Phantom Gourmet: Amped Up Comfort Food At The Wellington In Belmont
BELMONT - What do you get when you combine three brothers, two boozy milkshakes, one burger and Belmont, Massachusetts?
New to the neighborhood, the Wellington is the latest restaurant for Dante, Damian and Fillipo de Magistris - the brothers who brought us Italian institutions like Il Casale and Dante. This time they decided to ditch their Italian roots for a more modern American menu with amped up versions of all of the comfort foods you crave.
"The Wellington is a neighborhood eatery. It's a great place for every day dining as well as special occasions," Damian said. "We offer an American cuisine, which means we borrow from a lot of different ethnicities and have a great variety of food - raw bar items, burgers, to steak-frites."
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Every meal at The Wellington starts with complimentary cassava cheese pastry puffs.
"When guests arrive, we offer up cassava cheese pastry puffs with orange zested butter and poppy seeds. It's a nice amuse-bouche, something to tease the palette get you excited for the meal," Damian explained.
You will most definitely be excited for the appetizers at The Wellington. There is a selection of tasty ceviche and freshly shucked oysters for something light, and colorful avocado toast that is perfect for sharing.
"It's classic. It's healthy. We lightly mashup some beautiful avocados from Mexico and we add a little tajin, which is a lime and pepper spice, as well as some pickled carrots and some cotija cheese," Damian described. "It's a beautiful starter."
Other light bites include the lettuce wrap, a do-it-yourself starter that is full of flavor.
"When you bite into the lettuce wraps, there's nice, warm, spicy longhorn peppers as well as some cumin and some honey and some sweetness. It is delicious," Damian promised. "You roll those up in a nice crunchy lettuce wrap. They're awesome."
While the spiced Thai Basil coconut broth the Maine Mussels come in is most certainly sop worthy, you may find the Short Rib French Onion your soup of choice. This comforting throwback is cooked slowly with sweet Vidalia onions and slow-cooked beef, topped with plenty of fontina cheese.
That same sense of nostalgia really shines throughout the entree section of the menu, with Steak Frites served in a green peppercorn pan sauce with green garlic butter; and that steak house classic dish, Beef Wellington, but this one is a bit different.
"You can't open up a restaurant called the Wellington without some iteration of the traditional Beef Wellington. So, our iteration is as a burger. We take beautiful ground beef, two flat patties and then we layer it with a black truffle mushroom duxelle as well as braised spinach and caramelized onions. In the center of it all is a beautiful puff pastry disc," Damian described. "It tastes like Beef Wellington. It is phenomenal."
Another menu item near and dear to Damian's heart is the Fried Chicken.
"The fried organic chicken is beautiful. It's our proprietary crust that we've been working on for years. It gets a beautiful dry honey glaze. It's served over a shaved cucumber radish salad. We take our hot sauce and we put it into a little dropper so you can add a little extra heat if you want to go there. It is the best fried chicken."
Dessert includes spiked adult shakes in a variety of flavors, including Orange Dreamsicle and one called the Minty Monk featuring vanilla ice cream, green chartreuse, fresh mint and basil.
"Spiked shakes take the child in you, merge it with the adult and you have a phenomenal dessert," Damian said.
For the ultimate throwback, get the S'mores Baked Alaska.
"We take beautiful Belgian chocolate ice cream, roll it into a ball and roll it around in chocolate curls. We then place that on top of a graham cracker crumble that we make in house and paint on some meringue, and then we torch that. Get it nice and crisp on the outside," Damian describe. "It's awesome."
From Baked Alaska to the Beef Wellington Burger, there are plenty of tasty throwbacks you will want to throw back at The Wellington.
You can find The Wellington at 75 Leonard Street in Belmont and online at thewellingtonbelmont.com.
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