There's no cutting corners at the Red Fox

Tim Leininger, Journal Inquirer, Manchester, Conn.
·5 min read

May 3—GLASTONBURY — Fico Cecunjanin moved to the United States from Montenegro in 2001 at the age of 14, following in his family's footsteps in the restaurant business. Now he and his wife, Zumra, are the owners of four restaurants throughout the state with another on the way.

Red Fox Prime Steakhouse

ADDRESS: 39 New London Turnpike, Glastonbury.

HOURS: Sunday-Thursday 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and saturday 10 a.m. to 11 p.m.

MENU: Aged steaks, seafood, chicken piccata, veal, and more.

MISC.: Daily specials.

CONTACT: 860-430-2184; redfox-glasstonbury.com.

Their latest venture, Red Fox Prime Steakhouse, at 39 New London Turnpike in the Glen Lochen building, opened in October 2022.

He and his wife also own Red Fox Steak and Seafood in Middletown, Z's Rustic Pizza and Espresso Bar, also in Middletown, and Fox on the Green at Portland Golf Course West in Portland.

"My whole family is in the restaurant business," he said.

His family, Cecunjanin said, immigrated to Lake Placid, New York, in the 1980s. Two years later the family moved to Connecticut, where other family members had taken root.

Now, he said, his family owns about 60 restaurants across the state.

When he arrived in Connecticut, Cecunjanin settled in the Middletown area, where he worked in restaurants from 2004 to 2014, he said.

It was at this point, he said, he decided to open his own place — Red Fox Steak and Seafood.

"We started off with 45 seats," he said. "We now have over 600. It's a big establishment. We have weddings, banquets. We have private bourbon rooms, private wine rooms with over 300 bottles of wine. My wife and I run both."

It was always his dream, he said, to own a steak and seafood place, and now he has two.

He said his hope is that by the end of the year he'll have a fifth restaurant, an Italian restaurant called Fox on the Hill, in Middlefield.

He said his commitment to the restaurant business is due to it no longer being a job, but something he and his family loves.

"We don't look at the numbers no more," he said. "I have family members who want to retire, but they always come back."

Unlike many restaurants that have closed or reduced their hours over the past few years in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Cecunjanin has turned the situation into time spent on expansion.

"We added more seating and hired more people," he said of the Red Fox Steak and Seafood.

"Usually, restaurant owners are afraid to invest in the restaurant business, which we are not afraid," he said. "When the pandemic kicked in, nobody wanted to invest. In the meantime, we were closed, we expanded 250 outdoor seats. That's what kept us going while others were struggling."

Unlike many restaurants who lost employees due to the pandemic, he said he was able to keep his staff.

"You got to pay people more," he said. "You've got to appreciate their work. You've got to appreciate them more to have them stick around."

Cecunjanin said he'd like to see Red Fox Prime Steakhouse be a fine dining steakhouse that families are comfortable to come to as well.

"We like to see big families coming in," he said.

The menu is priced to appeal to all clientele — the large family or a couple or business meeting, and ranges from an $8 garden salad to a $25 chicken piccata to the $120 40-ounce dry-aged porterhouse for two with three sides.

The steaks, he said, are wet-aged for 21 days before being dry-aged for another 60.

Red Fox also runs specials seven days a week, he said.

"We run an app that is between $10 and $15," he said. "Soup for $7. We also run a pasta or chicken special for $20 to $25. We run a fish for about $10 more and we also run a beef special."

The meat special can be wide ranging, he said, from veal to venison to alligator.

"Alligator meat has become an elegant meat and it isn't very expensive for those who know how to use it, really use it," Cecunjanin said.

His personal favorite, he said, is the 14-ounce New York strip steak.

"It's has the perfect amount of marbling on it, not too fatty, not too lean," he said.

He said when the cooks prepare the steaks, they cook with French butter, which gives the steak more moisture.

Aside from salt and pepper and butter, nothing else is used to flavor the steaks, he said, though the restaurant does offer a choice of house- made signature steak sauces, either béarnaise, peppercorn cognac, Gorgonzola, or horseradish cream.

The New York strip isn't just Cecunjanin's favorite, it is also the biggest seller at the restaurant, he said.

"The biggest selling fish we carry is the branzino," he said. "It's a filet with a saffron risotto and cherry tomatoes. It gets garnished with organic arugula."

The branzino sells for $35 and the New York strip for $50, but Cecunjanin said you get what you pay for.

"We never cut corners where we charge $3 less and give you a lesser product," he said. "Our plan is completely consistent."

That plan has so far worked out for him and Zumra, he said, as they sold out on their opening weekend and business has only improved since, with reservations filling up at least a week in advance for weekends.

As a steakhouse, not much of the menu rotates seasonally, Cecunjanin said, but they do change out four or five items every four months or so, with desserts rotating every four to five weeks.

"We do classic cocktails and specialty drinks," he said. "We do a four seasonal drink list. Zumra makes drinks for both restaurants. We work as a team."

For coverage of local restaurants, cultural events, music, and an extensive range of Connecticut theater reviews, follow Tim Leininger on Twitter: @Tim_E_Leininger, Facebook: Tim Leininger's Journal Inquirer News page, and Instagram: @One_Mans_Opinion77.