The presentations stand tall—but the taste is worth the climb
By Dave Lowry
Oh, the stackers. You know them, those restaurants that present each course less as food than as an architectural whimsy—whipped-potato minarets, spiked sprays of flash-fried pasta, crispy fluted tiaras of some weird cracker thingy.
Harvest is a stacker, though not dangerously so. It’s also perhaps the premier local exemplar of real nouvelle cuisine, that dreadfully misinterpreted approach to food that is properly characterized as a passion for local and seasonal excellence, with everything condensed to its essential nature—and not piling a trio of green beans beside a credit card–size fillet of sole and calling it dinner.
Not the least pretentious, the atmosphere at Harvest nevertheless signals that this is a special place as soon as you enter. The interior is handsome, stylish and convivial, from the bright-yellow adobe-like walls to the giant floor tiles. The central dining area is a pleasant blend of soft light and shadow, with tables closely spaced and a cheery fireplace that dominates the room. Even with the hard floors and considerable nightly crowds, noise is not a problem. The feeling in this space is comfortable and a little rustic, like a Provence country kitchen. The service is attentive, organized and timely. The dinnerware is impressive and, aside from the laughably oversized wineglasses, thoughtfully selected. Beautiful wide and deep white service plates display every course to its best advantage.
Appetizers at Harvest are consistently worthy and enjoyable. Bacon and eggs seems unlikely as a starter, but when it’s applewood-smoked bacon slices and a sunny-side-up egg served over a salad of curly, prickly frisée and red onions, it works just fine. A glistening lobe of foie gras is pan-seared to perfection and plopped atop thick brioche toast ($14). (The dried-apricot gastrique sauce in which the foie gras is swirled is inspired; somebody in the kitchen’s got a twisted sense of humor, matching the ruinously rich liver with what is perhaps France’s only fat-free sauce.)
Roasted peppers and cauliflower are puréed into a creamy, smooth soup just touched with the aroma of parsley-infused olive oil and poured into the bowl in an attractive yin-yang pattern. Oysters are offered on a du jour basis as a very fine appetizer. The night we dined, they came from Massachusetts and were fried, with creamed spinach and bacon, which is a civilized preparation. Even better is Harvest’s version of a mignonette, a spicy chili–malt vinegar concoction splattered over the bivalves on their half-shells. As for the “Buffalo style” with blue cheese, this is a ghastly gastronomic sentence to impose upon an oyster; serious eaters will shun it.
Main courses at Harvest all have the taste and presence of the evening’s “special,” as if prepared specifically with you in mind. It’s a rewarding sleight of hand, one of the many attributes that have made this happy restaurant one of the most acclaimed in the region.
The silky texture of the creamed spinach that accompanied a hanger steak almost reduced one diner to tears. The steak itself tests talent at the grill. Without a skilled hand the hanger, or onglet, can be tougher than buying a dryer at Goedeker’s on “the Lard’s Day.” Here the cut is tender, moist and flavorful. A marinated flatiron steak was similarly—and just as rewardingly—grilled, though the sides (a kind of stir-fry presentation of Chinese long beans and baby bok choy) were not as successful. Long beans are so notoriously easy to overcook, they’re sometimes nicknamed ruan-lu in Chinese kitchen slang: “limp green,” which describes their texture here. A cake of fried egg noodles was well meant, but the chewy texture was too close to that of the meat to be complementary.
The sweetness of meaty yo-yo–size sea scallops is brought out with a quick pan searing, after which they are, fortunately, un–fooled with. Crusted golden and buttery, they’re served atop grilled asparagus and a unique potato “strudel,” with riced potatoes and herbs wrapped in phyllo and baked. The texture and aroma are both subtle, highlighting the scallops rather than obscuring them. The dish is completed by a fava-bean emulsion (made famous at the quirky Rock Center Café at Rockefeller Center) and a mound of the beans dressed with verjus. The latter is a sour unfermented juice of not-quite-ripe grapes that’s becoming popular. Less acidic than vinegar, it adds a wine-friendly dimension to food.
A hefty fillet of Atlantic char is treated, as it should be, like salmon. The dense meat and savory skin hold up perfectly to a buttery searing, and the fish is well matched with puréed potatoes rendered particularly luscious by the addition of olive oil and paired with braised escarole and a dried-tomato ragout.
Given the location, once the site of the legendary dessert spot Cyrano’s, desserts at Harvest have a reputation to live up to, and, for the most part, they do. The profiteroles were tasteless, but a grape sorbet was superb, absolutely bursting with the fruit’s flavor, the ice nearly as smooth as ice cream. Inexplicably, bread pudding has its fans, and our very picky expert declared the version here, made with a rich, yeasty brioche, unparalleled.
The wine list is what we wish more e-mails were: concise, thoughtfully prepared and informative. We’d have given our editors apoplexy if we’d ordered the Miner Family Vineyards Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon, priced at $92. Certainly one of the best wines in North America now, it’s like a soft explosion on the palate: intense, with a balance of concentrated, almost cedar-spiked tannins against the softness of black cherries. You will not be disappointed, however, in a more modest Sauvignon Blanc, the very worthy crisp and fruity Honig ’05, or an estimable Syrah, the Ravenswood Icon ’02.
So, yes, Harvest subscribes to the “If you stack it, they will come” approach to dining—but the constructions never detract from an outstanding meal.
Harvest
Address: 1059 S. Big Bend, 314-645-3522
Average Main Course: $22
Reservations: Absolutely
Dress: If you must wear jeans, make sure they're the fancy, dress-up variety
Bottom Line: One of the region's top-notch restaurants, with a constantly changing menu that features imaginative courses and winning ingredients
