Starry Night shines with strong Italian fare

Author: Sean Breen

This past week, I had the pleasure of spending a long evening in Ferrisburg, Vt., just off Route 7 at a small cottage of a restaurant - the Starry Night Café.

At Starry Night, everything smells good. The eclectic, dimly-lit décor is a refreshing change for any Middlebury student, offering a quick trip to a distant region, if only for an evening. The food is basic, wholesome and classically "Vermont." But despite its simplicity, the menu covers all the basics, consistently offering fantastic vegetarian dishes as well as fresh game. All ingredients are "home grown" on neighboring farms and are gathered daily for each evening, while the seafood is shipped fresh directly from Boston.

The menu is subtly northern Italian, generally offering such classics as fried calamari, caprice salad and a risotto dish. As of last week, the chef was still displaying his late summer menu, but with fall approaching, the dishes to look out for are the squash soup and Misty Knoll chicken lasagna. The most recent specials included a light quail appetizer and an outstanding cut of venison, prepared over scalloped potatoes with a port wine sauce. Of the usual meat entrees, the New York strip steak or the lamb chops are always a satisfying choice. For dessert, their crème brulée is one of the best I have ever tasted, in this country or elsewhere, and the chocolate martini is always a good bet.

As far as beverages go, the bar offers a number of interesting, if not always delicious, cocktails, including a tasty variety of martinis - the lemonade martini is a perennial favorite for starters. Their wine list is in good shape, although heavily weighted toward California. Of the wines I have tasted, I would recommend the bigger-bodied Syrah- or Cabernet-based wines as these grapes play into California's climatic strengths and drink exceptionally well when paired with the wild game dishes. Upon my last visit, I experimented with a Valpolicella from Italy and was disappointed. Bottom line: stick with the medium-priced ($20) blockbuster wines. If you need a name, the Joseph Phelps Syrah is quite good.

Most importantly, an evening at Starry Night will be a trip away from the flurry of campus life. Every once in a while, dining needs to be more than a rushed refueling at a crowded cafeteria. Dinner should be a relief from the day's troubles - a breeding ground for discussion and laughter. Starry Night may be on the pricier side, but it's worth every penny.