The vibe at Honeycomb Bakery in South Hamilton on a Saturday night in March was decidedly French bistro. Only a few evenings earlier, I had come to Lauren and Billy Moran’s bakery for a different kind of dinner: sourdough pizza with my boys (the restaurant, which opened in 2017, hosts Thursday pizza nights). I was back now, on a weekend, to experience Enchanté, a dining concept launched this past January.
In the window: Enchanté, lit up in pink neon. Inside: a rolling coat rack, marble bistro tables, dimmed lighting, and an almost entirely full dining room. On Friday and Saturday evenings, Enchanté runs reservations-only dinner with a curated and regularly changing menu of small plates and entrées that happily features the bakery’s breads.
A thoughtful drinks list—composed by Howie Correa, the beverage director at Gloucester’s Oak & Ember—features interesting beers, wines, and nonalcoholic options. Diverse varieties—Touraine Blanc, Ventoux Blanc, Trebbiano—provide the backbone for a Eurocentric wine list with imagination. I started with a sparkling Crémant d’Alsace from legendary producer Domaine Charles Baur, followed by an orange Trebbiano from Abruzzo. Also not to be missed: the Mexican Coke.
That night, the restaurant was running three smaller plates, a series of mid-sized plates, and four entrées. It made sense, I decided, to start with the Honeycomb sourdough bread, which comes with a rotating accompaniment of compound butters, whipped soft cheese, or olive oil. Next up: ice-cold Pemaquid oysters from Damariscotta, Maine, accompanied by a Harissa-heavy, house-made hot sauce and a mignonette.
And then, naturally, appeared a parade of dishes, a problem of my own making. The pear and blue cheese salad over kale and cracked wheat berries from Iron Ox Farm had an orange-date dressing. Valleyview Farms’ Topsfield Tuffet, an aged goat’s milk cheese, was served alongside slivers of baguette and peachy-green Muscat grapes. A savory tartine of thinly sliced Tasso ham and raclette cheese had a spicy Dijonaise undercurrent. Crisp cubes of pork belly were lacquered with a sweet soy glaze. My guest and I ate them with kimchi, purple ube potatoes, and an Iron Ox Farm Macomber turnip purée.
For an entrée, I ordered the chicken salmis, a roasted chicken bread over a foie gras-enriched red wine sauce, served with roasted apples, chestnuts, and local savoy cabbage. On the side, the cabbage and apples settled into the sauce and drippings. We dipped our garlic and rosemary French fries into the spare sauce, although they came with a compelling black pepper parmesan aioli.
To skip dessert at a place like Honeycomb would be criminal, of course, so we didn’t. Exhibiting restraint, I ordered just one—not both—of the offerings, a brown butter pain perdu topped with roasted pineapple and pomegranate seeds. Bathed in a pool of brown butter caramel, the pain perdu did its best impersonation of French toast. Soft and yielding to the fork tines, it was just the right vehicle for sopping up extra sauce.
Lauren Moran, flitting around the dining room, looked just as home in service as she does in her capacity as baker. I wanted to know how she does it: three dining concepts (all popular) plus a full family life (her youngest child, one of three, just turned one).
She took the question in stride, shrugging, the way most mothers do. Better to have a bakery that’s three times as busy than one that isn’t busy at all. In fact, as we left, just after 10, I noted that we weren’t the only ones lingering over a nice meal. The packed space looked like a welcome gathering spot for half of Hamilton. That same neon light shone brightly as we made for the parking lot, joyfully full. Enchanted—that’s the approximate translation of enchanté. And this restaurant, blooming with life and well-executed food, does in fact feel enchanted, spirited, and blessed with good fortune, good food, and good vibes.