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Blu
Excellent Italian-inspired food in a deluxe contemporary atmosphere signals the future of fine dining
BY ROBERT NADEAU
Blu
(617) 375-8850
Sports Club/LA, 4 Avery Street, Boston
Open Mon–Thu, 11:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m. and 5:30–10 p.m.; Fri, 11:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m. and 5:30–11 p.m.; and Sat, 5:30–11 p.m.
AE, DC, MC, Vi
Full bar
Valet parking $14
Sidewalk-level access via elevator

I don’t know how the Sapphire Group (Michela Larson, Jody Adams, et al.) knew what they needed to do to succeed in a fourth-floor health club next to the Ritz-Carlton Boston Common. But they did know, and they have succeeded, with a format hardly anyone could have predicted, in a space with exposed metal struts and so much glass it seems more like a passage between connecting flights than a place to eat dinner. But what a dinner it is! I had an idea that Blu — self-styled as "blu"; we are in a place of small letters and large prices, my friends — would have some kind of spa food, being that it’s sort of in a health club. And there are references to health here and there, mostly in the kind of small-but-rich-and-highly-flavored portions you deserve because you worked out, or because you dieted all week, or because you are a good person and deserve to eat fabulous food, just not too much of it. And you are that person, and it is fabulous. It is also expensive, loud, and poorly lit after dark — certainly the most expensive place I have ever eaten in full view of college basketball on a plasma TV. You can see the screen; you just can’t quite read the menu if you’re old enough to afford the restaurant. But it all works. The food is mostly Italian-inspired, the wine is French and Californian, and the style is purely contemporary.

We start with a pour of fruity and flowery virgin olive oil, with a choice of fennel crackers, square olive-studded rolls, and/or rosemary focaccia to dip in it. The chef sends out an amuse-gueule of a snail and a bit of mushroom in a garlic-wine sauce, and we’re not in Boston anymore, Toto.

The appetizer one cannot miss is called "out of the blu" ($17), four beautifully composed morsels of raw fish. The most amazing taste is salmon tartare. No, the most amazing taste is striped-bass carpaccio — sweet as gravlax. No, the most amazing taste is tuna sashimi, rich and meaty and light. Or maybe it’s the scallop ceviche, just one exquisite sea scallop, the better to focus on.

I was also amazed by the whole-wheat cavatelli ($13). Ever since Walter Willett took simple starches out of the food pyramid, I’ve been trying to like whole-grain pasta, but no matter how much pesto I apply, it just doesn’t taste right. At Blu, chef Dante deMagistris has a different idea, which is to take a thick, fresh, whole-wheat shape and sauce it with butter, so it tastes like buttered whole-wheat toast — yes! Of course, it is also flavored with green olives, bits of homemade fennel sausage, clams the size of thumbnails, and sautéed peppers.

Instead of the ordinary pumpkin ravioli that’s so last year, the chef has filled crespelles — think baby crêpelettes — with winter squash ($13). Instead of the tired permutations of beet-arugula-shaved-parmesan-walnuts, his winter salad ($11) has shaved crimini mushrooms and zucchini, with arugula, capers, and real Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. And instead of beautiful soup served tepid in a shallow bowl, he heats up the shallow bowl to where one can barely touch it. The soup of our day ($15) was mushroom with truffle oil, and dabs of crème fraîche to cut the richness with tartness. My notes on dishes of this kind usually list garnishes and contrasts; at Blu, I wrote things like "Zowie!"

Entrées are less spa-like, but still not huge, and the kitchen readily substitutes greens for starches, not that the starches are more than a few wonderful mouthfuls. For example, the "roasted organic chicken rolled in fine herbs" ($26) comes on perhaps a quarter cup of braised radicchio risotto — it looks like brown rice but tastes as mascarpone-rich as any risotto. If you want salt, there are pieces of green olive underneath. The chicken is boned and rolled into a perfect cylinder, perhaps stuffed a little, and sliced beautifully, but doesn’t overpower with flavor.

That’s what the "maple sugar crusted venison" ($32) does. This is loin, the leanest, tenderest, and least-gamy cut, but subtly enhanced with maple and an herbal effect, perhaps a celery variant such as lovage or ajwain. The spa part is little sweet-potato slivers fried into a tangle of flavor, and a nice garnish of varied greens, with broccoli rabe the most distinctive flavor among them. Also impressive is the Colorado rack of lamb ($36), four meaty baby chops, a little ramekin of creamed spinach, and a few stacked potato sticks that are baked, not fried.

A swordfish special ($28) featured an excellent piece of fish, light and fully flavored, simply grilled, with fresh salsa on top, and mussels on the half-shell arranged around it. The "jumbo diver scallops seared in a dried mushroom crust" ($29) are another instead-of. Instead of the usual seared scallops, these have a bit of real crunch, and the crunch is a contrasting flavor — porcini dust. This comes on a long plate over a wisp of truffled mashed potatoes with roasted sweet onions.

The wine list at Blu has very little under $70 a bottle or $10 a glass. What it does have is perfectly good, however. We used the English rule of ordering the second-cheapest claret on the list, stretching the definition of claret south to Château du Cèdre Cahors 2000 ($31). This wine was good, full of brambly fruit, if a bit dusty on the palate. A glass of white, Domaine Delaunay Touraine Sauvignon Blanc 2002 ($9), was likewise as fruity as a California wine and almost as fruity as one from New Zealand, albeit at the price of Pouilly-Fumé. Coffee ($3) is good, and tea ($3.50–$5) is served properly loose-leaf in hot china pots, with metal tops that do not cool the water. There are, however, flaws in Blu’s beverage service. The systematic one is that the tap water is served tepid — last year’s hard sell on bottled water was better than this year’s passive-aggressive trick of lukewarm tap. The more random error was that our server, a patient and reliable fellow through two courses, neglected coffee and tea orders with dessert. There was also poor coordination between waiter and busperson, the latter removing a wineglass with a little left and all of our forks, the former not fully on top of replenishments.

Desserts were very fine, but not at the level of the other food. In some ways the best was the lemon crème brûlée, a firm layer on a coconut cookie, with butter cookies on top and a lemon-zabaglione sauce. We likewise enjoyed the chocolate-flecked banana-cream cake ($9) because it mostly tasted like banana, and only a little like cream and chocolate sauce. A "caramelized almond and chocolate tart" ($9) was two large wafer constructions, amid chocolate-chip ice cream and bits of brickle — all good, but confusing. The chocolate tasting ($15) was irresistible, but only the gelato and chocolate-coated marzipan were really chocolate-y.

The complexity worked a lot better on a cheese platter ($15), with small cuts of cheese but very distinctive garnishes for each: a goat with grated green apple like a sashimi garnish; a sandwich of aged cheese and marmalade; a hard cow’s-milk cheese with curried cashews (another "zowie"); shaved strong blue cheese on toasts; and sliced green apple with a crumbly old cheddar type — and a ball of fine melon sorbet to cleanse the palate between bites.

The atmosphere at Blu is young, pumped, high-energy, and yet entirely deluxe — the future of fine dining is in good hands. The service on a busy Saturday night was not what you would expect at these prices and after more than a year of operation, but it wasn’t a distraction from the outstanding food. If this is the group’s "second restaurant," I’m considering another visit to Rialto.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at RobtNadeau@aol.com .


Issue Date: March 26 - April 1, 2004
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