BY KAREN DEUTSCH • PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANGEL TUCKER
AUDETTE
505 Thames St., Newport, 324-5802, audettenewport. com
Open for dinner Tuesday – Sunday. Reservations recommended, but walk-ins accepted. Wheelchair accessible. Street parking.
CUISINE French food that’ s as proud of its history as it is of its present.
CAPACITY Seventy-two with the bar, plus outdoor dining.
VIBE Fine dining translated for a postmodern crowd.
PRICES Appetizers: $ 12 –$ 105; entrees: $ 34 –$ 63; dessert: $ 11.50 –$ 14.50.
KAREN’ S PICKS Caesar salad, escargots, beef tartare, any entrée( as long as someone at the table gets the quenelles), souffles. Don’ t forgo the excellent cocktails and wine list.
Regulars still tend to hover in age at the half-century mark and Audette continues to cater to that crowd, with a tray full of colorful reading glasses perched on the hostess stand. But the formal atmosphere and stiff attitude has softened a bit under the new ownership. A dress code remains( no sportswear), but when the youngest member of a party rushes in late wearing jeans and a T-shirt, the staff will ask little more than to remove the baseball cap. There’ s something almost cozy about this polished restaurant and, if they request something more refined than shorts, it’ s in deference to a kitchen that takes its job very seriously.
Some of the dishes from the restaurant’ s earlier iterations remain as an ode to what’ s revered in the French tradition. Caviar service($ 85- $ 105)— petite toast, creme fraiche, chopped shallot and grated
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