Thomas Henkelmann and his wife Theresa Carroll have put heart, soul, hard work and taste into breathing new life into this wonderful old inn, and it shows. It glows. The bar has become a warm and inviting cocktail lounge, the formal Early American dining room has taken on the warmth and charm of a French auberge. It wooed us with baskets of apples, explosions of flowers, flickering sconces, sensuous fabrics, and lovingly chosen French and English antiques.

After an absence of five years, we were delighted to find the place in good hands and fine fettle, wildly popular and garnering adulatory press, but the proof of the truffled mousse is in the eating and I am not easily seduced. I accepted a comfortable seat in a cozy alcove and issued a silent challenge to the chef. Show me.

From an epicurean appetizer of seared foie gras with sautéed sea scallops in puff pastry to a sparkling dessert of meringue layered with vanilla bean ice cream and fresh berries, master chef Thomas Henkelmann proceeded to do just that. Cannelloni of Maryland crabmeat was tender, rich and totally irresistible on spinach leaves in a tarragon–scented lobster broth. Sautéed shrimp enlivened with a coriander vinaigrette provided a titillating textural contrast to buttery slices of artichoke heart. And creamy corn bisque, ladled over a haystack of poached lobster meat, was comfort food for a king. Both the foie gras and the scallops were seared to form the merest millimicron of caramelized crust, so the dusky richness of the foie gras and the briny sea tang of the scallops could play off each other to best effect. On a busy Saturday night, that attention to detail and split–second timing is as rare as it is commendable. And the sea scallops were some of the best I have ever had.

My defenses were falling but I kept my cool. It is not unheard of nowadays for a restaurant to expend all its ingenuity on the appetizer course when hors d’oeuvres are really meant to be the advance man and the entrée the star. Chef Henkelmann evidently feels that way too. We tried four entrées, each of them worth building a meal around. Their arrival was an attention–getting overture. Four dinner plates covered with gleaming copper domes were set down with a flourish. Dramatic pause. Then, in perfect synchronization, two waiters lifted four domes. Ta dah! Necessary? Of course not. But great fun. And isn’t that what dining out is supposed to be?

Labor–intensive activity was going on everywhere, which led me to count the number of staff members present in the dining room. Seven. Omnipresent, attentive, they refilled our water glasses, replenished bread and butter and answered questions with relaxed affability. The sommelier took note of what we ordered before suggesting a wine. And the most complicated, time–consuming dishes, some requiring last–minute touches, were served at the same time and at their peak, bespeaking competence in the kitchen and teamwork on the floor.

Entrées were beautiful to look at and so uniformly delicious we were hard put to choose a favorite. High on the list was fricassée of Maine lobster on tricolor fettuccine, a presentation that was gloriously lavish with lobster. Large, tender chunks of poached tail and claw meat were arranged around a neat little bird’s nest of tricolor fettuccine with a mélange of vegetables and lobster sauce pooling under all.

Two fish entrées, Atlantic black sea bass and red snapper, were works of art. The black bass fillet was gilded with a black truffle–scented beurre blanc. The snapper filets formed a sort of spring roll filled with luscious crabmeat stuffing, ringed with nuggets of king crab and underlaid with a bright green purée of pea. Medallions of lamb, a special of the day, was a culinary tour de force. Al–though its description made it sound like a variation on beef Wellington, it was rare as ordered, moist and juicy within, yet cozily crusted with a wraparound blanket of wild mushroom.

There is no pastry chef because Thomas Henkelmann says he loves sweets too much to forgo the pleasure of creating them. Of the four desserts we sampled, my favorite was a riff on flavors the chef told us he’s loved since childhood, when there were always fresh peaches and marzipan in the house. At Homestead Inn, he bakes peach halves with marzipan in their centers, spangles them with raspberry coulis and tucks a scoop of white chocolate ice cream alongside.

Simple, but sparkling, was a trio of homemade sorbets in an almond cookie basket: passion fruit, raspberry and apple sorbet, each faithfully reflecting the true flavor of the fresh fruit.

Chocolate cakes are falling everywhere these days, but here the Valhrona chocolate cake was no fudgy mass but light and cakelike around a liquid chocolate center. It was decorated with a white chocolate flower. Impossible to resist. Devotees of classic French cuisine will be delighted to find, among the desserts, a traditional vacherin. This ethereal layering of meringue, which in France is sometimes filled with creme chantilly, sometimes with ice cream, sometimes with fresh fruit, gifted us with all three—creamy homemade vanilla–bean ice cream, creme chantilly and fresh raspberries, blueberries and blackberries. A plate of house–made petit fours came to the table gratis at the end of the meal.

By this time, it was abundantly clear that chef Henkelmann has the talent, training and experience to perform arabesques with the classic French repertoire and enhance it with inventions uniquely his own. He has cooked at top restaurants in Germany, France, Switzerland and the United States, including the three–star Aubergine in Munich, Restaurant Maurice at Le Parker Meridien in New York, and La Panetiere in Rye, N.Y.

The official name of the restaurant at Homestead Inn is Restaurant Thomas Henkelmann, the ambience is country French and the French cuisine is out of this world. We were infatuated at first sight, in love by last bite.

Homestead Inn
420 Field Point Rd.
Greenwich (203/869–7500)
Lunch daily noon to 2:30. Dinner Sunday through Friday 6 to 10;
Saturday, two seatings, 6 and 9.
Wheelchair access. Major credit cards.
Price range: appetizers $7.50 to $23, entrées $29 to $34,
desserts $9.50 to $11.