Moto 4.0 Chicago

Jay Jacobs, the former New York restaurant critic for Gourmet, wrote of what he termed the “home-field advantage.” As applies to dining, it is the “Cheers” phenomenon, the place where everyone knows your name. And an advantage is to be had. These restaurants provide social comfort and the assurance that any problem will quickly be set right. My upscale Chicago go-to place is Moto. Moto is where I bring friends whom I really wish to impress with the possibility of cuisine

Dining at Moto is not for everyone, and perhaps is not for many. A diner who wants to stick a toe in molecular cuisine should choose the snappy and accessible Butter. But Moto provides an unforgettable and joyous evening. And, unlike so many other establishments, the entertainment is dancing on the plate and in the twinkling of eyes. I never have so much fun as when I dine on Fulton Market Street. The other grand molecular establishments - Alinea, for one – have a seriousness of purpose, absent at Moto. And, happily for diners, their price points are different (if $300 can be differentiated from $400 for the full show – less expensive for smaller menus).

Chef Cantu’s problem – or perhaps it is our problem – is that at times he seems constrained by his techniques. One feels that he has set his challenge as what dish can he make using one of his Tom Swift toys, rather than beginning with the conception of the dish and then discovering the method. Some dishes were spectacular creations, but others were modified versions of previous efforts. We were served an edible menu, dippin’ dots, nitrogenated fruit, fish cooked in a box, pizza and salad soup, liquefied Krispie Kremes, packing peanuts - greatest hits, but with the danger of soon becoming same old, same old. At his best, Chef Cantu serves remarkably evocative dishes, but at times his ideas are cramped. And as dearly as I love Moto, his genius does not shine as consistently as Trotter or Achatz. Still Cantu regularly provides a cuisine of amazement, a Cuisine Agape, distinct from what has been labeled as Molecular Cuisine. At least in the West Loop, shock and awe triumphs.

Our group of four decided on the Grand Tasting Menu. This is not the choice that I would have preferred. Once one knows the range of Chef Cantu’s abilities, he seems more accomplished working on the larger plates of the five-course menu. However, my three companions were Moto-virgins, and we selected the twenty course tour.

Moto (and other similar outposts) does not make a course-by-course evaluation easy. The menu is designed to misdirect diners: “ITALIAN food” (the pizza and the Caesar salad soup); “Chili-Cheese Nachos” (the final Ben Roche dessert with frozen mango, milk chocolate, diced kiwis and candied tortilla chips); and “Synthetic Champagne” (apple cider and verjus). The servers announce the ingredients, but in the rush, this scribe could not inscribe the complexity of the dish.

Although I didn’t realize it at the time (and although I would have enjoyed the hefty version on the five course menu), the dish that I best recall is “Rabbit and Aromatic Utensils” (utensils with a sage tassel). The dish was served with several preparation of rabbit, scarlet runner beans, white truffle power, and puffed rice. The serving was too small for its intensity, but it was a brilliant combination. A second astonishing dish was Maple Squash Cake – a squash soufflé with maple flakes and cider sauce and diced bacon. It was one of the most complete and integrated dishes I have enjoyed at Moto. The “main course,” a perfectly cooked Lamb Chop with stone-ground mustard, braised cabbage and ground kielbasa, revealed Chef Cantu’s skills in a recognizably traditional preparation, Passion Fruit and Crab, perhaps owing something to Wylie Dufresne’s attempt to create noodles of everything, was remarkable with a surprising, herbal Japanese shiso sauce and buttered popcorn puree. The Hamachi and Nitrogenated Orange worked as well – or perhaps better – than when the citrus was paired with lobster, and the Bass baked tableside had a lovely paprika smokiness. The Chili-Cheese Nachos, although a conceit, was the most impressive of the five desserts.

I find Chef Cantu’s ice creams are less appealing; the least stirring dish was Jalapeno ice cream, too salty, served with toasted quinoa. The goat cheese snow with balsamic vinegar was quickly passed over. Tonight’s doughnut soup was bubbly. I preferred the velvety version I was served at my first meal.

At the first dinner (our seven-and-a-half hour banquet referred to in Time), I commented on the wonder of the wine pairing. Since then, Moto has a new wine director, Matthew Gundlach, and I had been less impressed with the pairings, but tonight was splendid. The vintage Quebec beer (Unibroue 2005, Chambly) was eye-opening. Also notable was a 2004 August Kesseler Spatlese Riesling Rheingau, a 2004 Huia Pinot from New Zealand, and a honeyed Austrian Meinklang 2001 Trockenbeeren. We quaffed memorable dozen with only a single unimpressive pour (a 2001 Susana Balbo Brioso Mendoza). The Martini library, a set of colorful cocktails served in plastic pipettes, was an odd, giggly curiosity.

