Dining out: Harvest Restaurant

Thanksgiving Point has always had an intriguing restaurant space, three cozy and rustically elegant dining rooms with stunning trompe l'oeil painted walls.

And now, at last, there is a restaurant that belongs in such a unique and lovely spot.

Not that the previous restaurants weren't good — they were. But in Harvest, the newest restaurant at Thanksgiving Point, the food reflects the space's mood to perfection.

We visited Harvest with our kids on a recent weekend night. We won't do that again. The staff was more than welcoming, with a verbal menu of kids' favorites and plastic-lid cups for their drinks, but the vibe was quite grown-up, with low lighting, jazzy music and soft-voiced, deferential wait staff in long aprons. Our 7-year-old did great; the 4-year-old and 2-year-old frankly didn't belong there. (Maybe we'll take them back for lunch or for the Saturday brunch, which features lots of kid-friendly selections.)

After being seated in a cozy brown-leather booth, we started with the delicious breaded smoked gouda, two large slices of creamy, smoky cheese in crunchy breading, resting in a tart raspberry-chipotle coulis. It's one of my new favorite appetizers, but I also enjoyed the Tuscan flatbread, a large round of chewy bread spread with pesto and piled with grilled chicken, artichokes, spinach and tomatoes.

All of those flavors blend enticingly into what tastes like a big bite of sun-drenched Mediterranean garden, and the chicken is lean, moist and flavorful.

We also enjoyed the complimentary loaf of nutty, crisp-crusted brown bread brought to our table along with a pot of creamy butter. I also liked my cup of thick, aromatic carrot-and-ginger soup.

The kids enjoyed the usual mac and cheese and chicken strips, but I think we adults liked our meals even more. I had the maple-pecan chicken with cranberry-orange chutney. Beautifully presented, it looked and tasted like a holiday meal; not just because of the cranberries, but because of the quality ingredients and the obvious care that went into its preparation. It rested on a bed of crisp-tender, whole caramelized baby carrots and mashed potatoes.

My husband had the fork-tender pot roast, a large portion of moist braised beef with potatoes, carrots, celery and other root vegetables in a dark, rich gravy redolent with the flavors of the meat and veggies. Some of the vegetables were a bit more firm than I would have expected from stewing, but the whole was good.