The taste of history in Newport can put a pucker on your lips. During a meal, all that Gilded Age baggage can sour a hopeful disposition. That’s one reason I’ve always appreciated the Canfield House. At the turn of the 20th century, it was owned and operated by a rascal, rather than a robber baron.
Although Richard Canfield had a popular version of solitaire named after him, he made and remade his fortunes by running decidedly higher-octane card games at casinos in New York City, Saratoga, and Newport. So the roulette wheel you see next to the hostess station was madly spinning — illegally and profitably — from 1897 to 1905. The place had a reputation for gourmet food as well as for ignoring table limits for high rollers.
In the dining room, the tall vaulted ceiling is mahogany-paneled, its strict angles offset by the swooping lines of delicate chandeliers. The white buttons of buzzers dot the walls where gambling stations once were, where dealers and croupiers could summon wide-shouldered consultation with tuxedoed and obstreperous customers.
At a recent visit, we noticed none of the waitstaff rushing over to help. These days, the clientele is more interested in slurping oysters than playing faro. The crowd is as old as a century ago, a sea of gray and white, since this is a regular spot for many local graybeards. Considering that, it’s not as expensive as you might think. Pasta dishes are mostly in the high teens; menu house specials begin there, and you can get a 22-ounce Delmonico steak for just $28.95.
We went bargain hunting, during the Tuesday to Thursday stretch, when a selection of main courses for two are $24.95, a bottle of wine included. You can add a salad for $3.95 or $4.25 (house or Caesar). Remarkably, this two-fer is available not only off-season but also in the summer, when other restaurants usually drop the inducement. (Next summer, check out Mutt Martini Mondays for local color at the patio bar: actual alcoholic Chihuahua Cosmopolitans and such served, in bowls, to leashed dogs as well as the potions offered to their owners.)
For à la carte appetizers, nine of 15 were seafood, a good indication that attention will be paid to such main course items. Heavy French dishes aren’t as popular as they were in Canfield’s day, but escargot and brie en croute remain de rigueur. We had the crab cakes ($9.95), two flavorful patties topped with chipotle mayonnaise and accented with a fresh-tasting skewered shrimp.
The “wine & dine” menu from which we chose offered a dozen varied entrées. There were not only pastas and three preparations of chicken, but also pan-seared peppered salmon and flatiron steak with a maple-peppercorn demi-glace. The wines were from Redwood Creek. The medium-bodied merlot was the favorite of the table, although the chardonnay grew on me when I tasted it with food.
The best aspect of the bargain menu was how the kitchen didn’t stint on preparations. Many two-fers reduce dishes to bistro size and offer only the simplest. Here, though, the braised pork shank, for example, is $18.95 on the regular menu and it seemed a full portion, rising from surrounding white beans and adjacent carrot-raisin slaw. Instead of an undeclared substitution or deletion, there was an unannounced slice of brown bread absorbing juices. Another successful dish was called beef stew, but was far more interesting: flavorful sauce-clinging pieces of beef were next to portabella slices and whole braised shallots atop long-grain and wild rice. It was delicious.
