Food & Drink
Versailles Restaurant
and Bakery
New Location: 339 Greenwich Ave., Greenwich, CT 06830
New Chef: Jean-Pierre Bagnato
versaillesgreenwich.com
When the doors open to the new Versailles Restaurant and Bakery a few doors down, you might cock your head and squint your eye as you place what’s different. Same style, fresh look; same quality, new menu; same familiar place you have been visiting in the 30 years they have been in business on Greenwich Avenue, but with a new chef and new dinner hours.
“Give them more freedom,” says Jean-Pierre Bagnato, the new general manager and executive chef at Versailles bistro café at 315 Greenwich Ave. “If you give people freedom, you give them happiness. “
The experienced chef and Greenwich resident has been featured in a number of national magazines and has a resumé that spans restaurants and hotels all over the world from the Mark Hotel in Manhattan to the five-star Kowloon Shangri-la Hotel in Hong Kong but he said his true inspiration is his parents.
“They would always tell me not to go out and eat,” says Bagnato, who remembers as a child helping his mother to prepare meals. “They said it is not good for your wallet and your health. I always keep this advice in my mind.”
This idea is what inspires Bagnato to keep the menu inexpensive and the food he serves healthy and fresh, ordering fresh fruits and vegetables from local vendors whenever possible.
While the new location at 339 Greenwich Ave. will have a similar layout to the restaurant’s current location it will have a larger kitchen equipped with the right space to offer cooking classes to patrons, a wine bar that taps temperature controlled wines preserved for the highest quality, a menu organized to give patrons the option of having an entrée or a series of starters for dinner or of ordering their breakfast eggs any style they like with any side they like.
“In American, you say guests you call them patrons. Patron in French means boss,” says Bagnato. “I want to understand exactly what their needs are in order to exceed their expectation.”