The charred and blistered sign out front hints at what the food inside is all about.
Tazé serves fast-casual Mediterranean street fare, and even though the clay oven hails from Asia, it plays a big part here, charring and blistering meats at fierce temps.
Tazé, which means "fresh" in Turkish, recently opened at 8 1/2 S. Euclid in the Central West End (the former Tortillaria Mexican Kitchen) and is an offshoot of its downtown location. To come up with the concept, twin brothers Casey and Justin Roth ditched finance careers and took a lightning tour of Europe, visiting eight or nine different countries in 13 days.
The Mediterranean has always coursed in their blood, Justin says. Childhood trips to Spain introduced them to bullfighting and the gorgeous endlessness of Spanish mealtimes. Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar sparked a taste for the exotic, so much so that Justin ended up marrying a Turkish woman. Deniz, a graphic designer, came up with the Tazé clay oven logo, but thanks to a feisty Turkish grandmother, her heritage has its stamp all over this menu. Justin and Casey do some of the food preparation, along with line cook Glen Kearse and kitchen manager Lisa Lackey.
Here's how it works: Choose between a pita and a bowl of saffron rice, and fill it with chicken or beef from the tandoor; gyro (gluten free and halal) from the spit (chicken pictured at right); or falafel or portabella mushrooms from the big crocks behind the counter. Dress these fillings up with scatterings of cucumber, olives, feta, and tomato, and top it all with a sauce, such as harissa or tahini, tzatziki, or a sweet, spicy mango reduction. This $9 meal includes a side and one serving of hummus.
And here's where Tazé really shines: These vegetarian Mediterranean staples feel like the main event. The roasted eggplant, one of those old family recipes, is rich and silky; the tabouleh is green and fresh with mint.
The daily preparation of hummus is a fine-tuned ritual. The chickpeas are soaked overnight, go on to boil at 7 a.m., and are processed in a giant Robot Coupe with a high-grade Lebanese tahini, lemon juice, garlic, and cumin. But versions also are made with jalapeno and cilantro, chipotle peppers, and caramelized onion and balsamic vinegar.
Clockwise from lower left: pita and pesto hummus with pine nuts and tomato; caramelized onion and balsamic hummus with roasted eggplant; quinoa salad; pearl couscous
The latter is particularly delicious—velvety and sweet. Other gems are the soft, pale moons of pita bread (white or wheat), which can be made to order; and the falafel—not dry like they often can be, but tender, perfumy with cilantro, and not oily in the least. Spices are a big deal here, and in some cases (the North African ras el hanout and Middle Eastern za'atar) have been matched from samples brought back from afar in the brothers’ suitcases.
Casey says he expects the clientele here to be slightly different from downtown, where the lunchtime traffic is heavy. In the CWE, he anticipates a later crowd and is planning a full liquor program of beer, wine, sangria, and frozen drinks. That sangria sits center stage, rosy and beautiful with cubes of watermelon, peach, and grapes. It tastes of flowers, and certainly isn’t light on booze. In time, there will be brunch, and the baklava, like almost everything else here, will be made in house.
As for that sign, it was made by the Roth’s father from an old teak tabletop, laid with a stencil of the restaurant’s logo and precariously scorched with fast-burning gunpowder.
