Grand America Hotel: Garden Cafe

I walked into the Grand America hotel for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and while I will give you that it is the most luxurious hotel in Salt Lake City, the decor and general vibe do make me throw up in my mouth just a bit.  Thankfully, that is all changing, at least in the Garden Cafe restaurant.  While the green marble remains on the walls, they have clearly signaled their intent to create a worthy dining experience by bringing on Chef Tom Call (whom I've been touting since before he even moved to Salt Lake) as Chef de Cuisine.  When Chef Tom called up a coworker and said he'd like to cook for us at the Grand America, we quickly cleared our calendars, found babysitters and prepared for genius.

We started out with 'Chips and Dip' - house cured salmon roe, creme fraiche pana cotta and fingerling potato.  This was a fun starter course and got everyone ready for the meal.

Next course was a seared hamachi and number 1 ahi with smoked sea salt, avocado puree and Japanese citrus.

Third, we got an heirloom tomato bisque with microgreens and pecorino basil creme.

Tom knows Italian, so he threw in an extra course last minute to get our take on a potential addition to the permanent menu at the Grand America.  This was a wild shrimp ravioli in pressed leeks and lemongrass.

The final seafood course was an Idaho trout with compressed celery and onion with yellow curry and greek yogurt garnish.

I failed to snap a shot of the intermezzo course, a lemon chamomile sorbet that was perfect for the moment.  Next, the crown jewel of the meal was without question the meat course: a prime New York strip with truffled spinach, Boulanger potatoes, cabernet reduction and a mustard chip.

The cheese course that followed was candied figs, house made lavash and what has become one of my favorite cheeses in the world: Timpanogos Peak.

With coffee, pastry chef Jeffrey de Leon prepared several treats for us.  First, a platter of small bites that included a root beer marshmallow.

And second, we enjoyed the main dessert - a stawberry pistachio semifreddo with French meringue and fresh strawberry.

I would also be remiss not to mention that the Director of Restaurants, Kasey Dubler, played Sommelier for us and paired up each course with a fine selection from the massive cellars at The Grand America.  Absolutely reach out to him next time you stop by.

The verdict?  Forget everything you've heard in years past, The Grand America hotel is getting quite serious in their intent to provide a first rate restaurant.  A meal with Chef Tom Call is one of the better ways to spend your dining dollars in SLC.  While I'm still not sure about the gold-leaf furniture that crowds the hotel, I have heard that the restaurant will be undergoing a full renovation, after which the decor will match the skill that is recently on display at the Garden Cafe.  Highly recommend.

Franck's

I had been hearing good things about Franck's for a while and finally got the chance to stop in last week.  The menu at Franck's teases foodies with a mashup of French, new American and molecular treats - and the biggest worry I had going in was how I was going to narrow choices down to a reasonable amount of food.

On a Thursday night at 6:30 the restaurant was mostly empty.  Although Franck's has a big parking lot directly adjacent to the restaurant, valet parking is required.  I get annoyed when valet parking is offered as a jobs program instead of a needed service (the friendly valet parked my car about 8 feet from where I left it with him), but no big deal.  The staff was out front working on garden boxes in which summer herbs would be grown when we came inside.  This made me happy.  Given the heat wave, we decided to sit inside despite a very nice outdoor dining area.

Once seated, we found the service to be friendly and attentive, though not perfectly informed.  The waitstaff (ours and others whom we overheard) didn't really possess a superior knowledge of food or wine so you're pretty much on your own there.  What we were told was that Franck is known for his soups and sauces, and that "everything on the menu was amazing".

We started off with a cheese fondue - a mix of gruyere, emmentaler and Swiss cheeses.  The flavor was good if a bit boring, and the portion was huge.  The cubed bread served with the fondue was dry and overall this appetizer was filling but not inspiring.  I would say it comes in a notch below what you would find at a national fondue-themed chain that rhymes with pelting rot.  I was also a bit shocked at the amount of food which came out with this and every course - a clear departure from the French tradition of slight to moderate portions.

Entrees are served with soup or salad at Franck's, so we split and tried both.  This was the low point of the meal - the BLT soup was truly awful.  It tasted like a blend of tomato and fry sauce topped with a few ribbons of lettuce and some bacon bits.  Off.

The salad was not better than the soup as it was an overdressed and wilted pile of greens that reminded me of the salad course I dreaded as a child when drug to the most amazing and horrible steak house in west Texas.

At this point in the meal I was really confused.  Clearly Franck has vision because his menu is legitimately exciting (despite the erroneous mention of both Kobe and Waygu beef), and the recommendations of this place came from trusted fans of good food.  Thankfully things improved (a bit).

I ordered the roasted Utah rack of lamb, served on a Japanese pancake with edamame-mint pudding and plum red wine sauce.  Two pieces of meat came on the plate and though both were cooked to perfect temperature, one was absolutely perfect while the other was not tender at all.  Flavors of the meat were great, but the plum sauce was sweet to the point of cloying and far too plentiful.  The edamame-mint pudding had no flavor.  None the less - the lamb was good and I enjoyed this dish after some de-saucing.  Despite the "reputation" for soups and sauces, the soup and sauces were without questions the biggest points of weakness in the meal.

My wife had the fried chicken - topped with a caramelized watermelon emulsion  and served with watermelon jalepeno salad with a side of gruyere-infused grits.  The chicken was breaded and fried perfectly, but again rendered disappointing by a sugar-sweet sauce.  As an avid fan of cheese grits I was excited for this twist on the southern classic, but result was near flavorless and disappointing.  Probably coloring my final opinion of the meal is also the fact that we both felt a touch ill afterwards - probably just too much sugar and heavy sauces.

The verdict?  Franck's manages to harpoon truly well-prepared main courses with calamitous sides and sauces that overshadow the positive elements on the plate.  I lump Franck's in with Log Haven as a joint that would have been among the best in SLC ten years ago but will struggle to find a place amongst the wave of talent that exists today in our city.