The Bedford by Martha Stewart Opens at Foxwoods Casino March 14 Restaurant Features Celebrity Chef Martha Stewart Foxwoods Opening CTbites Team March 11, 2026 The Bedford by Martha Stewart at Foxwoods Casino will officially open to the public on Saturday, March 14, 2026. The Bedford is Martha Stewart’s second restaurant and her first restaurant on the East Coast, bringing her celebrated style and hospitality to Foxwoods. Located within the Grand Pequot Tower, The Bedford is inspired by Martha’s historic 1925 farmhouse in Bedford, New York, offering a warm, residential-inspired setting that reflects her personal style and passion for entertaining, paired with a menu of her most beloved dishes and seasonal favorites. Guests can expect signature menu items from the flagship Bedford at Paris Las Vegas, including the famed bread basket, Big Martha’s Pierogies, and Honey Mustard Salmon, alongside new dishes created exclusively for the Foxwoods location such as Martha’s Giant Turkey Meatball, Pasta Limone, and Crispy Chicken Milanese. The restaurant will also feature a robust breakfast offering, including highlights like Breakfast Biscuits, Eggs Benedict, Grand Marnier French Toast, Buttermilk Blueberry Pancakes, Donn’s Waffles with Pequot Maple Syrup, and Martha’s Fresh Pressed Green Juice. Signature cocktails—including the Martha-tini and frozen pomegranate Martha-rita—are crafted with freshly squeezed juices and premium spirits, reflecting Martha’s commitment to quality ingredients. The culinary program will emphasize locally sourced ingredients, celebrating Martha Stewart’s dedication to quality and sustainability while delivering a memorable dining experience for guests. Read More
It's A Woman's World: Anne Grossman of Rebel Daughter Cookies Ingredients Interview It's A Woman's World Cookies Bakery Baker Interview Rebel Daughter Cookies Norwalk Andrew Dominick March 10, 2026 Anne Grossman does it all. She’s a mother, a wife, a small business owner, and someone I’m proud to call a close friend. I normally don’t feel much pressure when writing about anything…Except when it’s writing an intro for someone you know! In all seriousness, it was love at first…BITE! I remember telling Anne when she was filming customer testimonials that if I didn’t like her cookies, I don’t know if we’d be friends! But what kept me coming back and kept our dialogue going through Instagram DMs was one cookie in particular…her Fluffernutter Forever. Read More
60+ CT Spots to Celebrate St. Patrick's Day 2026 Features Restaurant Events St. Patrick's Day Guide Homepage Events Carly Terzigni March 06, 2026 Could this long, cold, and snowy winter finally be coming to a close? It looks like things are heating up fast! Not only do I detect warmer days on the horizon, but St. Patrick’s Day is right around the corner. I, for one, am ready to swap the cold gray for some bright green! Restaurants across the state are feeling the same and are ready to celebrate. With towns hosting parades over the next couple of weeks, there are multiple opportunities to gather with friends and family and spread some Irish cheer. This guide is organized by county to help you easily find a restaurant near you celebrating. Simply scroll to your local county and see where you can enjoy some corned beef and a Guinness this March! Read More
Amazing Graze Wagyu: Redding Resident Gene Nazzaro Fulfills Lifelong Dream of Becoming a Cattle Farmer Ingredients Interview American Wagyu Farmer Redding Cattle Interview beef Amazing Graze Wagyu Andrew Dominick March 05, 2026 Don’t tell Gene Nazzaro it’s too late to realize a dream. After a lifetime in his family’s namesake excavating business, he’s moved onto greener pastures, and that’s in the literal sense. While he’s still semi-active in Nazzaro Inc., which specializes in residential, commercial, and municipal excavation, and pond dredging, his newfound passion is cattle farming for beef production for his brand, Amazing Graze Wagyu. Read More