Like other diners, we were given a tour of the kitchen. Let me confess my misgivings. My guests (and I) welcomed meeting with Chef Cantu. However, this was an attempt to make the backstage a performance. Wearing goggles (and being warned not to remove them), we were to be wowed by technology. Yes, this was a memorable break, but perhaps distracted from the fact that we were there to eat and perhaps distracted the staff who were there to cook. This tension between cuisine and technology is the line that Chef Cantu must tread carefully.

Moto is a restaurant to treasure and to revisit. When I wish to persuade friends that some meals will never be forgotten this is where I take them. There are many worse things than to be known as the man from Moto.

Moto Restaurant
945 W. Fulton Market
Chicago (West Loop)
312-491-0058
[url]www.motorestaurant.com[/url]

Martini Library

Edible Menu

Tasmanian Salmon, Daikon and Yuzu

Italian Food (Pizza and Caesar Salad Soup)

Maple Squash Cake

Synthetic Champagne

Goat Cheese Snow and Balsamic Vinegar

Hamachi and Orange

Passion Fruit and Crab

Fall Fruits and Aged Sherry

Baking Bass Tableside

Bass Baked Tableside and Eggplant

Rabbit (with Aromatic Utensils, not shown)

Jalapeno, Cilantro and Avocado

Quail and Persimmon (with Splatted Sauce)

Lamb with Kielbasa

Mac and Cheese (Lychee pasta)

3 Cotton Candy Stages

Flapjacks Prepared Tableside

Peanut Butter and Jelly

Banana Split Deconstructed

Doughnut Soup and Pancakes

Chili-Cheese Nachos

Chefly Politics Chicago Copperblue

When chefs imagine themselves politicos, watch out. Bad enough that Arnold, Rosie, Mel, Barbra and Tom are on our case, but Grant and Charlie? Entering the new Streeterville restaurant, Copperblue, one finds - where mints are often stationed - a bowl of campaign buttons, advertising Chef Michael Tsonton's belief that Chicago's foie gras ban should be overturned, and Alderman Joe Moore, up there with Kim Jung Il on the axis of evil, should be routed in our municipal elections. Chef Tsonton serves "‘it isn't foie gras any Moore' duck liver terrine with pomegranate jelly, warm sweet pepper salad, cinnamon vinaigrette, and country bread," a concoction that reads as unappealing as Moore's resolution. We received an invitation to a fund-raiser sponsored Chicago Chefs for Choice to help defeat the bad guy Moore (November 17th: www.dongordon.org/contact_rsvp.html at Copperblue; $150 per). I had expected that chefs for choice were lobbying for fetuses on the menu, stem cells without the medical middleman.

Not to worry, chef. There still are kittens, tender when stomped as vigorously as if they were Cabernet. Societies (government, religions, ethnic associations) routinely decide collectively what foods are to served and which are to be avoided. That Chicago bans foie gras places liver in the same category as ortolans, absinthe, and the pancreas of supermodels. Food is morality on the plate.

Copperblue, recently opened near Chicago's Navy Pier, has received considerable buzz. The Tribune's Phil Vettel awarded the restaurant three stars, suggesting that foodies place the restaurant their culinary map. For those visiting Navy Pier or the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Copperblue, located in a nearby apartment building, should be on the map. Visitors to the pier were limited to Riva, a seafood house, which provides competently prepared food among the fast food and casual cuisine choices.

The claim that Copperblue is a three-star restaurant did not accord with my recent visit with some friends ($90/person, including cocktails, wine, three courses, tax, and tip). Copperblue is one of the least prepossessing luxe restaurants in town. One can spy the ductwork, not part of Eurostyle industrial decorating, but a result of the obdurate limits of its physical space. The paintings by Cleveland artist Paul Schuster, depicting the theme of "work and play," were pleasant enough in their heartland-friendly style.

Service was fully competent, although I was startled by how casually the waitstaff were outfitted. Stuffy they were not. For a mid-range restaurant one could not complain about shirts not fully tucked and outfits seemingly from the back of the closet, but if Copperblue wishes to compete with nearby Tru or Les Nomades, the staff must appear professional as well as be professional.

