Simsbury: Complete!

Simsbury: Complete!
Millwright’s Restaurant

Here is the CTMQ Guide to Simsbury with my list and stories about everything I’ve done there!

After a decade of writing CTMQ, I decided to try to “complete” towns. In that decade of traveling and writing, I had already done a lot of stuff in many of our towns already. However, I have been continually surprised by how much more there often is to do. This page includes my “town completion celebration meal” and recap of my Simsbury experiences.

Let’s get to it.

Simsbury was my: 37th town completed
First CTMQ Page: The Pinchot Sycamore, 2006 (First CTMQ page, ever!)

The Celebration

Deep breaths

My wife and I love Millwright’s. We have since it first opened in 2012. Back then, it was new, daring, exciting, and exemplary. We also had less disposable income back then, so we often enjoyed the tavern’s top notch drinks and cheaper fare. We followed chef Tyler Anderson’s deserved ascent to one of the state’s most respected chefs.

I followed his career as he opened and closed a whole bunch of restaurants and even a food truck if I recall correctly. Multiple James Beard nominations. He has also been named CT Chef of the Year. Chef Anderson was a contestant on Season 15 of Top Chef, as well as on episodes of Chopped and Beat Bobby Flay. He’s had successful sous chefs and pastry chefs branching out on their own – always the mark of a good teacher and mentor.

As for the restaurant itself, the building was originally built in 1680 as a grist mill. The original post and beam aesthetic has been retained with warming stone hearths and a dining room that overlooks a waterfall – which was broken at the time of our visit:

So what better place to celebrate my CTMQ completion of Simsbury than Millwright’s? This was an easy choice, even though there are several good restaurants in town. Moreover, just before our reservations, Chef Tyler Anderson had retaken the helm at Millwright’s after serving in similar capacity at his other ventures for a few years.

Millwright’s is (generally) a restaurant that focuses on local ingredients and seasonal menus. It is not cheap, but we’ve never regretted a penny spent at Millwrights. The ambiance, the service, and the food has always been worth it.

Deep breaths

Until November 2024.

What follows is a one time experience based on two individual palates. Perhaps our palates are terrible?

Hoang and I were largely disappointed in a few of our choices. There. I said it.

One thing I wasn’t disappointed in was my decision to converse with the sommelier. That’s just not something I ever do, but what the heck, this was a celebration! A celebration of Simsbury! (And my birthday, but that’s very secondary here.) I wanted a good bottle of wine and wasn’t familiar with a lot of their extensive list.

Gimme a pinot without oak, please. We were offered a Chianti aged in concrete, quoted a lower price than it was listed as, and given it at that lower price! I just noticed how it was coded on the receipt (below). Cute. It’s those types of touches that put Millwright’s over the top.

The wine was delicious; so much so that I ordered 5 bottles from my local wine store.

We started with Johnny Cake Biscuits (buttermilk-cornbread biscuits, sesame butter) and the Tavern Wings (gochujang glaze, sesame, scallion, buttermilk dip). Millwrights is mildly famous for their biscuits and they did not disappoint. The wings tasted fine but they were the tiniest wings possible. Like, baby chicken wings, no bigger than my thumb. Not only that, the glaze was incredibly sticky and gloopy and just stuck to our fingers. While it may be gauche, Millwright’s needs to provide WetNaps with these things. (Or just not serve messy finger food outside of the Tavern.)

Then came the salad. Honestly – no joke, no hyperbole – the worst salad for the price I’ve ever had in my life. Billed as Baby Gem Lettuces with green goddess dressing, crispy quinoa, and shallots, it was bitingly bitter and depressingly sour. Not only that, “crispy quinoa” is an objectively terrible idea; like a million tiny rocks that add nothing but pain and annoyance to the dish. It’s still on the menu two months after we ate it, so clearly people like it. It wasn’t the execution necessarily, it was the ingredients. Just… no.

My entree was very good – large scallops with ‘mushroom farroto’ and curried pumpkin. I believe “farroto” is “farro risotto” which I guess is… healthier? I don’t know, but it was good.

Hoang, for reasons unknown to me, opted for Swordfish Schnitzel with potato & turnip salad, poblanos, beurre rouge. That doesn’t sound good to me on paper, and it wasn’t good on her plate. The fish was greasy. Not lightly greasy and delicious like a proper fish n’ chips fried fillet, but heavy greasy like bad 2 AM pizza. Hey, our “loves anything fried” 18 year old ate the leftovers just fine the next day after I peeled it off the container.

The dessert was divine. We’d have been happy with five of them.

The wonder of Millwright’s is that we still enjoyed ourselves. It’s a beautiful restaurant and even though a few of our ordered dishes weren’t to our liking, I would still endorse Millwright’s based on our 12 years of prior enjoyment there. Perhaps we should have read the menu more closely instead of gazing into each other’s eyes, reminiscing about all the wonderful things in Simsbury I’ve experienced over the years.

Our fault.

Millwright’s Restaurant

Simsbury Wrap-Up

I really like Simsbury. In fact, when my wife and I were house hunting in 2018-19, I was constantly trying to sell her on moving here. Particularly to West Simsbury, which is more rural than Hoang would ever go for. So I must be contented to venturing out there to hike and explore and perhaps pretend that I live there with all that hiking and biking out my back door.

Simsbury’s one massive mistake is the design of the “downtown” area along Route 10/Hopmeadow Street. Tons of good places to eat and shop but it’s one long stretch dominated by parking lots and traffic. It’s such a bummer because behind all of that, is Iron Horse Boulevard and a multiuse Trail and the Farmington River and if they could do it all over again, it could be a true destination spot rivaling West Hartford for sure.

The town will always have a special place in my heart as a September 2006 visit to the Pinchot Sycamore, Connecticut’s largest tree, was the very first CTMQ page ever written. It’s publication date is what I use as the birth of this decades-long journey around our little state.

Damian is now an adult and EdHill passed away in 2016.

The Simsbury Historical Society is impressive to say the least, with over a dozen distinct buildings to tour. If it’s views your looking for, you can’t find more in any central Connecticut town. Simsbury is probably one of the top towns for “it’s so boring, there’s nothing to do here” – where I somehow wrote over 80 pages of “stuff” to do in the town.

From Heublein Tower to the bustling downtown to Stratton Brook to West Mountain… Simsbury is pretty darn nice.

Thought exercise: If I had to send someone to Simsbury for a daytrip, I would tell them to go to the West Mountain Trails to Cathles Falls and the ridgeline for the sunrise. Then just lazily drive around West Simsbury until Tulmeadow Farms opens for some ice cream. Go pick up picnic supplies “downtown” and at Rosedale Vineyards before stopping by the Pinchot Sycamore on your way up to Talcott Mountain State Park where they should hike to Heublein Tower to enjoy the sunset.

Surprise: The Historical Society has the most buildings of any museum complex in Connecticut, short of Mystic Seaport
Favorite fact: Gotta be the Pinchot Sycamore, c’mon
Disappointment: It’s understandable, but the closed door policies of chic-chic Ethel Walker and Westminster Schools

Simsbury: Done!

Previous completed town: Barkhamsted!
Next completed town: Newington!