Wendy Logan photo

The New England Clambake bowl

Schoolhouse at Cannondale
34 Cannondale Rd., Wilton (203) 834-9816
www.schoolhouseatcannondale.com

The Schoolhouse at Cannondale lies hidden in a wooded gingerbread cottage flanked by a rushing stream and bordered by a newly-planted vegetable patch off the beaten path in a forest patch in Wilton. The instant you see the 1872 storybook structure, you know this is no ordinary restaurant. Whether food is your most ardent passion or you're simply curious to discover a new art form, you'll be hard-pressed to find anything comparable to this gastronomic jewel. While The Schoolhouse is not for the faint of financial heart, the inspirational dining experience offered here is well worth saving for.

At once stripped-down and elevated, chef Tim LaBant's style of cooking starts with fresh, organic, seasonal and — whenever possible — local ingredients: vegetables and herbs, meat, game, poultry and fish. The limited menu changes often, evolving with the seasons. A card on your table proudly notes the produce used in the kitchen is grown less than three miles from your table, and often picked the morning it's used. And yet, with what appear to be the simplest of elements, LaBant creates a tour de force of food.

We start our tasting with a velvety, nutty Jerusalem artichoke soup garnished with frizzled spring onions, a few bacon lardoons that offer a salty contrast to the inherent sweetness of the sunchokes and a smattering of tiny fava beans. The soup's richness belies the fact that it's made without the standard roux base, or even butter, its flavor and texture created entirely by the starchy sunchokes, a blend of herbs, bay leaf and a tiny touch of cream for finishing.

Next, we try a sublime fried wild cod. Served with tartar sauce, super-soft mashed potato puree and broccoli rabe, the dish is a creative and playful take on fish and chips with a crunchy crust enveloping the sweet and buttery fish, the pool of puree substituting for fries. For a final starter, we sample a "Foie Gras Torchon," two lovely discs of the coveted goose liver pate served with pickled ramps (an inventive substitution for the classic cornichon accompaniment), candied orange relish and fennel sorbet. The licorice-scented sorbet, citrus-y relish and tangy ramps offer a lively spectrum of flavors to counterbalance the heady liver.

Before diving into entrees, we opt to split an order of celery root ravioli as a mid-course. The pasta is served with ramps, the spring fava beans and bacon lardoons that helped dress our soup, and lovely, ruffley morels. The celery root filling was just a touch sweeter than we might have liked, the flavor palette rather unusual. Still, all agreed we were happy to have enjoyed a small taste. A "New England Clambake" bowl, with its sizeable chunks of lobster and littleneck clams, creamer potatoes, fresh dill and fennel is a symphony in seafood — its sherry-tinged broth begging for dips of the chewy and crusty Wave Hill bread served here.

After that, it was all about meat. An aged New York strip steak, served sliced with fat, emerald-hued asparagus, trumpet royal mushrooms and red onion marmalade was straightforward and superb. Sliced Berkshire pork loin, with polenta croutons (a textural delight — you'll never look at croutons the same way again), mustard greens and cipolini onions is perhaps slightly overcooked, arriving with barely a tinge of pink, but nonetheless tender and savory. Sliced, moist duck breast perched atop a sunchoke-foie gras puree and served with kale is nothing short of miraculous, the whisper-soft meat a succulent medium rare and the accompaniments an exceptional supporting cast.

Don't think about leaving this restaurant without trying at least one of pastry chef Robyn's divine sweets. To complete our extravagant repast, we dive in to a Kahlua caramel tart, with salted milk chocolate, coffee anglais, and creamy peanut butter sorbet (yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus); vanilla bean panna cotta with strawberry-tarragon consommé, strawberry sorbet and diced lime-scented strawberries; a banana parfait layered with caramel popcorn, Guinness cake, and warm, frothy Ovaltine cream; and finally, a chocolate souffle (pre-ordered). Though slightly more reminiscent of a divine molten cake than a light-as-air souffle, the entire plate is a chocolate lover's dream with a dollop of whiskey anglais, stripes of milk and dark chocolate streaming across the plate and a smooth and bright mint ice cream to freshen your palette.

Don't call yourself a food lover if you've never been to the Schoolhouse. For economy, a fixed price dinner is being offered on Thursdays for $40 per person, or you can try it at lunch or for their extraordinary Sunday brunch for more palatable prices.