Tucker's Bistro

Posh but fun

by Bill Rodriguez

150 Broadway, Newport, (401) 846-3449
Open daily, 6-10 p.m.
Major credit cards
No handicapped access

What better occasion than Valentine's Day to re-indulge in the little boîte? Few upscale restaurants try for the tres intime as resolutely as Tucker's Bistro.

But we're not talking stuffy. There are small chandeliers with faux candles, but also free-form clouds of tiny white lights, and a different shaded lamp on each table, from Art Deco to ceramic Italian statuary -- individually formal, but collectively fun. A sheet of paper covers each tablecloth, bistro-style, but the paper is so soft and textured that I initially thought it was cloth. Forest green wainscoting rises to table height, to walls the deep, glossy red of a lacquered Chinese box. Covering most of that surface, however, are closely spaced mirrors and paintings, the subject matter largely female portraits, but also a huge yellow bell pepper and a "portrait" of that dining room itself.

In addition to Tucker's wine list, a full bar was added last May, in its own room. The restaurant atmosphere is scrupulously reproduced, with a prominent slouching nude striking just the right note of insouciant decadence. Other notes -- including the sounds of Edith Piaf, Ella, and the Andrews Sisters -- continue the illusion that at any moment Simone de Beauvoir or Ernest Hemingway might take the next table.

Muting the red walls even more effectively than covering them up is intimacy-inducing low light, romantic to a fault. If you have trouble reading your menu, a common complaint, they will hand you -- no joke -- a little pen light. Later, when our orders arrived and we didn't want to hoist the high beam in one hand while eating with the other, a small oil lamp mercifully arrived just as I'd finished memorizing the location of my flatware. The little lamps really should be offered as an option to everyone.

We hadn't known before we came, but the menu that night was for the holiday occasion only. This was odd, since the choices, from filet mignon to red snapper, were not thematic (beef heart en brochette? prairie oysters?). The regular menu has nine each of appetizers and entrées. Thai shrimp "nachos" and escargot with sun-dried tomato pesto are openers that caught my eye. Sounding especially intriguing among the main courses is the chicken breast coated with a fig and chèvre paste, served in a puff pastry. Prices in that column go to $25, but there are a couple of dishes at only $12 and $13, including a delicious-sounding eggplant torte.

The specials we had were superb, all of them, so the regular offerings are bound to be trustworthy. I started off with a mussel bisque ($5.95), intrigued by the idea that the poor cousin among mollusks would be guest of honor in such a delicate preparation. It worked nicely, the strong flavor softened by the cream, though not muted enough to let the drizzled basil oil provide taste as well as eye appeal. Chives and two crostini gave contrasting textures as well as flavor variety.

Johnnie had the pear salad ($6.75), which is also on the regular menu. What purported to be Gorgonzola was so mild I mistook the first bite for feta, but the cranberry vinaigrette was a novel alternative to raspberry, and walnuts always work well with fresh pear slices. Another inobvious and successful touch: a dash of cayenne.

My counterpart's main dish was lobster ($28.95), baked in puff pastry in a cream sauce made with the shellfish stock and served atop crossed asparagus spears, spinach and corn kernels. Corn kernels? It worked. My Thai-style duck ($25.95) had abundant, fork-tender slices, with fried white-flour chips for, again, texture. Sesame oil made a portion of veggies and brown rice delectable. This was the best duck -- a favorite dish of mine -- I've had in years.

Desserts, all $5.25, are kitchen-made. You could have something light, such as ginger ice cream, or substantial, such as chocolate pecan pie, which we enjoyed on our last visit. A specialty at Tucker's is bread pudding, and we were delighted previously by their popular banana version. This time it was made with white chocolate, pecans and dried cherries, instead of raisins. Stuffed, we still couldn't stop tasting it.

Sue Zinno, formerly at Pronto in Newport, took charge of the kitchen last May. Five years ago, Tucker Harris opened the place with his partner Ellen Coleman, after working in other area restaurants and accumulating ideas about how to do things right. It's testimony to how diner-oriented those observations were that he joined the waitstaff most nights in serving customers. That he continues to do so says it all.