Cafe Bretton

This place is tired & outdated. Quality service. Food was quite bland. OVERPRICED. Especially when you have plenty of other options in Annapolis & Baltimore. Feels too similar to dining at your grama’s house. No need to come back.

We have been going to Café Bretton for about 7 years now, and it continues to get better and better. We had a wonderful dinner there tonight. Victor and his staff were their normal excellent selves. The meal was superb. They must be doing something right since there was not an open table in the place! There are few excellent restaurants in this area where you can enjoy a delicious meal in an atmosphere of quiet elegance. Café Bretton hasn’t given in to the industrial, loud, pedestrian mire that plagues so many restaurants in the Baltimore/​Annapolis area. And I don’t believe I saw a single iPad or iPhone in use during our dinner. People were actually talking to each other. What a concept! And the diners weren’t just us old folks; there were many younger folks there, too. I don’t mean to disparage any particular restaurant or dining venue. I just prefer a quiet place that serves great food and allows folks to converse without shouting. Café Bretton is Severna Park’s place of quiet elegance.

Having never to have known Café Bretton if it wasn’t for an anniversary and birthday dinner for two people in my group. One member had eaten here before and found the French style cuisine quite enjoyable. Wines are not over priced or inclusive of prohibitive 100, 300, 500 $ per bottle wines but of substantially adequate varietals sure to please most all palates.
We ordered their last three bottles on hand of a respectable 2012 Château Picau Perna Saint Émilion from the Libournais region of France. Adequately earthy and full bodied for the meals to follow!
The French onion soup, scallops and most all their appetizers could have sufficed as a meal. They are so well-​made yet portioned properly not to over fill me. Table shared six that we all wanted a piece of!
I ordered their Sautéed filet mignon topped with French bleu cheese served with brandy cream sauce. I asked and received a medium rare filet! It was a clean plate that I commended our waitress for a perfectly prepared meal!
Desserts were delicious cakes from the kitchen complimentary of Café Bretton for both birthday and anniversary celebrations! We still ordered the crème brûlée…
This night was a celebration of three sisters who it’s hard to find time in life’s busy demands but found a moment to celebrate with great cuisine in a very charming atmosphere, very courteous wait staff that created a very pleasant evening at Café Bretton. I would reserve a table in advance for a special evening with a loved one or an important celebration.

Excellent ambiance, food, and service. We were enjoying ourselves until the bus from the retirement home showed up and the atmosphere totally changed.

Everything is excellent at this great restaurant. They accommodated our large party and ll the dishes were perfect. I had the French Onion Soup, Beef Bourgione, and the raspberry coulis. Everything was full of flavor. Others had pasta dishes and fish. The service was excellent as well. The staff including the martie d’ and waitress were very attentive as well.

We took our son, daughter-​in-​law and grandson to this restaurant — a new one for all of us, that they had been wanting to try — for our son’s 45^th birthday celebration. The décor is charming country French, and it appears they have outdoor seating although it was a chilly (not cold) December evening so they were not using that space. But I (having spent time in France and being quite a Francophile) was absolutely charmed by the authenticity. All of us liked it, and our 10-​year-​old grandson even thought it was pretty cool!
The food — we loved it! They had duck that was done to perfection (my husband had that), and steak that my son ordered and loved. I myself could not resist the tiny filled pasta (can’t recall the term, but the wait staff described it perfectly to me) that included ricotta, gorgonzola, and pear, in a cream sauce with porcini mushrooms — and it is one of the best things I have eaten all year! Amazing. The salads were delightful, my son loved the escargot, and we found the deserts to be way too tempting and absolutely delicious. We all agreed we must go back, and want everyone to frequent this place as we really want to see it stay!
Kids food? I was very impressed with how accommodating and flexible they were. No, they don’t have chicken fingers, hot dogs or pizza (thank goodness — this is a grown-​up restaurant with no kids menu). They had a chicken marsala, but knowing that their son would not enjoy the wine sauce, his parents ordered the chicken but asked if chef could just grill or sautee it, without the sauce. They did, and he enjoyed it! This is not a place to let your kids run wild, but if you have well-​behaved children you can certainly find food they would eat, and I was delighted that chef was so flexible.
Our server was more than pleasant, without being intrusive, and made sure we had everything we wanted or needed, and that we enjoyed the evening.
We will return to this authentic, charming restaurant!

With a little polish this could be an exceptional restaurant. The wine list needs to be brought up to the same level as the food, which is life changing, by the way! The service was very good and the dinning room was very comfortable. A definite come back to for special occasions.

