Restaurants in Montville Center

The audience goes wild for Chef Jesus "Suso" Seoane as he deftly dances the handle of a sharp butcher knife between his fingers. As if drawn by magnet, the blade finds a large red pepper and flays it down the center in one fluid stroke. When Jesus isn't flaunting his knife skills on the Telemundo cooking show Cocinando con Suso, he's hard at work perfecting an authentic menu of Spanish and Latin-American dishes at his restaurant, Suso Latino Basket.

The word suso sprawls across his eatery's wall, a painted chef's hat jauntily hanging off the o. Just past the marble-tiled bar, tables populate with steaming specialties such as puerto rican pork pernil, peruvian sautéed pastas, cuban sandwiches, and spanish paella, which overflows with more seafood than Poseidon's bank vault.

Chez Ben Diner serves everything you’d expect from a classic American diner—three-egg omelets, triple-decker club sandwiches, and burgers—with an unexpected twist: a selection of authentic French-Canadian dishes. Founded by Benoit and Solange Quirion, the restaurant recently passed to Windsor natives Joel and Anne Quirion who continue the family tradition of friendly service, all-day breakfast, and uniquely Canadian dishes, such as poutine, a combination of fries, cheese curds, and brown gravy. The emphasis on traditional Canadian eats hasn’t gone unnoticed: the breakfast poutine earned a mention in Serious Eats, and Roadfood.com calls the cretons—a cold pork spread that can be served on toast or used as stucco on a gingerbread house—“addictive.”

Owner and Sao Paulo native Felipe Franco embraces the culinary traditions of his home country, telling the New Haven Independent in 2012 that "my interest is to show Americans Brazilian food and culture." His menu brims with the country's signature cuisine, including Brazil's peppery national stew of black beans and meat, as well as moqueca—a seafood stew of fish, shrimp, mussels, calamari, or kraken-gone-astray that simmers inside a handmade clay pot. To accompany these entrees, the bartenders deftly mix potent yet refreshing caipirinhas using cachaça, or sugar-cane rum, Brazil's favored spirit.

At 40 years old, and with 20 of those years spent running a country club, Tim Gilchrist decided it was time to kick off the cleats. He opened a café and instead of branding it with a clichéd name or the license plate of his first car, Tim landed on something a tad more sentimental: his mother's maiden name. Today, natural light pours through two large windows stationed at the front of Greenleaf's Cafe, where diners gather at tables or along an elevated countertop for breakfast, brunch, lunch, and dinner six days per week. The café also swings its doors open for parties and special events and caters outside gatherings such as weddings, birthdays, and anniversaries.

It doesn't take a plane ticket or a waterproof bus to discover Spain—or at least not to discover its food. That task is accomplished easily enough with a trip to Solun, where guests tour a Mediterranean menu anchored by cold, fried, and hot Spanish tapas, such as Coca de Sotomillo, a delectable construction of filet mignon and artisan bread. Of course, the restaurateurs don’t focus exclusively on tapas; they use market vegetables to cook omelets for brunch, churn homemade ice cream, and pour more than four dozen wines.