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Arethusa al tavolo in Bantam is Connecticut's Tasting-Menu Gem
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By Maria Rodriguez | Feb. 2, 2026
Arethusa al tavolo is what happens when a restaurant has the rare luxury of not needing to prove it’s “chef-driven” because the menu quietly does the driving. Chef Dan Magill, a James Beard Best Chef: Northeast semifinalist, builds the kind of prix-fixe that reads cleanly and eats even cleaner, with enough restraint to let the ingredients do their job and enough finesse to remind everyone this is still fine dining.
On the current prix fixe ($65, Tuesday and Wednesday), starters include potato and leek soup finished with Arethusa sour cream, crisp prosciutto, rye crumbs, and chive oil, plus butternut squash agnolotti with pearl onions, Brussels sprouts, glazed pear, and sage brown butter sauce.
Mains keep the same tight focus: pork tenderloin stuffed with braised leeks and cabbage with a red cabbage gastrique, or roasted sea bass with a roasted pepper-and-eggplant purée, chickpea cake, and salsa verde. Dessert closes with something like coconut lemongrass panna cotta with lemon shortbread and mango preserve, which lands exactly where the rest of the meal lives: precise, not overthought.
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