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Hours: Breakfast: Mon.-Sat. 6:30-11 a.m., Lunch: Mon.-Sat. 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Dinner: Mon.-Thur. 6-9 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 5:30-9:30 p.m., Sun 6-8:30 p.m. Sunday brunch: 10:30 a.m.-3 p.m. High tea daily, 3-5 p.m. Reservations recommended; jackets required for men in dining room. Smoking in bar area only.
Good Choices: Warm shrimp salad with avocado; golden potato and fennel soup; pave of salmon with crisp parsnip cakes; pan-seared elk with juniper sauce; pheasant with sweet potatoes and salisify; apple tart with cranberries.
Prices: Appetizers $7-$17; entrees $22-$29.50; desserts $8.
Credit cards: All major credit cards, including debit cards.
Access: Fully accessible.
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SILKS
160 Pawtucket Boulevard,
Tyngsborough
978-649-4400
Restaurant reviewed 04/01/99 by Alison Arnett
Close your eyes at Silks while savoring an appetizer of shrimp with avocado. In a part of the country where shrimp can taste like wet paper towels even at fancy restaurants - frozen, then unfrozen and sometimes refrozen until it practically disintegrates - this shrimp has been treated well. Each big grilled crustacean has a pleasant crunch, and its firm juiciness contrasts beautifully with the soft curls of avocado. Then tomato "water," a very thin essence of the fruit carrying hints of its acidity, gives a third point of contrast. Open your eyes to notice the color contrasts, the pink against the green against a pale rust of the broth. A lovely dish, and not the only delight in chef Jon Mathieson's repertoire.
Silks in the Stonehedge Inn is an anomaly: a formal French restaurant set in the fields around gritty Tyngsborough; a dining room where male guests are required to wear jackets, amid decor that might best be termed upscale Marriott. And though horses are the theme - Silks refers to the jackets and caps worn by jockeys - and there are horses on the inn's property, there's no riding.
The inn has been known for years for its wine list, bound into a hefty encyclopedia-size volume. Fifty thousand bottles, chosen by managing partner Levent Bozkurt, are in the cellar, the maitre d' says. A wine steward is always available for even the most modest consultations. Which one is likely to need after swooning at the $3,100 bottle, those at $800 and the long list of cabernets at above $300. However, there's actually a good selection in the lower stratosphere and helpful advice to navigate the search for a less expensive bottle.
Silks had previously not been known for its food. But the 34-year-old Mathieson, who began here in September, is aiming to change that. Mathieson was formerly executive sous chef at Lespinasse under Gray Kunz in New York City, and his style follows Kunz's French basis with a lusty use of spices and herbs to fashion strong flavor presentations.
His high-flown style makes architectural puzzles out of several appetizers. Carpaccio of tuna is a study in textures, pearls of the fish atop leaves interspersed with greens and surrounded by pools of a ginger-lime emulsion. In another, thinly sliced smoked salmon is twirled around crab; then the richness of the two contrasts on the tongue with a pickled mixture of finely diced carrots, cucumber, and green papaya spiced with cumin and coriander, an astrigently vinegary counterpoint to the seafood.
But I preferred his gently flavored soups on several occasions. One evening, a white bean soup was soothing, perked by the citrusy spikiness of preserved lemon rind. Another time, a silky soup matched the mild flavors of Yukon golden potatoes with the assertiveness of fennel - a memorable collaboration.
Chef Mathieson has the usual luxury suspects in his list of entrees, including grilled lobster, beef, and rack of lamb. His game dishes, though, are particularly strong and nice to see in the country inn setting. Not that these creatures landed on the plate after being bagged by hunters, but nevertheless Mathieson's rendition of elk gives a hint of the wild. There is depth to the dark meat in a sauce spiced with juniper berries; and the flesh is tender, but with enough texture to give one's teeth something to sink into. Pheasant, certainly not the stringy, musky bird that I recall from youthful encounters, seems almost all white meat, beautifully moist against a slightly sweet apple-walnut vinaigrette. On an earlier menu, squab in a cabernet reduction sauce was delicious, offset by pickled onions and melange of roasted potatoes, mushrooms, and romano beans.
An Angus beef strip, crusted with a heady mixture of spices, is fine stuff, as is a rack of lamb simply prepared in a thin lamb jus. Several of the fish dishes are less impressive. Pan-fried monkfish brushed with tamarind glaze seems to get lost in its dark sauce. Though a thick filet of salmon is certainly a lovely piece of fish and its accompaniments of crisp parsnip cakes, confit of shallots, and Savoy cabbage pleasant, one had a sense of deja vu about the sauce. Too many reduced red wine sauces with salmon dull one's appetite for them.
Mathieson's bent seems to be toward the savory. He also creates the desserts; though several are pleasing, none comes up to the level of his other dishes. A pave of chocolate, which seems to be ubiquitous these days, taking over where flourless chocolate cake left off, is basically a chunk of it. A raspberry and chocolate terrine is pretty but insipid. Only a tart of apples and cranberries, with a good crust and a clever shape, has enough spunk and contrast in its flavors and textures to be really engaging.
Silks' service is on the formal side with many layers of wait staff and plate runners. On a Saturday night with the big room almost full, the young staff members seemed to miss cues, lacking the finesse to deliver plates covered with heavy silver domes smoothly and in unison, fumbling on orders and timing. On a quieter evening, a more mature set of waiters managed our table of five, including a child, with gracious aplomb.
Tyngsborough, minutes from the New Hampshire border, looks rather remote on the map, but Mathieson's creative strengths and the voluminous wine list make traveling there a voyage of discovery.
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