From Ecuador with love: Niantic's Rossa Negra is a fantastic dining option

February 22, 2022 11:00 pm • Last Updated: February 24, 2022 3:53 pm

By Rick Koster
Day Arts/Features writer

Eli Seduced by the Salmon at Rossa Negra (Eileen Jenkins)

It's probably accurate to suggest most of us in the eastern third of Connecticut feel looked down upon, culturally and socioeconomically, at least, by folks in the western two-thirds of the state — and particularly those "I bathe in honey" communities like New Canaan, Darien, Westport, Weston and Edgartown. (Yes, Edgartown used to be on Martha's Vineyard but was acquired last week in a trade. Connecticut sent Kent and Madison to Massachusetts in exchange for Edgartown with the provision that James Taylor could stay on the island IF he plays shows at our casinos twice a year.)

I thought it was interesting when, in December, Connecticut magazine published their annual Best Restaurants in Connecticut issue and Lijoy Varghese, co-owner and executive chef of New London's wonderful The Spice Palette, was on the cover! (Only a week or so after, ahem, I'd glowingly reviewed the restaurant.)

Head east!

Perhaps the foodie cover of Connecticut magazine is a small thing in terms of any sort of new quantifiable awareness by the Snobs of our collective existence over here — but I think not. Culinarily speaking, at least, southeastern Connecticut has become an area with plenty of genuinely great new restaurants augmenting older, established favorites. I suspect more and more people across the Connecticut River are traveling over here to try our food.

Most importantly, it's now my privilege to tell you about yet another recently opened and magical restaurant: Rossa Negra in the Niantic section of East Lyme. It's in a tiny strip mall off Route 161 in the former location of The Best of Everything Country Gourmet and shares a parking lot with a Goodwill drop-off center. Why is that significant? Because, during a recent repast at Rossa Negra, I darted from my table and was able to intercept a guy about to take a tiger-striped velour love seat before he dropped it off at Goodwill. It's gonna look killer in our parlor. I guess you can't take the New London out of the local food writer in spite of all this talk about our sophistication.

A new beginning

ANYWAY, Rossa Negra — Spanish for "Black Rose" and indigenously symbolic of a new beginning — is owned by partners Jonny Gonzalez (chef) and Janeth Velin (front of the house/drive-thru juice bar), both of whom are from Ecuador. Their love of the food and culture of their homeland translates wonderfully through the hospitality, atmosphere and cuisine.

The restaurant is beautiful in a way that conveys simple elegance simultaneously with casual comfort. There's a U-shaped bar to the rear of the establishment with a row of tall-top tables next to a flat-topped low wall hosting a planter of forest-floor vegetation. On the other side of the wall and on the perimeter is the dining room proper, with plenty of window space that makes the room bright and open. The walls are cream and feature local paintings and prints. The ceilings are matte black with circular, inset LED light fixtures. There's blond wood wainscotting and the bar alternates horizontal strips of the matte black and blond wood. Gold accents throughout.

Chef Gonzalez has conjured all sorts of clever twists and spins o'er the tapestry of Ecuadoran cuisine — from street food to the most elegant sophistication. There are lunch and evening menus and many of the dishes overlap. In any case, there are plenty of wildly creative dishes to explore, and I suggest you get started sooner rather than later.

Some highlights of what we enjoyed:

• Arepas ($12) — These pockets of pre-cooked cornmeal come with a variety of stuffings including pork, chicken, avocado and fried egg, and are topped with a deliciously pucker-worthy salsa verde. We tried the vegetable filling and were rewarded with a tangly mélange of julienned produce.

• Salchipapas de la Plaza ($8) — Basically, two hot dogs and French fries. But presentation and flavor are all. The wieners are made on site and have tremendous flavor. Plus, they're sliced part-way down from either end in an X-fashion. After a quick dip in a frier, the tips of the dog curl up in point like a jester's hat. They come on a bed of perfect fries with tangy ketchup. Street food? Yep — and it's glorious.

• Eli's Seduced by the Salmon ($26) — A juicy beam of seared fresh salmon laid out across a heap of a jolly cumulus of garlic mashed potatoes and topped with toothpicks of julienned vegetables. The fish was moist and fresh with crisped edged; the potatoes creamy with just a hint of garlic so not to overpower the salmon and to contrast playfully with a black grape champagne cream sauce. Where the hell did THAT come from?! What an astonishing flavor — the sort of thing you'd want jetting into your mouth through some sort of fire hose contraption.

• Rossa Negra Ribs ($18) — Again with the presentation. Five cunningly crisped and perfectly lean baby back pork ribs standing vertically and meeting in the middle, like the support poles of a teepee. Beneath? More of the mashed potatoes. And THIS time the sauce for the dish is a passion fruit reduction. It works fantastically in dizzying ways your tongue can't quite figure out. In fact, your tongue might well have a fist fight with itself over whether the black grape champagne cream sauce is better than the passion fruit reduction. But why? No losers here!

• Churros ($9) — Two long cylinders of sugar-spangled fried dough in cursive loops of chocolate and caramel sauces. An excellent way to end the experience.

There are so many more entrees and appetizers we want to explore including seafood paella and Chef Gonzalez's fiendishly clever takes on duck, steak, pork and chicken as well as salads, soups and appetizers. Not to mention the designer smoothies in exotic combos available all day at the drive-through window.

In conversation as she went table to table to make sure all customers were happy, Velin accepted gushing compliments with genuine pleasure, then said, "We want to elevate presentations of food from our home country in a way that helps us share our culture with the people in Connecticut who've been so welcoming to us."

Rossa Negra Ribs (Eileen Jenkins)