The cafe’s chef Adrian Copaciu cooks a menu item using flaming liquor and the flambe technique.[/caption]Drawing inspiration from Old World Europe for its main entrees and American home cooking for its baked goods and desserts, The Perfect Cafe offers its owners’ personal takes on two styles of cuisine.
Co-owners Sandy Clodfelter and Stella Stoenescu share a passion for cooking. Clodfelter, a Fort Worth native, and Stoenescu, who came to the United States from Romania in 1980, have known each other for more than 20 years and have spent much of that time in business together.
The pair’s first enterprise was a coffee shop, The Perfect Cup, on Bammel North Houston Road. They opened the shop in 1997. After 10 years at that location, the duo decided to relocate to an area more amenable to the cafe and chose Cutten Drive for its pleasant atmosphere and location near many of their regular clients.
“We treat them like family, and they treat us like family,” Clodfelter said.
Stoenescu focuses on the entrees, which she devises with the help of their chef, Adrian Copaciu, who is also from Romania. Stoenescu describes Romanian food as “a mixture of French and Italian,” and her own dishes are influenced by her experiences in her father’s restaurant, where Italian, Polish and German cuisines mingled with Romanian spices.
Stoenescu’s stuffed-cabbage dish includes three meats—beef, pork and lamb—seasoned with spices, stuffed in cabbage and served with a side of homemade sauerkraut.
“We have so many regular people that come, you have to have something different,” she said.
Chicken piccata flavored with lemon and capers, chicken tetrazzini, homemade soups and sole fish are all popular dishes, Clodfelter said.
The meat and produce are picked by hand from suppliers. In addition to offering breakfast, brunch and lunch, the cafe recently added Friday and Saturday night dinners.
The cafe offers a variety of European cuisine, like German-inspired sausages with peppers.[/caption]Clodfelter credits her mother-in-law for teaching her the secret to making crust. She puts her talents to work on pies, bread pudding, quiche and other baked goods.
Years later, as the mother of a high school Future Farmers of America student, she was frequently called upon for her pie-making skills for the group’s events and auctions.
Stoenescu’s father instilled a love of cooking in her at a young age.
Raspberry cake is a popular dessert at the cafe.[/caption]“He would make it fun for me,” she said. “He would tell me a story—it was always a story with cooking involved, and I was attracted to stay and listen until the end.”
The owners and chef are joined by a wait staff of Yenci Carmona and Stoenescu’s daughter-in-law, Jennifer Hardin.
Carmona said her favorite offerings at the cafe are sole with lemon-caper sauce and the verte salad.
“She spoils me,” Carmona said. “I eat other places, and it’s not like Stella’s—nothing like Stella’s.”
