City: Williamsburg, VA

Category: Restaurants

Telephone: (757) 565-7788

Description: Exceptional cuisine blends with elegant design at this one-of-a-kind cafe, which opens at a leisurely hour for breakfast (10:30 a.m.) and lunch, serving dinner just two nights a week. (Translation: make dinner reservations as far as possible in advance.) The woman in charge is owner Sibilla Dengs a native of Aachen, a city in Germany’s Rhine valley near the Belgian and Dutch borders. The German architect Mies van der Rohe famously once said, “God is in the details.” Not here. Here, Sibilla is in the details. An art historian by training, her careful crafting of culinary and fine art has created a truly unique fine-dining experience. A row of suede couches face a long wall of framed art—“People drink their coffee and read the newspaper there,” Dengs says, but they must also admire the subtle art lessons she builds into her exhibits, hanging works by the same artist side by side, one artfully framed, the other not.Her visiting chefs, all trained in Europe, make no such gaffes when it comes to presenting the food. “Too pretty to eat,” is the phrase these plates call to mind, but we do anyway. At dinner, the amuse bouche one night is a parchment paper cone of popcorn aerated in, of all things, truffle oil. It is accompanied by a basil emulsification, served in a shot glass, with a straw. Sipping it produces a sensation close to inhaling it. It is nearly intoxicating. The restaurant showcases molecular gastronomy—the branch of science that studies the physical and chemical processes of cooking, and how the interplay of different senses affects enjoyment. In the hands of a skilled chef, it turns chemistry into art. That intensity and adventurousness carry through the entire meal. When it comes time to order wine, Sibilla pulls out three bottles to do a quick compare-and-contrast tableside. An entree might put a fresh twist on a fish-and-scallops dish by including a side of hand-spun cotton candy with an eyedropper of an artisan vinegar (for those who ducked organic chemistry: the acidic vinegar breaks the bonds of the long carbon chains in the sugar). The arctic char arrives covered in foam—the effect is to make one think this fish is so fresh it has just washed ashore. Delightful! The menu changes frequently (see the Web site for current details), emphasizing seasonal organic ingredients. Like most nouvelle cuisine restaurants, portions are small—the focus is on freshness and the intensity of the flavors, not volume. And while artcafé26 does offer a small children’s menu, this probably isn’t the place for kids at dinner—unless they are laid-back, budding foodies. You should also allow plenty of time—the pace is deliberately leisurely, and Sibilla and her staff like to engage in educational conversation along the way. You can complete a lovely dinner in an hour—but you’ll feel disappointed that you didn’t allow two hours instead. Open from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tues through Thurs; 10:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. on Fri; Sat 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., then 6 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. for dinner; and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sun.Oh, and that name? The “art” part is obvious, but the “26?” “That is my little secret,” Sibilla says.