And the food. Chef Tsonton (and his chef de cuisine Victor Newgren) revere Mediterranean cuisine, the flavors of Iberia, the Midi, and the Casbah. Even when I enjoyed the creations, I felt that a bit more plagiarism might have sparked the plate. Tsonton and Newgren divide the appetizer and entree menus into "work" and "play." It is difficult to ascertain their division - or for the server to explain it. Dishes closer to a molecular, modernist cuisine seem to be considered play. But lamb kidneys in alfalfa with mustard cream is "work" while a "simple salad with a warm oven roasted fall vegetable ‘crepenette'" is play. The best predictor of whether a dish was work or play was whether an ingredient was in quotation marks (a nasty little habit I blame on Thomas Keller). No dish in the work category used quotation marks, but all but one in the play category did, including the unhappy "it isn't foie gras any Moore." Punctuation has replaced gustatory vision.

As appetizer, my wife selected the season's soup, cream of artichoke (work), I chose "Smoked Squid-Scallop mousse ravioli, walnut gelée, Tellicherry pepper cream" (play), and a friend opted for "‘ham & these' crispy saffron and Spanish ham rice croquettes with sofrito fondue" (play). [Sofrito is vegetable accompaniment, a Spanish cross between mirapoix and salsa]. The artichoke soup (with a soupcon of sofrito) was righteously smooth and intense. Creating silky cream soup is a skill that every fine chef must have, and Tsonton and Newgren do. While this was not the season that smoky artichokes are available at the farmer's market, it brought playful smiles all around. The ravioli was the highpoint of the meal. I loved how the squid mousse added a pungency to the mild scallop. Instead of sweet'n'sour, this was subtle'n'ardent. The plate was petite, more a tease in a ten course tasting menu than a main appetizer, but the artistry was evident. In contrast the croquettes, perched on thin rounds of apple, were pedestrian. Far more generous than the ravioli, my companion felt no desire to clean her plate, and I, the recipient of a croq, had no desire to help. The ham wasn't intense, and what the "heck" is "ham & these," a pun without flavor.

Entrees consisted of "ragout of lamb confit, artichokes, grilled fennel, fennel puree and sweet wine vinegar" (work) and "organic duck 2-ways: duck leg spice ‘ras el hanout,' roasted duck breast, candied cauliflower, kabocha squash, and vanilla-lemon balm vinegar foam" (play). Surprisingly Chef Tsonton had removed his signature "lobster poached in butter and rue with herb-filled whitefish roulade and warm caviar gelée." That a new restaurant would excise a dish that had been receiving glowing evaluations seemed a strange choice. The lamb was a study of browns and greys, lacking in eye-appeal. Might this be what Chef Tsonton means by work? But the taste was pleasing throughout. I admired the play of fennel "two-ways" with the rich lamb. Perhaps work referred to the beige food, but not the flavor.

The duck leg was another highpoint, crisp and redolent of the souk. Spices might have been more intense, but the duck made the plate alive. In contrast to the leg, the duck breast was unmemorable (as were several crescents of Kabocha squash), sweetened by the joyously candied cauliflower. Today the claim to serve foam has such cachet that chefs claim it, even when a light sauce lacks foamy bubbles. Vanilla-lemon balm vinegar foam falls beneath its own verbiage, more oddity than accomplishment.

The taste that I had of the "Mediterranean spearfish," poached with "popeye" olive oil [get control, chef] with piperade (Basque sofrito?), and warm spinach soup didn't impel me to try a second; it too was left unfinished.

Desserts proved disappointing, neither was finished. "Hazelnut Milk Chocolate Cream with Espresso Cake, Cappuccino Ice Cream, and Cinnamon Syrup" might have kept one up all night, but not because of delighted memories. It was bakery-average. "The Bosc" - a vanilla and Chardonnay poached pear with brown butter cream, puff pastry with amaretto ice cream was more successful, even if the puff pastry didn't measure up. Desserts seem an afterthought at Copperblue with the exception of the closing amuse, a nifty coconut tapioca pudding with chocolate crisp, more compelling than its sibs.

Copperblue has the virtue of location. When attending Shakespeare or an art fair at Navy Pier, Chef Tsonton's cuisine deserves consideration. Several dishes were compelling and delightful. The restaurant is worthy of two stars with its two-star prices. It is a notable new restaurant. But in its current incarnation, the restaurant seems unwilling or unable to be a premier restaurant (and here, of course, the price point matters). Perhaps Chef Tsonton is distracted by the politics of his larder, slighting the aesthetics of our plates.

