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Classic French sophisticate delights
Kathleen O'Gorman
Ann Arbor's venerable Earle restaurant, a cellar-level downtown staple known for its happy-hour mussels and country French and Italian cuisine, has branched out, moving uptown, upstairs and upscale with the birth in mid-July of its sister, the Earle Uptown.
Sis is definitely no tomboy. She wears crystal chandeliers and an ambience suggestive of a Paris salon. Located on the main floor of the boutique Bell Tower Hotel across from Hill Auditorium and near the University of Michigan's central campus, the Earle Uptown fills a spot once occupied by another French restaurant, Escoffier, which closed in 2002.
Earle Uptown owners Dennis and Mary Lou Webster saw their chance to establish a beachhead in the campus theater district. They overhauled the kitchen and freshened up the decor of the 90-seat dining room. Once you taste what the new kitchen produces, however, you won't care about the comfy new chairs or cool touches like potted orchids and ceramic pepper and salt mills on every table. Your attention will be riveted to your plate.
Chef Shelley Caughey Adams says her aim was to interpret classical French cuisine according to her tastes, budget and the availability of ingredients. Everything that can be is made on the premises.
Adams is a Culinary Institute of America graduate and has worked for the Earle since 1984. She also had stints under legendary Detroit chefs Ed Janos at the Money Tree and Jimmy Schmidt at the London Chop House.
The current menu, labeled summer 2003, is heavy on the French nomenclature, but there are English subtitles. Best of all, the waitstaff seems well coached in the fine points and provides very solicitous service.
We sampled two of the half-dozen hors d'oeuvres and loved the incredibly moist crab cakes ($12) with a lush roasted red pepper and basil sauce. Throwing caution and our cholesterol counter to the wind, we also ordered the pate assortment ($18). Tasting the three -- duck, chicken liver with pork and chicken liver -- in succession was interesting. The first two are very different from the third -- coarsely textured and studded with pistachios or hazelnuts. But it's a lot of pate at one sitting.
The salads were elegant little jewels, expertly dressed. The greens in one were lightly coated with Dijon vinaigrette and topped with julienned celery root ($4). Another consisted of sauteed wild mushrooms, including morels, nestled beside a pile of balsamic-dressed greens ($10).
The heart of the menu lies under the headings "Plat Principaux" (principal dishes) and "La Grillade" (grilled dishes). The latter consists of three prime steaks: 20-ounce porterhouse ($33), 14-ounce New York strip ($29) and 14-ounce Delmonico ($26). We chose the latter two and found them meltingly tender and cooked perfectly to our specifications. Three steak sauces are available -- Roquefort (disappointingly thin), soubise (creamy onion) and horseradish cream. Add-ons such as seared foie gras, grilled shrimp and carmelized shallots are priced from $2 to $12.
The 11 principal dishes are the French-inspired stars, more complex and more classical in design. Tournedos Rossini ($39), for example, consists of two hunks of tender beef tenderloin topped with slices of foie gras and shavings of black truffle. A light Madeira sauce ties everything together. The veal with tiny morels couldn't have been more heavenly -- salty yet sweet.
We wanted to try the loup de mer, a sweet-fleshed sea bass widely served in France. It was unavailable, so we opted for the poached wild salmon ($29). The fish rests in a nice chardonnay beurre blanc laden with wilted basil. A necklace of pretty bay scallops rings the plate. Like the Madeira, the buttery sauce is lighter than you might expect. For a bit of drama, opt for the Chilean sea bass with fennel ($26). It's splashed with Pernod and set ablaze. Opa! -- or ooh-la-la?
Sides include steamed asparagus ($4), sauteed wild mushrooms ($6), leeks with cardamom and cream ($6), pommes frites ($4) and pommes dauphine ($5). The bold leeks will knock your socks off. The skinny pommes frites won't. But the pommes dauphine ($5) -- ah, these are fit for royalty. They're deep-fried croquettes of mashed potatoes mixed with choux pastry (an airy cream puff dough) and seasoned with salt, pepper and nutmeg. About the size of a doughnut hole, they're fabulous and filling.
After such luxurious dining, you may find yourself wanting to demur on dessert. Resist. Even if all you can muster is the trio of sorbets, do it. They're wonderful: tangy lemon, sweetly tart raspberry and mild summery melon. If there's room for more, try the frozen hazelnut souffle, a ramekin of creamy, Frangelico-flavored wonderfulness topped with a hazelnut praline that is so crisp, it dances across your tongue.
The wine list is the creation of sommelier Steve Goldberg, who has worked for the Websters since the late 1970s and whose wine lists have earned awards from Wine Spectator magazine. The Uptown's list is 200 bottles strong, a size limited by storage capacity.
This is destination dining at its best. Excellent food, non-stuffy but attentive atmosphere. We can't wait for the fall, winter and spring menus.
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300 S. Thayer Ann Arbor, MI 48104 (734) 994-0222
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