|
|
Welcome to Savannah, America's Most Beautiful City
|
|
|
|
By Cima Star |
|
|
|
No restaurant in recent years has evoked as much attention as Café 37. All Savannah, it seems, knows about it, or talks about it, or has been there. Opened just for lunch almost a year ago, this tiny eatery has garnered an almost iconic reputation. It’s definitely the only place I know of in these tough economic times, where they’re booked up for dinner a week in advance. Late last fall they launched dinner hours Friday and Saturday nights and recently they added Thursdays.
Chef/owner Blake Elsinghorst not only knows how to wield magic in his kitchen, but exhibits savvy business sense. In a place this small (no more than two dozen table tops, plus maybe room for three or four to eat at the tiny bar), you pretty much have to turn your tops at least twice to make a profit. The food itself is eclectic, with a lot of French technique and French names for most dishes, although the results are pretty distant cousins of French cuisine. Elsinghorst attended SCAD, then went to France, where he studied at a French culinary school and worked at French restaurants for a few years, before returning home to Savannah to open his restaurant. Friday and Saturday nights, the menu offers a small selection of entrees, plus a handful of appetizers, salads and deserts. Thursday nights about eight “Small plates” are offered. Two of us went on a recent Thursday night. We started off sharing the Salade au Canard. This proved to be a small leg of confit over mixed greens, tossed with a delicious Sheeps Blue Cheese, two tiny pickled beets and one candied walnut with a whole grain mustard vinaigrette. The greens were crisp and fresh, the blue cheese mild and mellow, the beets sweetly tangy, and the walnut sweetly crunchy. For our next courses, my companion chose a Coquille St. Jacques, and I picked the seared Foie Gras de Canard. About the only resemblance between this Coquille St. Jacques and the French dish for which it is named, was the scallop, a big, fat, sweetly tender Diver scallop. Coquille is traditionally cooked in a sauce of butter, flour, milk, egg yolks, cream, white wine and shallots, often with mushrooms as well as scallops. Here, the scallop is served over cous cous, with a curried coconut milk and Raita slaw. Usually, the Indian dish, Raita, is composed of a mixture of diced cucumber, tomatoes, mint leaves, cumin and yogurt. Here, we have the coconut milk mixture over a slaw of Napa cabbage. It’s a very delicate and tasty dish, although the seasoning is so subtle, you could almost miss the curry flavor and if there were any mint or cumin, it wasn’t discernable. My Foie Gras de Canard proved to be a fairly classic duck liver, served with a Cider Thyme reduction over a small slice of Tarte Tatin made from a Pink Lady apple and Calvados. The pate was luxuriously silken, the tarte a delicious crunch. I’ve heard such raves about it, that next time I’ll have to try the Oyster Stew, made from my idea of the world’s best oysters, those from Bluffton. True Southern fare! Everything on the menu sounds intriguing. But the “small plates,” so rightly popular around town (I hate leaving half my food and I’m not crazy about To-Go bags either) are the smallest I’ve seen. Mini-small plates, I’d say. The eclectic menu also included an all-American sounding dish of short ribs, and a Spanish-sounding Charcuterie. The lunch menu features a small but excellent selection of breakfast and lunch dishes, including a truly fabulous pork confit sandwich and a fine Caesar Salad with homemade sour-dough croutons and delicate white anchovies. -- CS
Questions? Comments? Email Editor@SavannahBest.com.
Cafe 37 |
|
|
|
| previous | HOME | Cima Star, 2007-2009 |