Via Emilia: An Italian Love Letter Written in Mystic Features Ingredients Interview Restaurant Italian Interview Espresso Martini Fresh Pasta Mystic Homepage Andrew Dominick March 03, 2026 Love letters aren’t always inked on parchment, sometimes they’re cooked in a kitchen and served to hungry customers. That’s the case at Mystic’s Via Emilia where co-owners Shaun Golan and Jakub Andros are dishing out Italian comfort food that’s uncomplicated and pays respect to Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region since it opened in 2020. On the brink of celebrating six years at the very end of Coastal Connecticut, how Via Emilia came to be, what they’re cooking and why they’re cooking it, and the tale behind their popular espresso martini is a story that should be told. Read More
Joylark Kitchen to Host Vegan Dinner and Exclusive Screening of “A Culinary Uprising, The Story of Bloodroot” Events Restaurant Joylark Kitchen Bloodroot Fairfield Bridgeport Vegan Events CTbites Team February 28, 2026 On March 30, Joylark Kitchen in Fairfield, CT, will present a powerful evening celebrating plant-based cuisine, feminist history, and culinary legacy. The event begins with a thoughtfully curated three-course vegan dinner, followed by an exclusive screening of “A Culinary Uprising: The Story of Bloodroot,” the acclaimed documentary by Director/Producer Annie Laurie Medonis. Read More
Vyne Restaurant & Bar: Fine Dining Meets Comfort Classics in Middlebury Features Ingredients Interview Restaurant Middlebury Mediterranean Italian Interview Cocktails Fine Dining Homepage Andrew Dominick February 24, 2026 Unless you live near or in Middlebury, there’s a very real chance you’ve never dined there. Ask a few guys who now work in Middlebury at Vyne Restaurant & Bar and they’ll tell you that before they got there, they hadn’t either. “I had never even heard of Middlebury and I spent a lot of my life in Hartford,” says Vyne’s general manager Justin Morales. What Morales, an industry veteran both behind the bar and as a GM (and most recently of Fire by Forge), and executive chef James Piccolo are doing in this part of Connecticut is putting their stamp on a restaurant idea that began many years ago as a small cafe inside of a furniture store, Middlebury Consignment. Read More
Coracora Peruvian Cuisine Opens Flagship Location in West Hartford’s Blue Back Square Restaurant West Hartford Blue Back Square Hartford County Peruvian Opening Lunch Homepage Leeanne Griffin February 22, 2026 Back in 2011, Hector Ludena and Luisa Jimenez took a chance and opened their first restaurant in West Hartford’s Shield Street Plaza, naming it for the Peruvian city they hailed from. Coracora took over a former McDonald’s building, its kitchen turning out pollo a la brasa and lomo saltado instead of Chicken McNuggets and Quarter Pounders. It became another local international favorite in the plaza that’s also home to Pho Boston, Shu and the A Dong Asian supermarket. The staff even ended up using the former fast-food drive-through window during the pandemic to offer minimal contact takeout. Then in 2022, things shifted in a way the Ludena family still says is surreal and hard to grasp. Coracora was named as a nominee for the James Beard Foundation’s Outstanding Restaurant award, and Macarena Ludena, Hector and Luisa’s daughter, was a semifinalist in the Best Chef: Northeast award category. Suddenly, the local spot was on a national stage. Read More
First Look: Norwalk's Valencia Luncheria Reopens as Valencia Cocina Features Ingredients Interview Restaurant Valencia Norwalk Valencia Luncheria Venezuelan Latin American Reopening Interview Homepage Andrew Dominick February 18, 2026 After a little over three weeks closed for menu changes and renovations, Valencia Luncheria is back in action! Only now you have to call it by its changed name, Valencia Cocina, representing it’s new chapter that we teased you about at the beginning of the year. Now reopened with a sexier, but still chill vibe, a brand-new bar, and a reimagined menu, founder Michael Young, co-owner Luis Chavez, and executive chef Marv Bryce are ready to welcome you back in. Read More
Yama Tsuki: Outstanding Sushi Right off Greenwich Avenue Restaurant sushi Sushi Bar Greenwich Omakase Japanese Homepage Bree George February 12, 2026 I subscribe to the idea that a piece of perfectly presented fish is one of life’s great pleasures. Silken bluefin belly with a sprinkle of caviar; soft salmon draped over a sliver of torched rice; a slice of supple baby yellowtail, delicate but insistently flavorful. At Yama Tsuki, on Greenwich’s West Putnam Avenue, you’ll find all three. Family-owned, the business operates this restaurant alongside a wholesale seafood business and several restaurants in Long Island and Baltimore, personally sourcing very high-grade fish on twice-yearly scouting trips to places like Japan, Indonesia, the Faroe Islands, and New Zealand. Read More
