When it all comes together--the quality of the food, the care in preparation, the presentation, the service and the feeling that you have just experienced something very special--there is nothing quite like it. Call it culinary harmony, the ability of a restaurant to make food music that stirs the senses and soothes the soul.
I am describing Tallgrass restaurant in Lockport. This restaurant makes me see stars, as in four stars, as in exceptional. It has been almost three years since I gave four stars to a restaurant. I was starting to worry that there was a star gap out there.
Tallgrass is a pretty restaurant, but I wouldn't call it a drop-dead knockout. It even comes off a bit stuffy. But I liken Tallgrass to a grand dame from the Victorian era who has savoir faire and knows how to throw a party without being too pretentious about it.
At Tallgrass, the menu is but two pieces of paper laid into a simple soft-cover menu. But once you analyze the selection on those pages, the substance of the subject gets the juices going.
The arrangement at Tallgrass allows you to choose a four-course menu ($45) or a five-course menu ($55). The former includes appetizer, salad, entree and dessert. The latter offers an added seafood course. In either instance, the quality/value relationship is outstanding. To put it another way, you definitely get your money's worth and then some.
Appetizers are lavishly creative; for example, shrimp in two styles: lasagna and creme brulee. Lasagna is just that--paper-thin herb pasta layered with a silky shrimp mousse. The creme brulee version is served in a ramekin and includes bits of shrimp in a custardy base with a bottom layer of chopped fresh tomato and fennel seeds.
Turban of smoked salmon is an arrangement of supple and tasty salmon wrapped around a mint-enhanced fondant of carrot with a smashing red onion creme fraiche to gild the lily.
A restaurant is known by its soup, and you will know how good Tallgrass is after one taste of the trio of soups--potato-leek, red pepper-onion, and zucchini watercess--served in one elegant bowl, each soup serving up its own distinctive color and pattern and richly endowed flavor.
Salads are rather special. Crispy capon with mixed lettuces sported a scintillating tahini sauce. It was delicious, but was easily outdone by the Parmesan and pear salad, with its shaved pear slices and crumbles of blue cheese and Parmesan strewn over hearts of romaine lettuce. Even the basic house salad of mixed greens with an orange-sesame dressing is far and away a better house salad than most. The salad (more like a meal) that knocked me out, though, was the ''exotic basket'' (a baked pastry tuile) filled with baby greens, a perfectly pink prawn, and pieces of succulent lobster. It carries a $7 upcharge, but it is worth every penny.
Entrees are excellent without being eccentric. Herbed Alaskan halibut got a quick saute, then a short turn on the grill and came off perfectly cooked. The fillets ride atop a smashingly good fennel risotto.
Deliciously tender tenderloin of beef arrived with duxelles of portobello mushroom and a lavish potato creation in which thinly sliced potatoes were wrapped with fillo and baked en terrine. The onion ring on the plate looked out of place in such good company, but the slice of carrot pressed into use as a ''napkin ring'' for the haricots verts was a special touch.
Outstanding in every way was the grilled tenderloin of veal. The meat fork-tender, the quality impeccable, and the sauce of pancetta and porcini pure inspiration.
Nothing was amiss with the desserts, either, nine choices that tantalized. Not to be missed is the indivdual souffle of Belgian dark chocolate, which came off so light yet so richly endowed with chocolate flavor. Royal glace was served in a tall parfait glass, with layers of warm chocolate and caramel topped with a sensuous mound of white chocolate mousse and whipped cream.
The elegant presentation of the chocolate and raspberry tower was outdone only by the pleasure of its composition, which was four marbelized sheets of chocolate that encased a square of flourless chocolate cake and white chocolate mousse, the whole topped with fresh berries. Yummy, yummy.
I am seeing stars.
