Would you consider going to West Hartford?

As it's name implies, it is immediately to the west of Hartford and is right off of I-84 (30 minutes tops from Waterbury; 45 minutes to an hour from New Haven and about 90 minutes from Worchester). West Hartford has several great restaurants and, frankly, a far better restaurant scene than Hartford.

If you are looking for more upscale restaurants, West Hartford has two gems:

1 - Max's Oyster Bar -- an upscale seafood place with excellent service and a great raw bar. Has several non-seafood choices as well.

2 - Grant's -- right across Farmington Ave. from Max's, I would characterize this restaurant as upscale American food with great steaks and fowl. Some seafood as well.

Other good West Hartford options (but not as upscale) include:

1 - The Elbow Room -- more casual (no tableclothes), but great food. Considered the third (along with Grant's and the Oyster Bar) of West Hartford's premier restaurants.

2 - Azul -- very good nuevo Latino food.

3 - Bricco -- good Italian food with a brick oven for good breads and pizzas.

**If you decide to do West Hartford, make a reservation ASAP as all the places fill up on weekends.

The City of Hartford is dead on weekends and many restuarants may not be open on Sunday afternoons/evenings (Hartford restaurants cater more to the business lunch crowd). If you do go for Hartford, in addition to Hot Tomatoes (which is good, but not great, IMO), I cna enthusiastically reccomend Trumbull Kitchen and Max's Downtown, which are both owned by the same restuarant groups that own's Max's Oyster Bar -- their restaurants are the best in the Hartford area.

As for places between Hartford and New Haven (by which I assume you mean the I-91 corridor), I am not familiar with any places as the towns there tend to be bedroom communities of Hartford and New Haven. As it is the home of Wesleyan (sp?) College, there are probably a few good places in Middletown.

I would very strongly reccomend that you choose a place in West Hartford.

If you are really looking for places