City: West Hartford, CT

Category: Restaurants

Telephone: (860) 233-0220

Address: 78 Lasalle Rd.

Description: Although Billy Grant’s restaurant Bricco has Italian and Mediterranean influences, this is contemporary American cuisine at its best, with seasonal menus and creative twists on old favorites. The Tuscan pot roast is a perfect example, with truffled potato puree, glazed parsnip, and hen-of-the-woods mushrooms. For an appetizer, you have difficult choices between the tasty golden beets and winter citrus, the buffalo mozzarella, and the braised baby artichokes. Bricco has artisanal pizzas like “fig jam,” with fresh mozzarella, Gorgonzola, rosemary, prosciutto, and arugula salad. They do have regular pizzas, too, and spaghetti with fava beans for those of you who want a more traditional meal. Try a Connecticut Chardonnay with your meal, or for nondrinkers, one of the local Hosmer Mountain sodas. Billy Grant has two other restaurants in Hartford County (Grant’s and Trattoria), but Bricco is the most casual, and dare we say, the most Italian.