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Bone marrow confit made with garlic, Calabrian chili and hon shimeji mushrooms at Chaplin in Shelton.

Pan-seared duck breast at Chaplin in Shelton.

Chaplin’s art deco vibe lends an air of sophistication.

Chaplin’s art deco vibe lends an air of sophistication.

Chef Dylan Hansen of Chaplin in Shelton.

The elegant ambiance at Chaplin in Shelton extends to the outdoor patio.

A selection of high-end cocktails at Chaplin in Shelton.

Chaplin’s art deco vibe lends an air of sophistication.

Approach Chaplin from either direction of downtown Shelton’s Howe Avenue and you’ll see, as might be expected, two different sides. Viewed uphill or from Center Street, and the restaurant’s main feature beside its sign is the corner patio, cut out from the building’s first floor, and filled with diners enjoying the midsummer Friday air on my first trip in June. 

Arrive down Howe and through the front doors and your first view will be green-and-black subway tiles over a wide arch like Grand Central’s Oyster Bar. Above a black marble bar, light bulbs hang from brass cymbals with martinis clinking below; Zelda Fitzgerald by way of Zildjian. 

I order a martini with a house blend of dry vermouth and watch the food coming out for other bar patrons — oysters here, polenta fries there, and a tower made with oysters, clams, shrimp, mussels and seafood salad. Once my companion arrives, we are led into the dining area where overhead beams are bound in wood, and a floor-to-ceiling mural of flowers adds a summery vibe, and large windows admit the last rays of that day’s sunlight.

We order the mixed olives, and roasted Marcona almonds dusted with chili powder to start, as we peruse the menu, and add a Guess Who for her. This last is a cocktail made with vodka, Rinomato Aperitivo Deciso, lime juice and hibiscus syrup. The almonds are a crunchy, salty, piquant snack with the martini, but the olives, simply prepared with just rosemary and thyme, steal all our attention as we steal them from each other. The Guess Who is delicious, sharply aromatic, slightly bitter, with the lime and Italian aperitivo cutting their way through the floral sweetness.

The small plates section of the menu continues to tempt. We pick the grilled asparagus, and bone marrow appetizers. The asparagus arrives plated with housemade cheese made from milk curdled with lemon juice instead of vinegar, topped with grated lemon zest and a little olive oil. The cheese is noticeably fresh and creamy, and the classic flavor combination of citrus and asparagus is given a boost in the dish. 

Balanced on a thick slice of sourdough, the roasted marrow bone pops with the colors of microgreens and red Calabrian chilis, over confit garlic and hon shimeji mushrooms. The marrow, effectively meat and garlic butter as served, has additional umami delivered via those mushrooms, with crunch and spice in each bite from the toppings. It’s a delicious and attractive dish to start a meal for the omnivorous.

Chaplin’s executive chef, Dylan Hansen, previously worked at Roia in New Haven as chef du cuisine, where the focus at the time was in the middle of reworking the menu to a wide range of small dining options. I ask if he had taken that experience to heart when creating the menu at Chaplin. “We wanted to design a menu which wasn’t just familiar to the area, but to give people options besides the high-dollar steaks and chops. I always over-order when I eat at restaurants; I like to try other chefs’ food, and give guests the opportunity to eat like that.”

Raw bar options take space at the top of the menu, along with appetizer options from Bibb salad, to steak tartare, and PEI mussels with grilled chorizo. Farther down are larger plates: Bell & Evans half-chicken, vegetable risotto, charred octopus … 

A special catches our eyes: salmon belly confit. The dish lands on our table with pink fish joined by white beans, olives and fennel on toasted sourdough. It is a cluster of dense flavors which stand up in harmony over the dense bread. A winner.

“We have the option to change the menu each day, we print the menu in house,” Hansen tells me on a follow-up visit. As an example of what’s available in the late spring, he brings out a dish of poached peach with local chanterelle mushrooms in Pedro Ximénez vinegar with olive oil and spearmint over stracciatella cheese. There is an immediate peaches-and-cream sensation with the soft stracciatella and stone fruit, everything so fresh, the flavors pop. The cheese I had in the test dish wasn’t local, but chef Hansen says much of the fresh cheese you’ll see on the summer menu — stracciatella, mozzarella, etc. — will be housemade.

Working his way from sous to executive chef for Barcelona at multiple locations, and going to Spain as a result, Hansen says, informed his approach to food. “You have something so simple, but the flavors are so bold, taking one ingredient and figuring out how to make it shine in multiple ways. This approach, plus adding some of the fine-dining aspects from Roia, I’m still learning every day.”

The bar program is overseen by Francisco Sanchez, who pairs the chanterelle dish with a whiskey tart he makes with blood orange liqueur, blood orange juice, egg white, and garnished with a further slice of dried blood orange. Massively citrusy, but smoothed right over by making it a flip with that egg, the drink is mellow and potent. 

Chaplin itself is the idea of owner Hartin Ballabani, a familiar face to some from his other restaurant in the building, Tacomida. He says there was room in Shelton for something more upscale, and that people told him they wanted to see a concept on that end. The community has responded, he reports. 

That arch above the bar, by the way, Ballabani noticed as a disused architectural form left over from when the structure was built several years before, and rescued it to recapitulate the face of the building. 

Hansen echoes the owner. “Everyone in the community has been really supportive, it starts with happy hour and oysters and continues through weekend nights. The menu was created to be familiar — meatballs, slab bacon, linguine and clams — we wanted to bring that, but do it with quality ingredients, standout presentations, to give people that familiarity but with an upscale experience.”

A glance at the menu’s lower portion, titled “Butcher Box,” is all strips, filets, even a 42-ounce Tomahawk, but chef Hansen doesn’t consider Chaplin to be a steakhouse. “I consider it almost two different menus, that familiar local experience with fun, seasonal ingredients, and also this beef and pork program with high-end meats.” 

On my first visit, I let the night take its course, and end up with an almost Spanish tapas-style dinner, with several small plates, and a few drinks. You can make of Chaplin what you want: come in for two dishes and a few drinks at happy hour, then continue to where your evening takes you, or schedule a steak-and-chops business dinner to scrape the high end of a three-figure bill. 

My return trip is a mission to try a steak or entrée, and I can’t take my eyes off the pan-seared duck on the menu. Here’s where we self high-five, because it is an excellent choice. Served on a bed of mushrooms and watercress, the bold, flavorful duck with its crispy layer of seared fat is served with a log of potatoes pavé, drizzled with pan jús. 

When asked what I thought of my first visit by chef Hansen, the first words out of my mouth are, “it’s almost mood-based dining.” He says that was exactly what he was looking to do: create options for diners including apps, drinks and entrées, steaks and sides, yes, but at whatever level they’re feeling at the moment. 

Staffing, like everywhere, is an issue, but Hansen’s position is chefs who give their staff space to create are the type of places staff want to go, and stay. He says they want to get into making their own fresh pasta, butter and more cheeses by the fall at Chaplin, if not sooner. He singles out sous chef Zach Pinto, and says they have exciting new options for the future. 

“I’m always learning, and I want that for my staff here, too.”

Chaplin 247 Howe Ave., Shelton 203-538-5045, chaplindowntown.com, @chaplin_shelton on Instagram Open daily for dinner Wheelchair accessible

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