dining out
12 Months, 8 Menus
Café Chameleon offers hyper-seasonal dishes
WRITTEN BY ESTHER DAVIDOWITZ PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL KARAS
Bloomingdale
CAFÉ CHAMELEON
60 MAIN ST., (973) 850-6969
CAFE-CHAMELEON.COM
W
hen I returned to dine
a second time at Café
Chameleon, a hyper-
seasonal contemporary
American restaurant in
Bloomingdale, the menu
had completely changed. The visits were a
mere six weeks apart.
Critically acclaimed chef Bryan Gregg, who
closed his small farm-to-table BYOB Escape in
Montclair and joined this 100-seat restaurant
and bar in July, four months after the restaurant
opened, plans to change the menu at least eight
times a year, if not more often. Changing a
menu “four times a year,” he says, “is not
seasonal.”
Disappointed at first — I was smitten with
the dishes from my first meal, which included
wonderful homemade fettuccine sheathed in
a delectable baby kale pesto, succulent dry-
aged duck breast with Dijon-tinged apples,
and scrumptious sweet sea scallops with bright
braised cabbage — I was delighted to discover
that the new dishes were just as good, if not
better, than the previous ones.
Café Chameleon’s look, however, did not
delight. Like its namesake, the restaurant, with
its hodgepodge of conflicting styles, is into
changing aspects of itself. Gray Louis XVI-style
chairs surround plain dark wood tables, a huge
modern beveled glass chandelier hangs from a
gigantic silver-embossed base, reproductions
of French Impressionist paintings cover nearly
every inch of the walls, and an undersized LED
fireplace is wedged into a wall between the bar
and dining room. But unlike its namesake, it
doesn't do so for survival purposes, but, dare I
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SPRING 2020 WAYNE MAGAZINE
AGED BEEF TARTARE