Stone Bridge leads to Greek-style seafood

By MICHAEL JANUSONIS
Journal Arts Writer

• See the menu.

TIVERTON -- When the request for yesterday's Chef's Secret from the Stone Bridge Restaurant arrived -- mussels in wine sauce with feta cheese and garlic bread -- it sounded too good to pass up.

The photo accompanying the recipe looked good, too -- the shelled mussels swimming in a white wine sauce that included diced chili peppers, Dijon mustard, parsley, oregano and feta, accompanied by a slab of a sliced garlic baguette. It made us hungry just thinking about it. We had to try it.

So, shortly afterward, we headed to Tiverton.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to try a bite of it.

"We're out of mussels," said our waitress, returning from the kitchen shortly after we'd placed our order.

Yet a few minutes later the mussels and garlic bread arrived at the next table! The four people there had sat down barely a minute before us, but had the good fortune to have gotten the last order of mussels of the day. "We had a busy weekend," apologized chef-owner Nick Chrisochoidis when reached by phone a few days later.

The people at the next table seemed to be enjoying the dish immensely. We looked on enviously as they tore into the garlic bread and plucked mussels out of the broth, which one diner described as "a more piquant version of French onion soup."

We tried to forget our disappointment and make the best of the night by ordering other things from the appetizer menu. We'd already placed an order for the Maryland crab cakes ($8.95) and decided that cups of the homemade New England clam chowder ($2.50 each) -- one white, one red -- would be a good accompaniment.

Because the restaurant has been owned by Greece-born chef Chrisochoidis and his wife, Pamela, for 26 years, we decided to go Mediterranean all the way with the spanakopita ($6.50), a Greek version of the spinach pie popular in so many Italian eateries.

Water, water everywhere

While waiting, we sipped wines from the nearby Sakonnet Vineyards in Little Compton -- a mellow Eye of the Storm ($5) and a fruity Vidal Blanc ($5.25) -- which we thought would go well with the crab cakes and chowder, if not the spanakopita.

By the time the appetizers arrived, there still were no water glasses on the table. Apparently, water is served only on request. Later we watched as some tables were served baskets of delicious-looking rolls, others were not. We were not. And so finally, when our entrees arrived, we wondered to the waitress how they decide to parcel out the rolls. You have to request them, she told us, promptly bringing over a basket.

It's a homey touch in a place that's nothing if not homey.

The Stone Bridge Restaurant is in a rambling, red-shingled building that has big, sparklingly clean picture windows at the front so diners can get good across-the-street views of either sailboats bobbing in the bay or the Getty gas station, depending on which way your head swivels.

Originally, Chrisochoidis served pizza, grinders and a breakfast menu here. But nearly a decade ago he changed over to a full-service restaurant. It was first called Mykonos, after the famed Greek island, and some of the plates still have that name inscribed on them. But when he discovered that Mykonos wasn't so famous an island to local residents, he changed the name to the Stone Bridge Restaurant, figuring that at least people would know its location near the bridge.

Inside, the decor verges on kitsch. We counted four sections of tile on the dining room floor, each composed of tiny rectangles, but each in a different color and pattern. Chrisochoidis said it was that way when he bought the place more than a quarter century ago. He has filled the room with heavy dark wooden tables and chairs, the latter losing any pretense of comfiness by the time dessert arrives.

Hanging over a room divider are three identical rectangles of stained glass in a flowery pattern, each crisscrossed by strings of tiny white lights, some of which were not lit. Below them, pots of silk geraniums bloom eternally. The little white lights also swirl around a two-foot-tall "tree," built from dried twigs, that sits on a corner table and evokes memories of the Ghost of Christmas Past.

On the walls, which have gray wainscoting, hang several framed flower prints and front-door-size wreaths made up of twigs and sprays of artificial flowers. Little porcelain angels rest at the bottom of each wreath. Shelves hold beer steins and colored glass bottles. Lace curtain valances top the picture windows.

Across from the main dining room is a shoebox-shaped room with overflow seating. It's more sparely decorated than the main room, though a bit claustrophobic.

The homey dining room is in far contrast to the jewel box of a barroom that we didn't look in on until we were about to leave. Lovely and inviting, its clean lines and polished wooden bar would be at home in the most sophisticated European bistro. It could have been Florence or Amsterdam. Chrisochoidis said he created this lovely oasis from a storage area a year ago. We thought it would be a good place to relax while waiting for dinner, although no one sat there all night.

Outstanding red chowder

Finally the appetizers arrived and, for the most part, they reminded us of how much we'd wished that the kitchen hadn't run out of mussels.

