With the start of Providence Restaurant Week, the spotlight will be on lunch in the city. About half of the more than 60 participating locations taking part in the two-week-long promotion are offering a 3-course prix fixe lunch for $12.95. Luncheon dining can be a worthwhile way to sample a new restaurant without the commitment of time or price for a full-course dinner. Service at fine dining or so-called casual dining restaurants at lunch is just as hospitable as it is during dinner. Wine lists and other unique features are in most cases offered at lunch as well. This time of year, restaurants that offer a luncheon menu – that is, more than just sandwiches and burgers – are more likely to find their tables filled with diners on business or celebrating special occasions. Summer is a more inviting time to dine out at lunch.
The business lunch is still alive. It had fallen on hard times after the tax laws changed and the so-called “three-martini” lunch was no longer allowed as a business deduction. In Providence, there are even some spots where the “power lunch” is still practiced. Midday tables at 10 Prime Steak and Sushi are filled most every day with the city’s legal eagles as well as those from the financial sector. There is a retro feel to the business lunch experience as the mainstays of Providence lunchtime dining – Mediterreaneo, Capital Grille, Capriccio, Café Nuovo, Parkside and Pot au Feu – are still as popular as ever.
Admittedly, as Bob Burke, Pot au Feu’s proprietor and himself a mainstay, says, the business lunch is a bit of “a faded glory.” He says in this age of text messaging and the Blackberry, today’s dealmaker is no longer willing to invest the time to meet and talk at the table. As a result, restaurateurs have looked elsewhere for midday customers. These days, Pot au Feu’s luncheon tables are increasingly filled with tourists. Burke has embarked on a historical tour of Providence called the Independence Trail and visitors can use his French bistro in an 1870’s-era Financial District building as a starting point. As he puts it, “Don’t just walk past history, dine in it!”
At least one restaurant in the city is perhaps more renowned for its lunch menu than its dinner. Jaime d’Oliveira’s Red Stripe is crowded practically every night, but the crowds and the buzz are all about lunch and d’Oliveira’s American brasserie menu featuring steak frites and mussels frites with Portuguese chourico sausage. Red Stripe’s lunch menu is the subject of discussion among Narragansett’s foodies eagerly awaiting their own branch scheduled to open in the Salt Pond shopping center sometime this summer. D’Oliveira told me that he is being asked constantly if his new location will have the same lunch menu as the Angell Street original. (It will, along with some seasonal and local specials paying tribute to the growers and fishermen of South County.) And, just like its Providence sibling, Red Stripe in Narragansett is occupying the site of a former Newport Creamery.
The Colonel Blackinton Inn in Attleboro is a gathering place for luncheon get-togethers. Proprietor Antony Canova is welcoming large luncheon parties every week. The occasion is usually a celebration such as a birthday or a bridal or baby shower for a co-worker. Canova says, “People are so busy these days, they don’t have time for an evening or weekend party. We’re glad to accommodate them for lunch during the week.” •
Dining Out with Bruce Newbury can be heard on TalkRadio 920 WHJJ-AM Fridays at 6 p.m. and Saturdays at noon. He can be reached by e-mail at bruce@ brucenewbury.com.
