Caseus Fromagerie and Bistro

For those who live in or around New Haven, Caseus is an authority in terms of cheese offer. They have a great collection of cheeses and a fair offer of olives and charcuterie. 

If I had to review the fromagerie only, I would definitely rated it as the best you can find around but they happen to call themselves "fromagerie and bistro" and for the experience I had in the bistro I have to make the two spaces really separated in terms of rating. 

My first time in Caseus was around two years ago. The bistro has a very pleasant esplanade that make the wonders of esplanade craving europeans like me. I went there with a friend, twice, within a couple of months. Both times I did not feel very comfortable. The space is quite small (they have an additional room at the basement but it is equally small) and one cannot find any kind of privacy feeling, specially when you get to seat at the counter. Food wise, I had a positive impression, although they sometimes try some specially weird combinations such as "chocolate and bacon cake". I am glad their menu changes seasonally because that would be something terrible to keep in any menu. Both times, though, I stated and confirmed that they are ridiculously overpriced. This is their most common critic to which they respond they cannot make cheap food with first quality local ingredients. I will get to this in a moment. Let me tell you about my last (and final) visit to Caseus bistro. It was bad enough to make my husband and I promise that we will never return there.

We went for a late lunch on a beautifully warm Saturday (one of the first we had around here this year!). We entered and asked for a table. We were asked if we had a reservation (what?? really??!! since when?). We did not have a reservation but the waiter was able to give us a table at the basement room. The space is quite claustrophobic but at least we had a table, right? Anyway, we only had time to seat our bottoms and a waitress was next to us filling our glasses with tap water. I hadn't finish saying "Thank you" and there she was, spitting the specials of the day and an endless list of ingredients used without forgetting to deeply emphasize the words "local" and "organic". I have to confess that she lost us after 20 seconds. We were stressed by the time we were allowed to look at the menu! I was feeling like going some place else but we stayed. We ordered the cheese board, the charcuterie board, the tart du jour (basically a mixed greens and cheese pie) and the wild boar rillettes. 

The cheese and charcuterie boards are the biggest misnomers ever! Seriously. Unless you consider 4 minuscule slices of cheese, patés and beef jerk a cheese and charcuterie board. At  $14 dollars each they could have had the respect of, at least, serving fresh toasted bread instead of the rubbery samples we had. The cheeses were good but nothing special. The stilton was extremely salty to a point where we got our tong burned.

Cheese Board

Charcuterie Board

The wild boar rillettes is basically a paté made with herbs, wild boar meat and spices. It was good, although extremely rich. But it is a matter of taste, naturally.

Wild Boar Rillettes

The tart du jour was terrible. The shell was way too thick, and the filling was completely unseasoned. Because they used outrageous amounts of cream and chose to include broccoli in it, the filling was extremely sweet. I tried to had some salt and pepper but it remain inedible.

Tart du Jour

As an overall review, I would say that Caseus could have remained doing what they do well - selling cheese and providing us with their beautiful collection of it. As a fromagerie they are really good even though you have to be ready to wide open your purse. As far as their restauranteurs aspirations is concerned I do not know what happened in these two years but if the food quality was not outstanding before, presently it does not worth my money; and the use of local ingredients does not justify the unreal overpriced approach. Why? As most people know, if you really buy local when you are a restauranteur you go directly to the source. You make connections with local producers who sell you the products much cheaper. You basically erase the intermediaries profit that make things cost more. If they are not buying directly to the producer they do not know what they are doing and, therefore, should not be doing it. If they do buy their products directly from the producers they are giving people a false argument to simply get our money. Some of the local ingredients are, of course, more expensive, because they are from local farmers that don't usually keep their yields low. I will discuss this mind-framing  pro-organic and pro-local propaganda in a future post. Anyway, what's the point of having very good ingredients if you don't know how to cook them properly?

Caseus is a good fromagerie. Period. As a bistro it is terribly overpriced for the quality that offers. If you think you can eat by the same price we spent ($60) at Ibiza, or with a bit more at Le Bernardin at lunch (actually Le Bernardin's City Harvest lunch menu costs $45 and they even donate part of that to the City Harvest.)  you will get why we will never be eating there again. It does not worth the claustrophobic, lacking of privacy space, it does not worth the stressful and clueless service (I am not blaming the waitress. She was doing what she is payed to do, even if she has to carry a notebook with all the ingredients she could not memorize) and the terrible food. My money can be better spent and my palate deserves better.