Copperblue
580 East Illinois
Chicago (Streeterville)
312-527-1200
www.copperbluechicago.com

North Chicago -- Sanford Restaurant

As I frequently announce, my favorite Chicago restaurant is to be found in Milwaukee (perhaps I exaggerate, but only slightly). Sanford, the eponymous restaurant of Chef Sanford D'Amico is a gem, benefitting from its relative absence of the glare of national publicity. (It did make Gourmet magazine's list of the Top 50 American restaurants). Since 1989, Sandy D'Amico has been turning out complex, thrilling dishes in a room that is quiet and sedate. Sanford is a restaurant that doesn't feel the need to hire Norman Foster to design their toilets. After meals at Moto, Alinea, or Avenues, Sanford may seem a bit old-fashioned, but fashion is not always what it is cracked up to be. Sanford's dishes have more in common with those of Trotter, a thoughtful global cuisine, but with a penchant for game (a delightfully undercooked chargrilled loin of elk was on the menu).

My friends and I ordered from the menu (declining the seven course tasting menu at $85; most main courses at Sanford are priced in the low $30s).

My appetizer will surely make my list of the top ten dishes of the year, Lacquered Squab with Salt Cured Foie Gras, Candied Leeks, Rhubarb Compote and Maple Gel. Just like Chicago in an alternative universe that lacks a Councilman Joe Moore. As good as the slightly salted duck liver was, the squab, with its Chinese taste notes, was even better. Although the dish had a sweetness, the sugar was never overpowering. Diners may believe that they love a stark cuisine, but a little bit of maple is a joy. While I sometimes complain about excess complexity, on this plate, all the ingredients combined in exquisite harmony.

To complete the theater of culinary cruelty, only veal can match foie gras. (Once we win the battle of moulard, let us celebrate with some ortolans.) I selected Chargrilled Loin of Strauss Veal with 17 Hour Veal Breast, Crispy Onion Potatoes, Tart Apple and Endive. And no, the veal wasn't slaughtered 17 hours after its birth, that refers to the slow cooking, capturing the essential juices of meat. Here was another excellent dish that reveled in its complexity. The veal was splendid, and the accompaniments added much to each bite. The weakness of the plate was in the chef's generosity in providing accompaniments, which lacked poetry apart from the meat.

Dessert was a richly adequate Banana Butterscotch Toffee Tart with Banana Rum Ice Cream. It was precisely what one might imagine from the description. Very pretty, but more at home at a restaurant with a less creative vision. Chef D'Amico has just opened a high-end Bakery in downtown Milwaukee (Harlequin Bakery) and the dessert seemed not all that different from a tart one might purchase from an excellent public bakery.

On the basis of this recent visit Sanford D'Amico shows no sign of slowing down. His dishes seem neither stale or trendy. Perhaps being head chef in a one-veal town allows one to escape the harsh, hot spotlight of the national gourmet maw. And we Chicagoans like that just fine.

Sanford
1547 North Jackson Street
Milwaukee
414-276-9608
http://www.sanfordrestaurant.com

Butter Battle Chicago Review Butter

Three years ago molecular cuisine was but a gleam in the eye of some odd visionaries. Here and there (often here, this being Chicago) was a Grant Achatz, a Homeru Cantu, a Graham Bowles, and at a distance Ferran Adria. These Americans learned from the kitchens of Keller and Trotter (and some stages abroad), but they were creating a singular and off-kilter style in their fits and starts. They were building a new paradigm, just as the eminent historian of science Thomas Kuhn suggested was true for Newton.

Over time - and time shrinks in our media saturated era - the word spreads. Outrageous experiments are tamed and become normal cuisine. The opening of Butter in Chicago reveals, if any additional proof is needed, that the molecular virus is spreading beyond its medicinal quarters.

Butter is a sedate, contemporary, and rather elegant restaurant in Chicago's up-and-coming West Loop area. If local avenues are not yet bustling, they will be. After what was a considered a rough start (with some glowing if not overly helpful publicity in Esquire), Chef Ryan Poli, a native Chicagoan trained at the French Laundry, Le Francais, and La Broche in Madrid, has by recent accounts found his place, and perhaps that place is to be in the spotlight. When it became clear that our table had some claim to culinary sophistication, we were invited into the kitchen to meet the chef (the restaurant was about half filled on this Friday). In my year in New York, such an invitation was a rarity, outside of a few chummy West African establishments. Servers might be trained to avoid patronizing their diners, so they won't be so startled if those at the table are not the farm-fed rubes they might imagine.