My wife came in tonight for our anniversary on a friends recommendation. If you are going to give me 10 pieces of calamari, it better be really good. It was generic everyday calamari. Steak au poive was way over peppered. It should have peppercorns but not to the point you can’t see the steak. My wife’s shrimp pasta was so over powered with kalamata olives, you couldn’t taste the garlic sauce. Service was pretty good but not great. For a $ 170 check I expected a lot more!

This is a really nice place where the food is very good and the service is excellent. Someone described it as «quaint New England» which I think is pretty apt. I really don’t know why we don’t go here more often. I think it is because it is pretty formal so you have to have the energy for that. And it is expensive. But it is a great place. You are not going to walk away feeling disappointed.

This is a very quaint New England feeling restaurant. The staff were all excellent and the service very good. As a vegan this is not a place I would recommend but our parents loved their meals of steak lamb and crab. Many restaurants can usually make something simple for our needs in our choice to eat vegan; however, this was something that this staff just didn’t understand. They tried but still brought items with dairy when without was requested and with seafood as well. I honestly feel they just don’t know what eating vegan is. They would have received 4 stars had the décor and furnishing been less 1980’s. Five stars had they pulled off some vegan modifications. #beenthiswaybefore

We just had our 15^th anniversary dinner at Café Bretton! We had our first kiss in the garden at Café Bretton 16 years ago and every year since.
Great cocktails, appetizers, entrees, desserts, etc.
Bön Soir!

We had a wonderful dinner for my mothers birthday. Franz took great care of us and the food was excellent. My lamb could have been cooked a little less but it was still moist and delicious. We loved the ambiance, dim but not too dark and the music is set at an appropriately low level to encourage conversation. Pricey but worth it!

We love this place absolutelly fell in love with the location, staff and food!!! It’s turned out to be our date night place… :-) but on a more serious note the chef was very personable checks in with all the tables, talks to all the tables which is a good thing when you go to a restaurant where you’re going to pay a pretty penny. It’s definitely a hidden gem being out there in Severna Park the great thing is that it’s close to the house, so we don’t necessarily have to go to Annapolis or downtown Baltimore to get a phenomenal meal!!! Keep in mind though while it may be a little pricey you definitely get a lot of food for your buck. I was extremely full upon finishing my entrée but I still reserved a little room to eat some of their delicious crème brûlée which is a must if you visit this restaurant… If I could give it 10 stars I would!!!

I saw a fb post about this place and decided to surprise my wife with a romantic evening without our five year old. It did not disappoint. The food was perfect. The service excellent. The extra bonus was the spur of the moment tour through their own organic garden by the chef. We were even gifted a zucchini from the restaurants garden. Don’t expect royalty treatment on your visit but you might be pleasantly surprised. A new favorite spot for us.

Absolutely fabulous gem of a restaurant tucked halfway between Baltimore and Annapolis. Highly recommend

We had our anniversary at Café Bretton and it was an incredible experience! The food was perfectly prepared and served with the correct wines to enhance the flavors. The Duck Pâté was the perfect mousse consistency and seasoned exactly right. The chef was happy to touch base with the guests and went out of his way to match wines with the foods. The dining area is arranged such that each table appears to be one of only 4 or 5, though there are many more than that over several areas. The wait staff is unobtrusive, and would never think of hurrying anyone along. The pastry shop that supplies their pastries is but a very few miles away in Baltimore. Our dessert was so fantastic, we drove to the city the next morning to get more to take home!

