Last night, I visited my first new restaurant as an official food blogger, and let me tell you, I could Really get used to this. I could not have picked (actually my date picked it, but I suggested it) a better venue to dive into the role of "food critic" than the latest creation from the team at Fifth Group Restaurants.
I first heard about Lure a year ago during a meeting with Steve Simon (Partner at Fifth Group Restaurants; and yes, that was a name drop) when I first started getting the itch for restaurant ownership and investment. He mentioned that they had just purchased the spot where Vickery's used to be, and would be opening up an upscale seafood restaurant.
Lure is a sustainable seafood restaurant with a contemporary feel that changes its menu more regularly than the seasons. As our server explained, you won't find a crab cake on the menu during the off-season simply for the sake of having crab cakes. Although the patio is a great setting for a meal, the best seat in the house is a table near the kitchen, where you can catch whiffs of the seafood being prepared and feel the energy of the restaurant.
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| Me & My Monkey (left) and the "God River" (right). |
Lure has one of the most creative drink selections I've ever seen in my ten years of drinking (7 legally). I ordered the "Me & My Monkey" (I order drinks based on their names) which is a combination of Redemption Rye, vermouth, stone-fruit elixer and Campari. It had a nice kick to it and took me back to my Prohibition days. However, it is not their "standard" cocktails where they get the nod. They have two very neat alternatives to the traditional cocktail. One is their "bottle shop"selection, which takes a "standard" cocktail (I use the term standard not to mean Jack & Coke, but to differentiate them from what I'm about to describe), pours it in a bottle and injects it with bubbles. The bottle is delivered to you at your table so you get to open it with a church key and pour it into the glass.
The other cool thing on their drink menu was their Shōchū list. Shōchū (as I'm Sure you know)
has some characteristics of a sake (it is a Japanese distilled beverage), but has the kick and flavor profile of a spirit. My date tried (and let me sample) the kannoko “god river”shochu which survived a 3-year stint in
used oak barrels resulting in a touch of spice and complexity that reminds us
of scotch whisky (yes, I stole this from their menu). Each has an entirely different taste, but it is definitely something worth trying.
But we came here for the seafood, and see food we did! (See what I did there.) Having never been there before, and wanting to try as many things as we could, we asked our server to recommend a few dishes to share. After listening to several items, we settled on three choices: the Seared Scallop Crudo (the "Scallops"), the Spicy Veracruz-style Seafood Cocktail (the "Seafood Cocktail") and the French Horn Mushrooms a la Plancha (the "Mushrooms").
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| The Spicy Veracruz-style Seafood Cocktail |
The first dish that came out was the Seafood Cocktail, which we got very excited about as soon as the server mentioned it was Mexican (my date is half-Mexican).
It is a mixture of clams, shrimp, mussels and citrus and has a very real ceviche feel to it. The assortment of seafood provided great variety (both in texture and taste) and the entire dish had an excellent spice to it. It came with a shot of hennepin ale which we were told we could either drink alongside the dish or pour it in. We enjoyed the first few bites by sipping, but then got adventurous (twice on one date!) and poured the rest in. The spice definitely stayed constant after the "dilution" which I thought was really nice, but the ale provided an aftertaste (a beer aftertaste, go figure) which took away from the rest of the flavors. It also converted the dish from a ceviche to a soup, which made it more difficult to eat. I would certainly order this again, but would not recommend pouring the shot into the dish, at least not more than half of the shot glass (this was still my favorite dish of the three).
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| Scallops (left); Mushrooms (right) |
Next came the Scallops and the Mushrooms. In a sentence, the Scallops were awesome. It came with very fresh sugar snap peas (both in liquid and solid form) and horseradish. The scallops themselves were slightly seared and the meatiness was a great contrast to the sweetness of the peas. The dish was salted perfectly which provided a nice flavor with the combination of the peas and the horseradish. Another must try.
As for the Mushrooms, when they first came, we couldn't find the mushrooms. Not because they weren't there, but because they were so hearty that it looked like it was meat. Along with the mushrooms were baba ghannouj, chickpeas, cinnamon, parsley and coriander. My very first bite was of one of the chickpeas and it was a flavor explosion. I'm not a huge chickpea fan (at least in non-hummus form), but the mixture of those spices was one of the most unique tastes I'd ever had. It had a citrus-y, curry taste that has my mouth watering as we speak. The mushrooms themselves were amazing, with a hearty taste that matched their look. You could taste each of the seasonings individually from one bite, and also recognize how well they blended together. Given the uniqueness in flavor (and a lot of [foolish] people's aversion to mushrooms), I could see how this dish might not be for everyone, but if you're looking for a taste that might take you out of your comfort zone; try this.
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| Piece of Pie. |
Finally, we checked out the dessert menu since there was still room on the "dessert shelf" (this is a real thing Mike and Evelyn; it's science). I had seen a gorgeous looking pie being delivered to another customer during our meal so my mind was basically made up before I saw the dessert menu. I ordered the blueberry cream pie pictured to the right, which had a whipped cream topping and a goat cream cheese bottom. Unfortunately, I didn't think that the pie stacked up with the rest of the meal. The two creams seemed to take away from the subtle flavor of the blueberries rather than enhance them. In other words, I would have liked either the creams or the blueberries to be a little sweeter, because I thought the creams neutralized the blueberries rather than offset them. Still...I did eat it all so I couldn't have been that disappointed.
A lot of food critics give fancy ratings for each restaurant they
frequent, but really, these
are the two most important questions and answers you need to know about
a restaurant.
1. Will you go back again?
2. Would you bring a date or loved one there?
I can unequivocally say yes to both.
My one concern for the restaurant is its
visibility. It is an upscale seafood
restaurant hidden on a street populated by several night clubs, a frozen
daiquiri bar, and some apartment buildings. Several friends were surprised to
find out Vickery’s had even closed.
However, I do think that the food, word of mouth and the reputation of
the Fifth Group brand will help ensure that Lure is the next big catch in
Atlanta seafood.
One closing thought. When you do go to Lure (which I hope is soon), you Must request Jordan (the mystery server mentioned throughout) as your server. To me, dinner is more than just the food and Jordan made our night out an experience. His enthusiasm and pride about Lure made the meal that much more enjoyable and he knew the menu inside out. Not to mention he asked for the link to my blog so that earned him points...If you're reading Jordan, thanks again!
Until next post...Stay hungry!
Michael