Buzzed: Connecticut Distillery SoNo 1420 + Local Breweries Get in the THC Seltzer Game Brewery Features Ingredients Interview THC Seltzer THC Seltzer Cannabis Beverage Cannabis SoNo 1420 Two Roads Brewing Company Thomas Hooker Brewery Interview Non Alcoholic Andrew Dominick February 12, 2026 If you ask Ted Dumbauld, the owner of the Norwalk-based distillery SoNo 1420, about pivots he’s had to make as a result of alcohol consumption being in a major decline, he has a lot to say. “They used to tell you, if you have a beer or a wine, that it’s healthy for you, but studies have shifted showing that alcohol use is linked to causing cancer,” he says. “If you’re prediabetic or you’re older, you’re probably told to stop drinking, and younger generations aren’t consuming as much alcohol.” And he’s not just saying that. A Gallup Poll from August 2025, a survey that has tracked our drinking behavior since 1939, says that only 54% of Americans reported drinking alcohol, a record-low. Read More
Hidden Gem: Dama Rose Middle Eastern Cuisine Opens in West Haven Restaurant West Haven New Haven Middle Eastern Opening Lunch Homepage Jessica Ryan February 07, 2026 It’s often the “off the culinary grid” spots that are true hidden gems. We have found one for you. Let me introduce you to Dama Rose, which opened just about a year and a half ago in a small strip of shops right on the Post Road in West Haven. It might not have the fanciest address but it doesn’t (and shouldn’t) matter, as most gourmands and critics will concur.Chef Malaz Hayak opened Dama Rose in September 2024. The restaurant industry runs deep in veins – His father owned and ran a successful restaurant in Damascus which remains in the family today. Nearly 20 years ago Hayak left Syria for the States where he joined his brother who then owned Rabia’s, a popular restaurant in Boston’s historic North End. Chef is a formally trained Cordon Bleu Chef and received his training in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There he was exposed to many award-winning restaurants, and landed an externship at the notable Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel where he trained directly under Executive Chef David Daniel. Read More
The Haven Opens in Norwalk Featuring a Speakeasy, Rooftop, Cafe, and Event Space Features Interview Restaurant Speakeasy Cocktails Pizza Late Night Norwalk Interview Rooftop Opening Andrew Dominick February 06, 2026 The restaurant space on the corner of Washington and N Main has seen its share of flips. Evarito’s had an over five-year run, then it was The Pompano for a blink. Drive or walk by it now and you’ll notice the dining room is empty-ish, but more like a clearing, and that the lights are on. And the lettering on the glass door reads, “The Haven.” Behind all of those previous concepts, and behind The Haven, is Christian Burns, who you’re familiar with as the brains behind The Ginger Man and The Cask Republic locations. With The Haven, Burns and his landlords, Joe and Aldo Criscuolo, are teaming up on all four aspects of what this is and what it’s going to be when it’s whole. Read More
¡Ay Güey! Cafe & Cocina Mexicana: Authentic Mexican In Stratford Interview Restaurant Mexican Reopening Stratford Interview Tacos Andrew Dominick February 04, 2026 Look up the phrase “¡Ay, güey!” and you’ll see it’s got a lot of meanings. In Mexico, it’s commonly used slang to express shock, fear, amazement, and surprise, much like “Wow!”, “Oh, man!”, “Oh my god!”, “Holy crap!”, and, well, you get the idea. In Stratford, ¡Ay Güey! Cafe & Cocina Mexicana hopes to “Wow!” you with their traditional Mexican menu, just like they wowed our writer, James Gribbon, back in 2021 when they first opened. Why they’re getting more shine in 2026 is simple…they had closed for three months at the end of last year for renovations in a Facebook post that read like a postmortem, sparking some concern and a Reddit that followed. Read More