My wife and I walked towards the door midweek at Café Bretton and a sign on the door read, «Closed for wine tasting dinner.» Bummer!
Plan B immediately went into effect — Annapolis for a slab of meat and an average celebration meal :-(
As we were getting into our van, someone began banging on the back. Bang! Bang! Bang! Victor, the Head Chef (who we had never met) said with a heavy French accent, «where are you going, why are you leaving?» I said nicely, «It looks like you are closed for a wine tasting dinner.» He said, «No, we have saved you two of our best seats! Come, come, come!»
Well, let me tell you that we felt that we just walked into a fine French wedding reception where the bride and groom were just out of view.
We were greeted with a flute of French Champagne and led to our table.
There was hardly anywhere to place my cellphone on the table. It wasn’t a small table, it was a table for 4 set with enough stemware, silverware, napkins and other accouterments that we thought 2 more people were going to be sitting there with us. (Good thing that I had a small and early lunch.)
I have the printout of all the food and wine they made for us, but it is in a box somewhere with a note for the future that says, «Excellent dinner!!» written in black Sharpie.
We had a waitress (awesome) and a slew of sharpened and silent ninja assistants to who would swoop in and «adiós!» the last course plates and silverware within almost 4 beats after we placed our fork and knife down. Boom! Gone!
Thrice during the meal, a gentleman whose job (passion) it is to fly to France and scout out grape perfection would stand. A round of light tapping of knives on glass would garner everyone’s attention. He would regale us with his description of the sights, sounds and taste of little know parts of old style French wineries. (Enough talk; let’s drink!) Just joking about enough talk. It was wonderful. So much more than we expected.
The food came. The wine came. The food came. The wine came.
In all I think there were 8 wines and 7 courses to this 4 hour feast!
I told my wife that we just saved thousands of dollars in air fare to France!
(The bride and groom were still out of view. There must have been a bride and groom here somewhere ’cause we truly felt that we were at some rich couple’s wedding reception.)
Note: Somewhere, early on, we told our waitress that the last time someone greeted us with Champagne was exactly 15 years earlier when we stepped off the launch onto a pier in Belize for our honeymoon.
When we were all done with our feast, or when we THOUGHT we were all done, the waitress came out with a tray and a filled martini glass.
It turns out that the waitress told Victor it was our anniversary. He had looked out the kitchen at my wife and INSTANTLY guessed what her favorite drink was.
(We had only been in Café Bretton together once before; 5 years ago on Mother’s Day.)
Victor created and poured Jen a PERFECT chocolate martini! Her absolute favorite drink! (Ask me how we concocted a chocolate martini one night on a sinking boat at our pier. Funny story.) This is the drink that we drive to the Blue Moon in Rehoboth Beach to get. By the way, Blue Moon has a killer Bloody Mary Bar on Sunday mornings.
Somehow Victor knew, just like he knew that he wanted us to have the best seat in the house, so much that he banged on our car and almost dragged us in.
I give Café Bretton an extra star for having the ultimate in professional staff and a chef who is a true «mind reader».
Note: We went back 2 months later for a similar wine tasting and BOOM! — it was awesome! Go figure.
Thanks Victor!
Thanks Victor! Bön Appetit! See you soon!
P. S. Let’s keep this gem our little secret, OK. We don’t want too many people jamming up the joint.
Note 1: Referencing review below «a very odd experience here [Café Bretton]». If you visited sometime around May or June, it was probably Victor’s D-​Day remembrance and thank you dinner. Some of these folks may have been part of the Normandy Invasion in June 6, 1944, (or may have lost friends or loved ones) so 2 thumbs up to Victor. Victor the mind reader knows all! By the way, I found the review «an odd experience».

A hidden gem in Arnold/​Severna Park area! This is one of my favorite french spots to go for a special occasion dinner. It can get pricey (especially with a bottle or two of wine) but it is so worth it! It is tucked away off of B&A Blvd in the most quaint little building. It is not a modernized, glitzy glam establishment. It is a cozy, neighborhood spot where you feel like family as soon as you walk through the door. The owner is there every night making the rounds and chatting people up. Very nice, attentive service.
They grow all of their produce on the grounds so everything is very fresh (the tomatoes during the summer are to die for!) And after dinner you can take a little stroll through the garden, it is lovely. My husband almost never steers away from his faithful veal piccata, which is melt in your mouth good. The salmon is also very yummy!
And as much as you want to fill up on the appetizers and dinner, dont do it!!! Save room for dessert. At least a little room for the crème brûlée. You will thank me later.
All in all, great wine, exquisite cuisine, perfect date spot. Go. now.

We had a very odd experience here. We are new to the area and for my husband’s 40^th birthday I wanted to find something nice in our new neighborhood. Based on reviews, we tried Café Bretton. We had a mid-​evening seating (7:30 pm) but we felt as though we had just walked into the early bird special in suburban Florida. On the night we went literally everyone dining there was 30−40+ years older than us. In their 70s and 80s. Also the décor is a bit odd — the outside is charming but the inside is a cross between French country and grandma’s spare room. There are lots of floral paintings on the walls and night we were there electric space heaters were set up in the main dining room. I’m afraid that the overall atmosphere sent my husband a strange (though unintentional) message on his birthday.
The food, though it seemed to be prepared nicely and with high quality ingredients, was very bland and prepared with very little salt, perhaps reflecting clientele preferences? My veal piccata had no hint of tangy lemons, but was tender. My husband’s chicken was the same, though he did have a soup du jour that was very tasty. My french onion soup was nothing special. A daily special dessert was also very good.
So all in all, I think they do what they do well, but we are just not the target consumers. A shame because I really wanted to like it.

Took Rockstar here on Saturday evening. I had not been here in about 18 months. There were four of us and we had the Beef Bourguignon x 2, Salmon filet with Tarragon sauce, Veal Scaloppine.
The entrees, sides, salads and service were excellent. Great atmosphere
Vital Stastics: Excellent deals on French wines. Overall great price/​value relationship