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Steelhead trout with fregola at Once Upon a Table in Stockbridge, Mass.

Borscht is garnished with sauerkraut and mascarpone and brightened with dill and lemon at Once Upon a Table in Stockbridge, Mass. 

Tender flat-iron steak comes with blue-cheese butter, scallions and oyster mushrooms at Once Upon a Table in Stockbridge, Mass. 

Desserts don't get much simpler and more seasonal, or better, than local peaches with whipped cream at Once Upon a Table in Stockbridge, Mass.

Charred carrots, grilled scallions and a fried egg sit atop lentils at Once Upon a Table in Stockbridge, Mass.

Mussels are served with a creamy mustard sauce at Once Upon a Table in Stockbridge, Mass.

Once Upon a Table in Stockbridge, Mass., is tucked in an alley called The Mews.

Once Upon A Table really does feel like the start of a story. Except it’s a story that’s been going for 23 years. It might have ended when the Stockbridge, Mass., restaurant closed in November 2021 after the original owners, Alan and Theresa O’Brient, retired and their chef quit before Avie Maloney, a longtime server at the restaurant, could properly take the reins. But, though the chef’s departure was unexpected, Maloney closed the doors, took time to renovate and regroup, connected with Alexandra Chisholm, an experienced local chef with the same farm-to-table vision as her own, and got ready to write the sequel. 

Lest we romanticize the tale too much, Maloney speaks in pragmatic tones. She had worked at The Red Lion Inn, Castle Street Cafe, Blantyre and Kripalu Center for EcoTechnology, and later as an administrator at the Montessori School of the Berkshires in Lenox while waitressing at Once Upon A Table. When the owners presented the opportunity to take it over, allowing her to pay off the purchase over time, she stepped in. But it was not until the sudden closure and outpouring of support that she understood how well-loved the restaurant was. “I never planned to own a restaurant,” Maloney said. “It wasn’t on my vision board. But I want to take care of it and give it life, to make Alan proud.”

Set in The Mews, a slip of a lane by the side of The Red Lion Inn, the storybook setting is one of small dimensions, outdoor tables separated by planters overflowing with herbs that you might snap off and nibble like "Alice in Wonderland" contraband. Inside, the space has 30 seats at tables set with mismatched vintage plates and a collection of teapots. Chisholm, whose experience spans restaurants in Great Barrington, Williamstown and Ketchikan, Alaska, has put together a tight menu driven by in-season offerings from farms and bakers featured on the menu, or through connections tendered by Marty’s Local, a distributor for local farms. While she refers to it as “New England comfort food,” I find it lighter and more intriguingly flavored than that description allows.  

To start we share Hollander mussels, a Monday night special that takes advantage of the end of the restaurant's service week, when ingredients run low and they have room in the fridge. The mussels come half-buried under finely shaved celery and garlic sheared gossamer thin with a mustard-cream broth bursting with flavor into which we dunk crusty bread. At the other end, we are lucky enough to be steered toward fresh Klein Kill Farm peaches cut into juicy, haphazard chunks under freshly whipped cream bright with curls of lemon zest. Its simplicity is arresting, like something to be served on a farm, yet in body close to syllabub, a mousse of whipped cream thickened with lemon juice and wine. 

Chisholm’s borscht is a deep magenta, as thick and smooth as velouté, less brothy than traditional but subtly humming with citrus oil and a tangle of beet-stained sauerkraut beside a quenelle of mascarpone. Not content with mussels and soup, we steal the beluga lentil and yogurt ragout from the entree list for an extra starter to share, and whoop over the combination of grill-charred carrots and scallions with chile oil and a yolky fried farm egg. The subtle notes of cinnamon in five-spice powder lends a savory fragrance to the yogurt and nutty lentils — a super dish any time. 

Remaining entrees cover steak, chicken, pasta and fish — something for everyone, no matter your story line. Each is cast in character: Roast chicken with stewed summer squash; a beautifully tender flat-iron steak dressed in blue-cheese butter over salted oyster mushrooms with sweet aged balsamic. Steelhead trout, its skin crisp from a a sear in ripping-hot pan, reclines over fregola with shaved fennel, with flavor jolts in every bite from parsley, capers, juicy Sungold tomatoes and creamy dill aioli. There isn’t a disappointment in the bunch.

Beyond the plates is a palpable ease in the midst of busy service. Mondays are their Fridays, I’m told. Our server, Shanique, Maloney’s daughter, glides between tables offering smiles and friendly sass, asking guests if they’re hard at work or hardly working, earning a laugh every time. 

Seeing iced hibiscus tea (sorrel) on the menu is a telltale sign of West Indies culture where the ubiquitous drink is made from the hibiscus sabdariffa flower. Maloney hails from Grenada and moved to Brooklyn with her father. Along with iced sorrel, Maloney offers Mexican Coca-Cola, Woven Roots Farm tea and a superb short list of largely European wine, from a Weingut Später-Veit Piesport dry Riesling to Les Hauts Plateux rosé, plus a clutch of local craft beers.

Some sequels fail to live up to the thrill of the first book, but in Maloney and Chisholm’s calm hands, Once Upon A Table feels effortlessly charming with a story of its own.

Address: 36 Main St., Stockbridge, Mass.  Hours: 4 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday to Monday, closed Tuesday and Wednesday. Reservations recommended. Price: Food, $5 to $36; wines by the glass, $10 to $14; by the bottle, $26 to $75 Etc: Outdoor seating available. Street parking. Wheelchair accessible, but the restroom is upstairs.

Award-winning food and drinks writer and longtime TU dining critic, Susie Davidson Powell, has covered the upstate dining scene for a decade. She writes weekly reviews, a monthly cocktail column and the biweekly e-newsletter The Food Life. Susie has received national awards for food criticism from the Society of Features Journalism and served as a 2020 James Beard Awards judge for New York state. You can reach her at thefoodlifeTU@gmail.com and follow her on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefoodlife.co