A Tale of Two Restaurants

 Oar and Anchor

This restaurant was the downstairs of a house located on Route 28 on the Reading/North Reading Border and a favorite of my mother and mine. This was in the 1950s and 1960s.

The Worthens owned it. She cooked: he did everything else.

 The couple were probably in their fifties. He looked as if he could be a diplomat or an aristocrat in his tailored suit, bleach-white shirt and silken ties.

Sixteen tables all had linen table cloths, beautiful china, silver and glasses. 

For my mother and me, they had the best menus in the area. We went there often for the food and service. 

Mr. Worthen could not do enough for his clients. We realized that when we discovered my brother was drinking glass after glass of water because the  second it was empty, Mr. Worthen refilled it.  My mother chastised my brother and he was left home for almost a year after and even then his joining us was limited.

The Oar and Anchor fruit cup had home made sorbet. The fruit was so fresh, I suspected he visited strawberry, blueberry patches in the afternoon before dinner service selecting only berries that had reached perfection.

My usual order was baked stuffed lobster. Every now and then I'd do the roast beef or whatever caught my eye and taste buds.

Dessert was usually meringues fresh from the oven, ice cream and chocolate sauce. In adulthood I would discover they were called profiteroles. 

La Bartavelle

Stephanie and Thibault are artists in food at La Bartavelle in the French village of Argelès-sur-mer and we are lucky enough to live around the corner from them. 

It's small, 16 tables. One wall is a blackboard covered with praise by people who have fallen under its spell. Stephanie's art work decorates the place. Everything in the restaurant was chosen with love.

Likewise the menu, which changes regularly is a work of art from the amuse bouche to the dessert. I learned that the food sometimes doesn't look like anything I know, except for the taste which exceeds any expectation.

The couple resource the ingredients locally, but we are sure that only this couple work such magic on anything as ordinary as a carrot or any veggie.

We try and eat their regularly. They also did our pre-committment ceremony for the 14 of our guests who came from around Europe and the US. Ten years later our friends still are raving about it.

One never leaves hungry. We've learned days we are booked for lunch eat practically nothing to leave room for each delight.

I've eaten in many great restaurants in many countries. These two will always be my favorites.