Cowboy Butter in New Milford: Hindsight BBQ's Sister Restaurant, a "Boujee" BBQ Joint + Steakhouse Features Ingredients Interview Restaurant BBQ New Milford Opening Interview Steak Homepage Andrew Dominick January 27, 2026 When CTbites last covered Hindsight BBQ in 2021, its founder, Jeff Schmidt was quoted as saying, “When you get obsessed with something, and when you get bit by the BBQ bug, once you go down that rabbit hole, you can only go further.” In 2025, his “further” ended up being Cowboy Butter, best described as “a New England live fire cookery and boujee BBQ bistro,” in New Milford’s quaint downtown area. Read More
The Smithy Cafe & Market in New Preston: A New Approach to Community Building Restaurant Features New Preston Litchfield County cafe Breakfast Gourmet Market Homepage Bree George January 23, 2026 On a speck of Main Street in New Preston, the Smithy Cafe feels like it’s always been there. Coffee cups clink, steam hisses from the espresso machine, and customers pick up loaves of Farmers & Cooks sourdough while waiting in line to place their order at the counter. Across the street, in a 200-year-old former blacksmith shop, the Smithy Market carries the everyday and the aspirational in equal measure: bread, eggs and coffee, alongside gourmet Bridgewater chocolates from Brookfield, micro-batch Wonderland Jam made in Newtown, and East Street Arts handmade printed tea towels from New Haven. Read More
Getting the Scoop: Behind the Scenes at Gioia's Gelateria Ice Cream Ingredients Interview New Haven Restaurant Gelato Ice Cream New Haven Gioia Interview Dessert Andrew Dominick January 20, 2026 Just past the original locations of Sally’s and Pepe’s on New Haven’s legendary Wooster Street is Gioia. Opened by restaurateurs and longtime industry guys Avi Szapiro and Tim Cabral in 2023, Gioia is a fascinating concept. It’s not only a restaurant, it’s got a gourmet market, a rooftop that switches its theme seasonally, and a walk-up window where you can snag square pizza slices and gelato. That last part is what this is about. And when we’re talking about great ice cream in Connecticut, Gioia would like to enter the conversation. Read More
Fire & Spice Opens in Bridgeport With A+ Peruvian Rotisserie Chicken & More Ingredients Interview Restaurant Peruvian Indian Bridgeport Interview Fast Casual Opening Andrew Dominick January 13, 2026 A former Jamaican restaurant on Bridgeport’s Boston Avenue doesn’t only have two new tenants, it’s cooking up different culture’s cuisines, too. At Fire & Spice, the concept is Peruvian, with some Indian and Pakistani, and good ol’ American burgers, cheesesteaks, and fried chicken. Behind Fire & Spice is the team of Shiraz Choudhary and his chef, Emilio Malpartida, and if you’ve been to either of the Swift Fresh Market locations, two in Fairfield and one in Norwalk, you’re at least a little familiar with who they are. Read More
Breaking News: Valencia Luncheria in Norwalk Announces New Concept + Renovations Features Interview Restaurant Valencia Luncheria Venezuelan Latin American Norwalk Interview Homepage Andrew Dominick January 08, 2026 Valencia Luncheria as you know it is closing. Maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but it made you sit straight up, didn’t it? In a social media post on January 7, 2026, Valencia announced that after service on January 18, they’ll be closing for renovations. But those first four words in the caption on their Instagram reel is what you should be focused on… Read More
Craft Beer + Music: Twelvenote Brew Co. Opens in Black Rock Brewery Interview Features Brewery Twelvenote Brew Co Black Rock Bridgeport Music Craft Beer Beer Opening Interview Brewer Homepage Andrew Dominick January 08, 2026 Brian Pietrzak has had some “pinch me” moments lately. As the brewer and co-owner of Twelvenote Brew Co. in the former Aspetuck Brew Lab space in Black Rock, he’ll tell you candidly that it’s all a bit surreal. “I wake up sometimes at 3 a.m. and I can’t believe I own a fuckin’ brewery, like, I can’t believe this is my job now,” he says. Originally from Erie, PA, Pietrzak’s brewing story started as you might expect it to, with a home brewing kit he received as a gift from his brother-in-law, who’s his now partner at Twelvenote. Read More
