2 stars (out of four)
Rating key:
4: Outstanding
3: Excellent
2: Very good
1: Good
Satisfactory
Unsatisfactory
Debbie Sharpe is quickly developing a reputation for running very good restaurants with very strange names.
First there was Eat Your Hearts Out. Nice place, odd name. Next came Confusion. Great food, though not fusion food. (Confused? Perfect!) Then Sharpe closed Eat Your Hearts Out in order to open a new concept whose working title was Coolamon, which, as any idiot knows, is an aboriginal hunting basket.
Happily, Coolamon never made it onto the sign out front. Instead, the sign reads Feast (click for address, maps, hours), which isn't the most accurate name she could have chosen (it sounds rather like an all-you-can-eat joint), but does at least suggest that cooking, as opposed to desert foraging, is going on here.
The decor is a little bit outback country, a little bit rock 'n' roll. Walls the color of desert sand stretch upward, ending with an irregular border of white paint close to the ceiling -- as though Sharpe had hired a very short painter to do the work. Arched niches in the wall and displays of curved pottery look vaguely Middle Eastern, pretty glass lights from Italy add a contemporary European accent, and natural-wood tables and chairs are more American -- as is the rock music playing (at moderate levels) on the sound system. I'm not sure where to place the colorful fabrics that drape gracefully along the ceiling. Chef Suzzette Metcalfe's food is similarly eclectic. Sharpe calls it a global menu, and the term fits. There are Indian, Italian, Japanese, French and Southeast Asian influences evident on the menu -- and that's just among the appetizers.
The menu is very veggie-friendly as well. Those resigned to finding one or two vegetarian items on a typical menu will find a veritable, well, feast here, including the ``vegetarian feast,'' a weekly featured entree. Last week's feast was a ragout of winter vegetables, including parsnip, rutabaga and caramelized onions, in a leek-mushroom sauce with portobello mushrooms.
Appetizers include two jazzy-looking rock shrimp cakes, which are wrapped in a profusion of fried rice noodles over a delicious gingered mango sauce, and a smallish but tasty puff-pastry tart with spinach, mozzarella and shiitake mushrooms. Lentil fritters are presented appealingly, the thumb-sized fritters placed around a Middle-Eastern raita of yogurt, mint and coconut, with a bright-green coconut chutney in the center.
But for presentation, you can't beat the wonton napoleon, in which a seafood medley -- spicy tuna tartare, lightly smoked salmon and tuna sashimi -- is arranged in a vertical tower separated by crispy wonton squares, set on a plate painted with soy sauce and wasabi cream. You can try eating it all at once -- Sharpe recommends a well-placed karate chop -- but each segment can be lifted by its wonton base and eaten separately, in a sort of open-air bento box arrangement.
Crispy-crusted pizzas are a good bet, offered in five varieties. The curried chicken pizza, embellished with pine nuts and golden raisins, is big on aroma but gracefully understated in flavor. The duck confit salad offers nice bits of duck with mixed greens, though the sherry vinaigrette dressing is modest to a fault.
Entree highlights include a lovely roasted sea bass, with artichokes and Israeli couscous in a fennel-laced cream sauce. For more assertive palates, there's roasted chicken flavored with cumin, cardamom, turmeric and garlic, served over carrots and chickpeas with preserved lemons. This fragrant concoction tastes as good as it smells.
A special of pan-seared sturgeon was a big hit one visit, the sturgeon beached on a mound of julienned vegetables, surrounded by a sea of oyster nage, a seafood stock containing several plump, mildly briny oysters. Rogan josh is an Indian lamb stew served around a pile of buttery, aromatic basmati rice -- not bad, but the stew needs a stronger jolt of spice.
Dessert is a mixed bag. A respectable creme caramel was wrecked because the caramel sauce underneath had been inundated with sprinkled cinnamon, rendering it bitter. The firecracker brownie, a brownie laced with red pepper, is served in broken-up chunks surrounding a scoop of buttermilk ice cream; the brownie was OK but visually unappealing, and I didn't care for the ice cream's grainy texture. Better was the Chocolate Nemesis, which the menu oversells as ``the best chocolate cake ever'' but is deliciously fudgy and rich.
Service is generally good. Our waitress lost track of our table on our first visit, spacing a three-course dinner over a very leisurely two hours plus, but subsequent visits found the servers considerably more prompt and attentive.
The wine list is brief but very well chosen, and very descriptive -- a thoughtful touch with a menu that has so many sharp (Sharpe?) flavors. More than 18 wines are available by the glass as well.
In a couple of weeks, Sharpe will begin building an English-style conservatory behind the restaurant. That will cut in half Feast's outdoor garden, a pretty place for summer meals, but it will expand Feast's year-round seating significantly, which is a good thing.
Feast
1835 W. North Ave.
773-235-6361
Reviews are based on no fewer than two visits. The reviewer makes every effort to remain anonymous. Meals are paid for by the Tribune.
Phil Vettel is the Chicago Tribune restaurant critic.
Originally pubished November 7, 1997
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