I won't proclaim our tasting menu as among the truly stellar meals of the year, but it was an impressive attempt to create a menu that bowed to the creativity of a Cuisine Agape while providing enough Midwest Comfort for those who do not chose to indulge in the aromas of laughing gas. I left persuaded that if high-mid price restaurants like Butter were willing to chance avocado foam and bacon ice cream the experiment had become the establishment. (The five course tasting menu was, if memory serves, $85).

We began with a trio of snacks. Shrimp crisps, potato chips, and popcorn with truffle oil. The popcorn was terrific, stressing that truffles are to be treasured for their aroma, not for their taste, much less for texture. Any film would be recalled as a classic with enough of that corn. The other snacks, adequate, were perhaps not worth the time in preparation.

Our amuse was a quite pleasant sweet potato soup with a brown butter gelee. I wished that even in the small taste Chef Poli had ladled more gelee. It just slipped right down. If the amuse was not as elaborate as some, it did demonstrate that this was a restaurant whose jellied hopes were real.

First course was Tuna Tartare with Avocado, Mango-Yuzu Vinaigrette, and Puffed Rice. If the dish seemed tame if rich in Omega-3s, its pleasures should not be held against this chef. In its architecture, the plate bid us recall that we were experiencing a measured construction. The Mango-Yuzu dressing was sparky, enough to insure that no one would conclude that this tartare was sushi in disguise.



The risotto, bolstered with sweet corn, white truffle oil, and shaved summer truffles, was an exercise in aromatic pleasure. I would have been as pleased without the shaved fungi, but its thin presence demonstrated that the dish was what it claimed for those blessed anosmics. For the rest of us smellers the oil would have sufficed. Perhaps by so much truffle Chef Poli wished to demonstrate his concrete commitment to luxe, but simplicity would suffice.



The main fish course was a Stripped Sea Bass (with modern chefs one should never assume typos - but this striped bass was not stripped of its skin). Notable was the earthy mix of "wild mushrooms": hen of the woods, trumpet mushrooms, and - despite the claim of the kitchen - cultivated shiitakes. Many fish dishes over the years will be recalled longer than this bass - stripped or striped. Yet, the well-cooked fish matched nicely its garlicky broth, garlic scapes (not a typo), and gnocchi. Well-conceived and well-executed it suggested that the kitchen was in secure hands.



As our beef entree we were presented Kobe Beef Sirloin with Glazed Turnips and Carrots, Kobe Short Rib Ravioli, and Bordelaise Consommé. The ravioli brought the plate (slightly) above Kobe routine, but it was not a dish of remarkable vision. Like the bass, it was admirable in its competence, but lacking in the imaginative zest that one might expect from a FL-trained chef.



Throughout we were served a set of amuses, amusing, but apparently Alinea homages. The bacon ice cream exemplified cute standards of molecular cuisine, as did an earlier plate with avocado-cilantro foam, celery confit, and "guacamole and chips". It was in these bits and pieces and in his dessert that Chef Poli most clearly signaled his allegiance to a post-modern cuisine.

Dessert was an Italian deconstruction, a fugue of reds and greens - the most post-modern of the main dishes: Cream of Sicilian Pistachio with Semi-Candied Rhubarb and Strawberries and Sweet and Sour Red Pepper Sorbet. The plate was lite up like a Christmas tree in a Curry Hill diner. The pepper sorbet had the grassy tartness of peppers, but one that I found harsh against the creamy sweetness of the nuts and fruits. Where sweetness was, I was sated, but the deconstructed pieces could not easily be constructed, despite the prettiness of the conceit.



Butter finds a niche slightly below the temples of Chicago cuisine, and this may be proper as Chef Poli weighs his allegiance to Midwestern haute cuisine and to his outrageous brethren. Butter is not yet a destination restaurant, but it is a serious, energetic one. With time, Swanson may produce molecular TV dinners. By then we can think back to Butter and realize that chefs like Ryan Poli helped make these culinary test less fearful, more heartland. Whether we will be grateful as we wolf down Puffed Salisbury Steak with Mashed Potato Foam and Nitrogenated Peas while ogling Rachel Ray staging on Survivor: Joliet, only time will tell.

