Four of us went to dinner at The Benjamin last weekend, and found it quite enjoyable. The restaurant’s name honors Benjamin Franklin, who brought back many of France’s best culinary ideas to the states while he was ambassador. The Benjamin is located in the building formerly occupied by Bernard’s. It opened just this July, managed by Rob Moss, Dave Studwell and BJ Lawless who own and operate Washington Prime and BJ Ryan’s Restaurant Group in Norwalk.

The new Benjamin décor is similar, but much refreshed with the formal restaurant on the left as you enter, and the bar and some high-top tables to the right, looking out over the gardens. The upstairs has more restaurant seating and there is outdoor dining available in good weather accessible from the main floor, and an additional small patio seating up to 24 off the upstairs dining room.

The menu by Executive Chef Benjamin Travers, formerly of The Modern and Café Boulud in New York City, is styled as “uniquely American and French-inspired.” You will find four salads, two excellent soups, two raw bar items and 6 appetizers, nearly all seafood based, but including a seductive sounding charcuterie for $34. There are eight entrees: scallops, duck breast, halibut, lobster risotto, rack of lamb, roast half chicken, filet mignon and a Wagyu hamburger. There is also a vegetarian saffron risotto with wild mushrooms.

Bread is not provided free at The Benjamin, but you can order their Signature Bread Service for $9, consisting of whole wheat sourdough bread with 3 butters.  We didn’t try it.

We started with the soups: we tried the Potato Leek Soup ($21) which comes with lump crab, smoked trout roe and a chive. The service is lovely: they bring you a bowl containing the roe and what is essentially a small crab cake, and then pour the soup around it in the bowl. We agreed that this was outstanding.

The other soup is a Chilled Pea Soup ($17) with grilled spring onions and brioche. Rather than the heavy puree you might expect, this is a lighter soup with actual peas in it, along with the spring onion, pea sprouts and pieces of brioche. Again, an excellent choice.

Our companion who ordered the Olive Oil Poached Halibut ($39) praised it highly. It is served with herbed couscous, fennel, picholine olives, pistachio, and beurre blanc. He noted that it was a good-sized portion and was particularly drawn to the fennel flavor. It certainly looked delicious.

Several of us were drawn to the Rack of Lamb ($49) served with charred eggplant, baby zucchini, piperade lamb jus, and mint. There certainly was plenty of delicious lamb there, but served on a big cutting board, the chops quickly cooled and by the time we got to the last two, they were pretty cold. Since lamb fat congeals above room temperature, many restaurants serve lamb on warm plates. This would have been better.

You will note that none of the dishes on the menu come with much in the way of vegetables or starches. Instead, like a steakhouse, you can order side dishes from the menu. But their choices are minimal, and things like mashed potatoes, beans, carrots or broccoli are absent. You can only order French fries, truffled fries, mushroom  fricassee, truffled fingerling potato or roast breakfast radish and red onion.

And consider the lowly hamburger (albeit Wagyu), which is already $25 by itself. With fries, you’d be paying $37! That is a bit much.

Phobe Damrosch, in Service Included her delightful diary of working the first year at Per Se, listed among Diner’s Rights, the right to salt and pepper. At The Benjamin, they will bring around a giant pepper mill and grind where you point. And while they let you touch the salt mill, they whisk both away so you have no chance to add salt or pepper later in the meal. A little dish of salt would help here.

Desserts

There are eight desserts from Pastry Chef Melissa Knauer, formerly of Arethusa A Mano in Bantam, CT. The two we had were excellent.

One dessert we ordered, chocolate mousse with caramelia chocolate and caramel sauce ($14), was quite showy and spectacular, and big enough to share a bit. The other, Strawberry Profiteroles ($13) was quite a surprise. The two “cream puffs” were filled with a delicious, smooth strawberry mousse and served with sliced strawberries and a shortbread crumble.

Overall, we enjoyed our visit to The Benjamin, but the entrée prices are high for Fairfield County, with most of them in the high thirties, and the lobster risotto a eyebrow-raising $58. Only the burger (without fries) and the vegetarian entrée were under $30. The outdoor dining option on the first floor is an elegant little grove to the right of the building, but the upstairs patio is quite plain by comparison, especially considering the elegant interior.