the service was not particularly
great, every part of our meal was quite good.
It is still a hard place to score a reservation, so I don’t think I’d be
in a big rush to return. However, if you
enjoy the offerings of a typical New England style clam shack, and specifically,
if you are a raw oyster fan, you should definitely check this place out!
