CITY GUIDES | CONNECTICUT
Millwright’s Restaurant & Tavern in Simsbury Still Wins Connecticut Date Night
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By Maria Rodriguez | Feb. 2, 2026
Millwright’s Restaurant & Tavern in Simsbury is the rare restaurant that gives dinner a literal backdrop: a historic mill perched over a waterfall, with an enclosed bridge that’s basically a built-in pause button between courses. The kitchen is run by Tyler Anderson, and the restaurant is not shy about the résumé—James Beard Best Chef: Northeast nominations (as they note), plus the kind of national TV-checklist that usually comes with a personality; here it mostly comes through as calm control.
The menus move with the week and the season, and the experience can lean tasting-menu-serious if that’s the night’s agenda (they even warn that late arrivals lose access to the chef’s tasting menu).
Then, on Thursdays, Millwright’s turns around and makes a very deliberate point about not taking itself too seriously: burger night in the Tavern, where the Millwright’s burger or the burger of the week comes with a glass of house red wine for $29. It reads like a wink, proof that even with all the accolades and the waterfall drama, the place still knows how to keep it casual.
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