{"id":12015,"date":"2026-05-03T10:50:46","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T10:50:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/12015\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T10:50:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T10:50:46","slug":"review-savoring-old-school-italian-at-the-r-house-in-ridgefield-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/12015\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Savoring old school Italian at the R House in Ridgefield"},"content":{"rendered":"

The R House Italian Steakhouse<\/a> in Ridgefield is old school in the best ways. On a recent visit, I found the experience reminiscent of the restaurant trends I\u2019d grown up with and frequently miss.<\/p>\n

Bread is served for no extra charge at the start of the meal. The place is large and spacious; it seats more than 200 people and is 8,000 square feet, according to\u00a0The Hartford Business Journal<\/a>. It\u2019s open seven days a week for lunch and dinner and provides a wide range of food options from Italian classics to steak. The vibe, while far from pretentious, is also fancy enough that if you wore a suit, you wouldn\u2019t feel out of place.<\/p>\n

The sprawling restaurant space on the edge of Ridgefield\u2019s downtown, was previously home to The Benjamin but changed hands and its name last year. I was never at The Benjamin but was impressed with what I experienced during a recent visit to The R House. I went here with a friend and we both decided to forgo the steakhouse side of the menu and focus more on the Italian side of things, by taking advantage of a prix fixe multicourse offering for restaurant week. We were impressed with almost everything we tried.<\/p>\n

The prime meatballs served with marinara and melted ricotta are a delicious appetizer, and my friend was equally impressed with a lobster bisque. These sides are matched by the entrees I tried. A grilled Scottish salmon with a porcini crust, champagne mustard sauce, and sauteed spinach is a standout that features perfectly cooked salmon. Rigatoni bolognese is also strong, with excellent-tasting pasta served al dente with a strong sauce. It\u2019s the kind of dish that would easily be my go-to if I was a regular here. In both the meatball appetizer and the bolognese, the meat is impressive, which is to be expected from a steakhouse.<\/p>\n

Of the two desserts I tried, a chocolate mousse cake was decent but a little on the too-rich side. Meanwhile, an order of vanilla gelato was excellent and a great close to the meal. When it comes to drinks, there\u2019s a large wine list, but I opted for a margarita mashup with Aperol that was a decent drink, if not spectacular.<\/p>\n

The service is friendly and attentive, with the table cleared between each course. Even early on a Monday evening, the service team brought their A game and seemed to work well in unison.<\/p>\n

Because I went with the restaurant week special, I got a lot of different food for a reasonable price. Normally speaking, The R House is on the pricier side, with most entrees in the $30s and only a few in the high $20s. That said this place has high-quality food and feels like a fancy restaurant, so it is worth paying it. At the end of my visit, to R House I was impressed and intrigued overall. It\u2019s a welcome addition to the area and one I will recommend to friends looking for a night out in Ridgefield and beyond.<\/p>\n

Erik Ofgang shares his opinions on food and drink in the state. He is the co-author of \u201cThe Good Vices\u201d and has written for The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Smithsonian, Forbes and other publications. He pens a Connecticut Magazine column titled “Craft Cruising” about the state’s beverage scene.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The R House Italian Steakhouse in Ridgefield is old school in the best ways. On a recent visit,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5117,8681,5],"class_list":{"0":"post-12015","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-italy","8":"tag-all-daily-sites","9":"tag-greaterdanbury","10":"tag-italy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}