The three crab cakes were small and undistinguished. "Ordinary" was the operative term. So, too, was the white chowder, which was surprisingly bland and thin. Even more salt and pepper would have given it a boost. My red chowder, however, was superb -- one of the best I've tasted. Much thicker than the white, it was brimming with clams, potatoes and diced pepper and celery in a tomato-based broth that was heartily rich.

The spanakopita -- three triangles of phyllo dough baked to a crisp turn -- was dry despite fillings of spinach and feta cheese. It was hard to detect the cheese.

Delicate seafood flavors

Although it was an inauspicious start, things definitely improved with our entrees and desserts . . . at least after a little bump in the road. I had my heart set on the Prosciutto & Scallop Rigatoni ($15.95) sauteed with garlic, herbs and extra virgin olive oil. It sounded like such an unusual combination of flavors. But a few minutes after ordering it, our waitress returned from the kitchen, again wearing a sad face, to report, "We're out of prosciutto."

My dining companion had already ordered the Shrimp Feta ($16.95), so I more or less followed suit with the Lobster & Shrimp Scampi ($19.95), a plate of which had looked very good as it passed by on its way to another table earlier.

I usually stick to the old rule of never putting cheese on any fish or shellfish dish, even though waiters sometimes hover, cheese grater at the ready. But I'll gladly make an exception with Chrisochoidis's Shrimp Feta. Six very large shrimp are sauteed in wine sauce, then baked in a sherry-tomato-olive oil broth over spaghetti with the feta cheese on top. The cheese gave it a distinctive yet mild flavor that didn't detract from the shrimp.

My Lobster & Shrimp Scampi wasn't quite what I'd expected. It hadn't been prepared in the traditional butter-and-oil sauce, but in a beige-colored sauce. I guessed it had quite a lot of nutmeg, but Chrisochoidis said it was a basic mix of cream and lobster stock, the latter accounting for the color. The shellfish had been sauteed with garlic, fresh tomato, sherry and herbs. The four large shrimp and big lobster pieces -- two shelled claws plus additional lobster meat -- topped a plateful of spaghetti. The sauce gave the shellfish a warm, lightly spiced boost without overwhelming their delicate flavors.

Portions are large and, beyond the several seafood items, the extensive menu includes everything from spaghetti and meatballs to grilled lamb kebab, Greek sausage, chicken with fig sauce, filet mignon, Cod Mykonos, rack of lamb and much more.

Of the three housemade desserts we made good choices with the Peach Melba ($6.25) and Bavarian Shortcake ($7.25). I thought about trying the Baklava ($1.75), too, but just didn't think I could squeeze it in.

I didn't think I could devour the entire Bavarian Shortcake either when it arrived, because it filled a large plate. But I was hooked after one bite of the tender, flaky puffed pastry filled to bursting with sliced bananas and strawberries and luscious cream, topped with raspberry Melba sauce. It was so-o-o light I kept telling myself, not too guiltily, as I spooned in another bite.

My companion had the Melba sauce on the Peach Melba itself, or at least the Stone Bridge Restaurant's version of this treat that dates to the late 1800s. Fresh sliced peaches, which didn't have the floppiness of the canned peaches sometimes used out of season, had been sauteed in rum, then topped with the raspberry Melba sauce, making for a potent and fragrant combination. The peaches shared the plate with two big scoops of vanilla ice cream and big dollops of cream. It was a fine, sweet ending to a meal that had started out on the wobbly side, but finished on a memorable note.

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Details, details

Stone Bridge Restaurant, 1848 Main Rd., Tiverton, (401) 625-5780. Casual. Reservations accepted. Wheelchair accessible. Highchairs. Open 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tues.-Sun.; 4:30 to 9 p.m. Mon. V, MC, AE, DIS. Free parking.

Appetizers cost $2.50 to $11.95. Entrees are $6.50 to $19.95. The wine list is $5 to $7.50 by the glass, $15.95 to $79.95 for a bottle.

***

If you like Sakonnet Fish Co. in Portsmouth, Tav-Vino in Warren or Andreas in Providence, you'll like the Stone Bridge Restaurant.

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Bill of fare

Dinner for two at the Stone Bridge Restaurant might look something like this:

Sakonnet Vidal Blanc . . . . . . . . . . . . . $5.25

Sakonnet Eye of the Storm . . . .. . . . . . . $5.00

Two clam chowders . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . $5.00

Maryland crab cakes . . . . . . .. . . . . . . $8.95

Spanakopita . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . $6.50

Shrimp feta . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . $16.95

Lobster & shrimp scampi . . . . .. . . . . . . $19.95

Peach Melba . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . $6.25

Bavarian shortcake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $7.25

Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . $6.49

Tip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . $16.00

Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . $103.59

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Stone Bridge Restaurant