Restaurant Review

Mill’s Tavern celebrates a decade of fine dining

Don Fowler
Posted 3/28/12

Mill’s Tavern is celebrating 10 years of fine dining with their spring anniversary showcase of signature and favorite dishes. We discovered the Rhode Island treasure a couple of years ago and …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

E-mail
Password
Log in
Restaurant Review

Mill’s Tavern celebrates a decade of fine dining

Posted

Mill’s Tavern is celebrating 10 years of fine dining with their spring anniversary showcase of signature and favorite dishes. We discovered the Rhode Island treasure a couple of years ago and always enjoy returning for special occasions.

Last week, we celebrated the record-setting temperatures. If you enjoy fine dining, you really don’t need an excuse to visit the Providence restaurant.

Executive Chef Edward Bolus has a knack for combining unusual ingredients and flavors to offer diners a unique experience. The restaurant is cozy, with white linen tablecloths and napkins, an open fire oven, and waiters who know what they are serving and explain the dishes to you without ever being condescending. A basket of three types of fresh bread arrives at your table as the waiter takes your drink order. Joyce and I fought over the bread with a slight anise taste. Dan offered to bring more, and he did.

Part of the fun of dining at Mill’s Tavern is the friendliness and helpfulness of the waiters, bus boys and maitre’d. Dan McKenny of Warwick was the perfect waiter. Never pretentious or overbearing, he paced his serving and responded to our interest in his Warwick and Irish heritage.

We started with a beef tartare over a bulgar wheat salad, topped with a quail egg. Chef Bolus used his Lebanese background to introduce some unusual Middle Eastern spices, offering an appetizer that was new to our taste buds. It was the first time we had ever eaten a quail egg.

Next came the “Mill’s Sandwich,” unlike any sandwich we had ever eaten. Seared Hudson Valley Foie Gras served in a black currant buttermilk biscuit with tea braised figs is not your everyday appetizer, but after tasting it we agreed that we could eat it every day. If you don’t tell your picky eating companion that he is eating goose liver, he will never know, and beg for more.

Our salad was a combination of fresh greens with three types of beets, veal sweetbread, grilled cauliflower and duck sausage. Where else would you find such a complementing combination?

After a melon sorbet we were ready for the best seafood dinner we had ever eaten: filet of sole stuffed with shrimp and lobster.

Our neighboring table enjoyed an open-faced braised rabbit ravioli, which we had enjoyed on a previous trip to Mill’s.

Whatever you order, you will be treated to chef Bolus’ personal creative touch. Bolus is a Johnson & Wales graduate who was recently promoted from sous chef. He has studied with some of the country’s great chefs and quickly earned the reputation of being one of the most creative in Rhode Island. Pastry chef Samantha del Arroyo is also a J & W grad. We enjoyed one her creations and can also vouch for her creativity.

Mill’s Tavern has a special pre-fixed dinner for $29.95 that includes many of their special spring menu items. Check them out at www.millstavern.com. For reservations call 272-3331.

Comments

1 comment on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here

  • edbolus12006

    Congratulations to my brother Edward Bolus all the way from Pennsylvania! Everyone is super proud of you! You're the Kung Fu Panda of chefs and we love you!! If you guys think he is good at work, you should see him in our mother's kitchen at Christmas!!

    Wednesday, April 11, 2012 Report this