The New Haven steakhouse-and-seafooder known as Shell & Bones — the name is a witty play on the famed Yale secret society — sits at the end of a pier in the waterfront neighborhood of City Point. In summer, tables are arrayed on a deck by the water, where people pass in dinghies and swans gather, hoping for a handout; in winter, the restaurant battens down the hatches, and diners enjoy a sleek contemporary space of white brick, pine ceilings, and water views from every angle. It’s like being on a boat. A crew of waiters circulates in khakis, navy-blue sport shirts and matching dock shoes, and scents of truffles and seafood permeate the room.
The restaurant has a way-cool vibe — clientele, ambience, and food alike. A horseshoe-shaped bar anchors the dining area, with liquor bottles niftily stowed in mesh cages overhead. Bartenders prepare such beachy drinks as the Brian Wilson, concocting mizu shochu (a sake-like distilled spirit) with cucumber, grapefruit, and Prosecco. The wine list offers 25 wines by the glass, varied enough to include two from the Italian-German region of Alto Adige — a crisp green Mueller-Thurgau, and a cherry-red, Pinot-Noir-like Schiava. A Juice Bar section lets you fetch up your carrot-ginger juice, sweetened with organic agave. Cool, right?
Chef Arturo Franco-Camacho is well known to New Havenites from stints at Roomba, Bespoke, and currently Camacho Garage. An unusually creative and exuberant cook, Franco-Camacho favors crowded plates bursting with colors and flavors. An octopus salad presented a welter of radishes, kalamata olives, spaghetti zucchini, red onion, grape tomatoes, fried chickpeas – oh yes, and chunks of grilled octopus — with an electric-yellow saffron aioli. Crab cakes came on a plate heaped with corn, carrots, Asian cabbage slaw, avocado, and a rich lemongrass aioli. Are you getting the idea?
The kitchen makes interesting choices. Scallops — given a sifting of dehydrated porcini mushroom powder — came atop a raft of apple-cauliflower puree bolstered with sundried cherries and pancetta, making for a savory, Thanksgiving kind of complement. A beet salad was adorned with goat-cheese croquettes and a creme fraiche scented enticingly with mint. A cod entrée is gussied up with lentils, carrot stir-fry, bok choi, a ginger-inflected lemongrass broth, and a paving of minced black garlic, which is made by ultra-slow-heating bulbs of garlic, blackening the cloves and producing a sweet, balsamic-tamarind taste.
A few efforts fell short, like a blandly tomatoey linguine fra Diavolo, and while the ribeye I ordered – topped with herbed butter and pooled in a rich wine reduction – tasted just fine, the $55 price tag induced some sticker shock (and is only the second priciest steak on the menu). Yet the rule at Shell and Bones is high culinary quality, turned out with notable flourishes, for decent value. The kitchen’s signature surf-and-turf dish paired four XXL Gulf shrimp, in a sweet barbecue sauce, with a braised short rib whose bone jutted like a ship’s mast; the meat boasted a Thai-inspired sauce containing ginger, Kaffir lime, peanut and galangal, and carried a cargo of bundled asparagus. A terrifically flavorful chicken entrée surrounded a roasted leg quarter in a slew of tomatoes, baby carrots, onion rings, tomatoes, and fingerlings, all in a lemony jus. A bacony, buttery clam chowder arrived in a miniature three-legged cast-iron fireplace cooking pot.
The menu at Shell & Bones is a crazy-quilt patchwork of culinary inputs: French, Asian, Italian, Yankee. Why does this work? Maybe because it is a port restaurant, its majestic harbor view bringing to mind commerce with far-flung places. Or maybe just because it is really really good.
Wildly popular, Shell & Bones opened five years ago, and it feels like a never-ending party, with a sheeny guest list of moneyed ex-hipsters, Yale students and their parents, and romancing couples. The noise level is boisterous, yet conversation remains easy, and service knowledgeable and attentive, even at peak bustle times. Come aboard to enjoy summer on the deck. Or come in winter and cozy in before the fireplace. This is truly a restaurant for all seasons.
The Basics
Shell & Bones: 100 S. Water St., New Haven / 203 787 3466 / shellandbones.com
4 1/2 stars
THE BILL: Raw bar, appetizers, soups and salads, $10 to $34; steaks, $32 to $63; entrees, $30 to $48; side dishes, $9; desserts, $10 to $13.
COVID ACCOMMODATION: All staff (including in the kitchen) are carefully masked, and the unobtrusive plexiglass dividers separating moderately distanced tables will be removed as the pandemic continues to recede.
IF YOU GO: Lunch: Mon-Thurs, 12 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.; Fri, 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; brunch, Sat-Sun, 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.. Dinner menu, Mon-Thurs, 12 p.m. to 10 p.m.; Fri, 12 p.m. to 11 p.m.; Sat, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Sun, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.. Reservations recommended. Happy Hour, Mon-Thurs, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.. Wheelchair access through front of restaurant. Free parking in crowded lot and on street.