"So, who are Porter and Frye?", I asked the hostess last
night. "Do they really exist?" She smiled, then said that various legends about
Porter and Frye certainly did exist, and then got straight to the point: no,
they were not real. The name was invented by a restaurant consultant. She said
it’s supposed to suggest a dining experience that is high quality without being
fancy, or something like that.
Porter & Frye is the new restaurant inside the Hotel Ivy, described in the Star Tribune as the Twin Cities first five-star hotel.
I am not sure how a hotel can have five stars the day it opens – but it
doesn’t really matter – I used to be in the business of handing out stars myself,
and I can tell you that they really don’t mean much.
Well, the name sounds very waspy/British to me, and I don’t
usually associate the cuisine of New England or Olde England with culinary
creativity – more with cucumber sandwiches and roast beef and Yorkshire pudding
and overcooked peas. But the two British names strung together do have a sort
of uppercrust ring, as in Currier & Ives, Crabtree & Evelyn, Smith
& Hawkens, Abercrombie & Fitch. But I have noticed lately, while
shopping the bargain bins, that a lot of companies have gotten wise to this
strategy, and there are a lot of off-brands of made-in-China merchandise that
carry names like Cholmondeley &Fflolkes, designed to suggest the
upper-crust.
Too bad, because it gives the restaurant a bit of a wannabe
aura before you even walk in the door. And it clashes just a bit with the image
of talented chef Steven Brown, who has crafted a reputation as a sort of
culinary Diogenes in search of real food and honest flavors – and has a
repertoire that goes well beyond roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.
Appetizers to share are priced by the half-pound – from $18
for a sausage plate to $25 for charred ahi tuna and $26 for Alaskan king crab
with lemon, capers, brown butter and a cocktail sauce. Entrée prices range from
$10 for a medium portion of gnocchi in marinara sauce, and $13 for a vegan
preparation of squash and broccoli rabe in a maple tofu sauce, all the way up
to $49 for a dry-aged bone-in ribeye and $65 for a surf-and-turf of lobster and
New York steak.
We only sampled a few dishes – a beautifully presented
arugula salad ($7) with golden baby beets and sliced kumquats in a black pepper
and citrus vinaigrette ($7), a very rich and elegant ham hock and rock shrimp
chowder, the aforementioned vegan squash entrée (tasty but insubstantial), and
a delightful parmesan-crusted walleye ($16), very fresh and moist, and
perfectly complemented by a savory lobster risotto. The real highlight of the
evening was the dessert – a silky and sensuous panna cotta ($8), served over coconut
and passionfruit creams.
I’m not going to offer up any sweeping judgments about the place because it’s too early, and I didn’t same enough different dishes, but my first general impressions are that the quality is very high – as you would expect from Steven Brown. Some of the prices also seem quite high but if you choose carefully, there are affordable options. I wish I had known about the bar menu, which offers gourmet burgers and pizzas in the $10-$12 range, before I ordered dinner. It’s available in the bar and adjoining first floor dining room, but not in the lower level dining room.
Kathy Jenkins of the Pioneer Press reviewed Porter &
Frye right after it opened and trashed it, which sparked a lively discussion on
MinnSpeak. Is it fair to rate a restaurant so soon? .
I don’t think so. (Jenkins has done this before – I
spoke to another local chef recently, who complained that she showed up right
after he opened and gave him the same treatment.)
When I reviewed restaurants at the Strib, the policy was to
write a short just-the-facts Now Open piece as soon as possible after opening,
but to wait at least a month before running a real review with positive or
negative judgments. Actually, I don’t see much harm in running a positive piece
based on a very early first impression, (as Rick Nelson did in his Now Open
piece on Porter & Frye), but a negative piece can be unfair and damaging.
But this is a case where I am a firm believer in a double
standard. Because newspaper critics still have a lot more influence, they need
to be a lot more careful – and to hold their fire until the restaurant has had
a chance to work out the snafus. But a blogger like little old me simply isn’t
going to have the same impact, so there is less reason to hold back – and a
critical review early on from a blogger can actually serve as a valuable
wake-up call for a newly opened restaurant – here are some issues you had
better work out before the big guys show up at your door.