Photograph by Katherine Bish
Eclipse
6177 Delmar
University City/Loop
314-726-2222
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner daily; bar until 3 a.m.
Average Main Course: $22
Dress: Nattily, with just a dash of panache
Reservations: Suggested, especially during full moons
Chefs: Maurice Reed, Wes Johnson, Brendan Noonan
W e know. To some, the Loop is very hip; to others, a smug, faux-Bohemian, second-rate Greenwich Village knockoff. That said, the neighborhood’s produced some remarkable eateries. Among the newest and most enjoyable: Eclipse, anchoring the first floor of the new, pleasantly luxurious Moonrise Hotel at the corner of Skinker and Delmar boulevards. Eclipse is a handsome place, open and spacious inside. The moon theme is expressed in a ’50s version of the future just this side of kitsch. “Retro-futuristic” chairs are campy chic: Harry Bertoia meets The Jetsons. Décor includes shelves of lunar-related tchotchkes like Buck Rogers space guns: Think NASA Casual. A large bar is at sufficient remove from the dining area that it doesn’t distract; a comfortable lounge accommodates hotel guests and diners waiting for a table. Noise levels are civilized. Tables and booths are widely separated. Big windows afford a view of the passing parade of the self-consciously pas du tout sérieux, whose natural habitat is the Loop.
Eclipse’s menu is compact, and offerings rotate regularly. Even so, there probably isn’t a single main course or appetizer you won’t want to try. Few decisions are regrettable. Crab-cake appetizers, even good ones, are often monotonous. Here, the take is different and delicious. Dense, compact French bread replaces any crumb binding. The bread is wrapped around thick, meaty chunks of blue crab, dressed lightly with a pungent basil remoulade—it’s more like eating a crab sandwich than a cake. A bourbon-spiked tomato sauce kicks up “Old Fitz” (as in Old Fitzgerald) mini sloppy Joes. The jalapeño- and garlic-infused butter adds another dimension to crispy-gold fried squid, flecked with salt and pepper. Shavings of licorice-spiced fennel are tumbled with salty olives and slivers of fresh pears and topped with a spritz of lemon and white balsamic vinaigrette, making for a refreshing salad, an exceptional combination of taste and texture that could have been improved only with a few more olives to enliven the contrast. Another salad, of chopped lettuce topped with cubes of grilled chicken, bacon shards, hard-boiled eggs, tomatoes, red onions, and blue cheese, is almost a meal itself and is nicely shared. There’s a soupe du jour. Whatever the jour, the soup has to be better than the regular menu’s caramelized onion soup. Not even the splash of sherry could save it, the broth watery, onions more boiled than caramelized.
Selections on the main-course menu are all tempting. A “lobster pot pie” catches the eye. The dish tends to the stewish side, with big chunks of knuckle and claw meat along with diced cubes of potatoes and sweet peas, stirred in a rich, glossy, bisquelike broth, perfumed with brandy. A pair of puff-pastry crescent moons suffice as a crust. Served in a big tureen, it all looks as good as it tastes. There’s a fresh fish of the day; appearing regularly is a trout, planked and roasted, the skin crackly and salty, the meat moist and sweet and fragrant with cedar. There are usually several beef dishes offered. On our visit, it was a dry-aged rib-eye, grilled and served with fries, and a tenderloin, smothered in a cabernet glacé with whipped potatoes.
Malfatti are an acquired taste. The homely stepsister of gnocchi—malfatti translates as “badly made”—these are nubbins of roughly rolled spinach and ricotta, pan-fried with olive oil and garlic, topped with a puddle of ricotta. The waiter warns that some will find them too doughy. They’re not. They are tender, just chewy, full of flavor and like us, brutti ma buoni: ugly but good.
Slathered in butter before its date with the oven, a chicken breast emerges, its skin crispy golden, the meat’s juices flavoring every bite. The breast sits atop a creamy mound of lemon-scented risotto swirled with mascarpone cheese, beside a spray of perfectly roasted asparagus tips. A pork chop Normandy here is splendid: the bone-in chop, 2 inches thick, is first marinated in cider, then cooked and slathered in a cream sauce spiked with Calvados and black pepper. A side of fried apples is a perfectly natural accompaniment. The pork was cooked to just a sunset pink, as it should be, reflecting the growing acceptance (finally) that pork need not be reduced to dusty dry to be edible.
Having your own pastry chef rarely hurts a restaurant. Here, some extraordinary desserts emerge: a blondie sundae, with chocolate ice cream atop a light brownie, adorned with fine chocolate wings to give it flight. Consider the trifle stuffed with fresh berries. You may as well go with the whole lunar theme and have the full moon marshmallow pie: house-made marshmallows are topped with chocolate ganache smeared on a graham-cracker crust, your assurance of a rocket blast of a day’s worth of essential sugars.
Comprehensive and refreshingly, happily affordable, there is nothing at all lacking in the wine list here. (The restaurant’s GM, Chad George, is a certified sommelier.) The justly celebrated Four Vines Naked chardonnay is unoaked, and its crisp, flinty chill goes great with the seafood. Merryvale’s ’06 Starmont cabernet sauvignon, on the other hand, has spent so much time in oak that squirrels sip it with acorns. You’ll find it goes almost as well with the pork and beef. Two cocktails here are worth mentioning: a Pimm’s Cup, the standard libation of the Henley regatta and Wimbledon, and the Sazerac, America’s quintessential cocktail—both welcome antidotes to the silly mixed-drink madness afflicting our land.
Breakfast and lunch, incidentally, are served at Eclipse, and there’s a late-night menu that includes salted and peppered fries drizzled with truffle oil and an aioli dip that could be worth staying up for. And don’t forget the rooftop terrace bar for an après drink and what must be the most appropriate place around for moon-gazing.
Bottom Line: Solid, bistro-type fare in a thematic, attractive setting.