Butter
130 South Green
Chicago (West Loop)
312-666-9813
www.butterchicago.com

Will the Frog & Owl Be Reborn? Oak Street Grill, Highlands, NC

About thirty years a young chef - along with her husband - opened a restaurant on the back road between Highlands and Franklin, North Carolina. The restaurant, the Frog and Owl Café, owed a lot to Alice Waters and her revolutionary tradition. The young chef, Jerri Broyles, was clearly learning from Ms. Waters. The F&O was Chez Panisse without the heavy weight of Alice's ideological baggage. And I preferred the Frog and Owl to its Berkeley progenitor. Jerri cooked simply and elegantly, a minimalist cuisine. Each dish had a few herbs or spices to show the master's hand, but it was a pure as a western Carolina spring. My in-laws own a home in the region, and my wife and I made the pilgrimage to the F&O each year. The dozen or so meals that I ate persuaded me that the Frog and Owl Café was among the ten best restaurants in the United States. I have never eaten a better meal in the former Confederacy. (Macon County had designs on seceding from the Confederacy. These mountain communities had little sympathy for the plantation economy of the rest of the south). Her lamb rack and her trout in a court bouillon were definitive. The fact that the restaurant was located in a former grist mill along a serene stream certainly contributed, but I would have appreciated her cuisine if it had been located in an old paint factory along Greenpoint's Newtown Creek.

I imagined that a meal with Chef Broyles would be a part of my life for eternity. However, in the early 1990s, the Frog and Owl was shuttered, and I shattered. Whether because of a busted septic tank or the challenges of raising a family, Chef Broyles opened a lunch place - the Frog and Owl Bistro in Franklin, the local county seat, about dozen miles from nirvana. The food, lunches only most years, reflected a cuisine than most chefs could prepare. Salads and simple preparations. It was as if Heifetz decided to play bar mitzvahs. Yes, the Bistro was the best restaurant in Franklin, but that is rather like saying that Applebee's is the finest restaurant on the way to the airport. Every time I ate there, I cried.

However, Jerri is back, at least part way. As of last year, she is no longer involved in the Bistro, and is now cooking at the Oak Street Café in Highlands (although she is not the proprietor). The OSC is a nice, casual restaurant with touches of inspiration. One can see Chef Broyles' hand, even if the restaurant is not yet sufficiently serious as to deserve a long detour. Some friends and I ate brunch there. I was particularly impressed by a friend's trout in court bouillon served over curls of carrots. It was perfectly cooked and the carrots spoke of a sense of balance. My low-country shrimp, served over creamy cheese grits, was an excellent dish - moist and buttery, and prettily presented with a richly flavored seafood sauce. I have been eating at the OSC grill for some years, and the step up is welcome. The restaurant is too casual for fine dining and the prices too modest (and I imagine the kitchen staff too small).

When I returned for dinner, I was less impressed. The appetizer was first rate, Fried Green Tomatoes with Goat Cheese slices, Shoestring Beets and a lively horseradish tomato sauce. It was a nice and attractive twist on a southern classic, a plate most often found in Fannie Flagg's roadside cafes.

The main courses were less successful, and both deviated from the purity of the preparations at the Frog and Owl. A rack of lamb in a minted demi-glaze ($29) sounded fine, until the dish appeared. The lamb, somewhat overcooked, was sitting in an overly sweet minty gravy-soup, served with some colorful but uninspiring broccoli florets and overcooked squash. The garlic mashed potatoes were fresh and pungent.

The main course special was pan-seared scallops with a prima vera angel hair pasta, mushrooms, tomatoes, spinach and squash ($22). Too much, too much. The dish consisted of some sweet (but still rather gritty) scallops atop what can only be described as a mash of pasta and vegetables. As at many middle-brow outposts, quantity overwhelmed quality.

If brunch is an indication, Oak Street Café will be a nice local addition; if dinner is the model, Chef Broyles has not yet regained her touch. However, the Frog and Owl Café was so splendid that one can only hope that next year will increase the care and vision revealed in the evening entrees.

Currently the high-end restaurant in Highlands, a resort community in the southern Appalachians, is a hotel restaurant named Madison's (part of the renovated Old Edwards Inn), a restaurant with New York pretensions and New York prices. This is a restaurant that serves, as appetizer, "Peanut Dusted Breast of Quail with Seared Foie Gras, Vanilla Braised Cabbage, and Blueberry Scented Duck Essence ($19.00, mains run to twice that). Had I not eaten there (last year), I might have assumed that this was a parody. But it is real, and as misguided as might be imagined. You can't construct a menu by placing gourmet magazine in a blender.

Oak Street Café
322 Main Street
Highlands, North Carolina
828-787-2200

Madison's
Old Edwards Inn
445 Main Street
Highlands, North Carolina
828-526-5477