Review: Spicer Mansion

For travelers ever in search of “authentic” food, the fussy multi-course meal can feel like luxury captivity. But at the newly opened Spicer Mansion in Mystic, Connecticut, the six-course dinner (the menu changes nightly, but a recent one included oysters topped with a subtle poblano mignonette and a passion fruit granita, melt-in-your-mouth-delicate lobster ravioli with favas, and Moroccan-spiced lamb) is an exception to the self-indulgent “chef-y meal” rule. Like the eight-room inn itself—a meticulously restored nineteenth-century mansion rescued from a Victorian-time-capsule fate thanks to its relaxed gray, white, and blue upholstery scheme—the meal was haute yet homey, eventful yet intimate, and certainly worthy of a pilgrimage. (It’s just three hours from New York and two hours from Boston.) Bonus: You can stumble up the stairs and under a big white fluffy duvet just moments after your final wine pairing.