| rev:text
| - I write this from the standpoint of having been fortunate to dine at Parallax (a sister restaurant of L'Albatros). I also eat out fairly frequently w/ my fiancée -- places we have frequented and enjoyed include Blackbird (Chicago), Sepia (Chicago), Lola (Cleveland), The Flying Fig (Cleveland), and Radius (Boston). So, in a sense, I am writing this review from the context of having dined at these other fine establishments.
That said, we made reservations for lunch on a Saturday using OpenTable. We were actually running a bit behind w/ our errands, so we called, and the restaurant was easily able to accommodate our request to be seated 15 minutes later. The décor/ambiance of L'Albatros is a mixture of modern overlaying a rustic historical carriage house. We thought it was cozy (there are different rooms linked by twisting corridors). Our bread and olive oil were brought out rather promptly, and we were able to peruse the menu. The bread, notably, was soft and appeared to have a nice crusty exterior. It wasn't as soft and as freshly cooked as the bread at Sephia, but it was decently close. It took about 15 minutes before we actually able to place our orders - The server was very nice, but it did appear he was the only one covering our room at lunch (there appeared to be about 5 other couples/groups in the room at the time).
We ordered the pork rillettes w/ toast points. The rillettes were characteristic of a Northwestern French style - there was a very rich and bronze color to the fine pieces of pork interspersed with the fat. Very yummy - I haven't seen this appetizer at other French restaurants such as NoMI (Chicago), Aquitaine (Boston), and Brasserie Jo (Boston). The small pickles were a nice accoutrement, and the flavor of the pork was strong but not too overwhelming. Given the large amount of visible fat that is characteristic of a rillette, I suspect that this dish may not be for everyone, although fans of French cuisine should try this at least once.
My fiancée ordered the roasted cod with toasted garlic spätzle, haricots verts, and truffle butter. I actually ordered the same dish, substituting the roasted trout with almond crust fort he roasted cod (I usually don't like cod as much). The server and staff were very accommodating w/ respect to making a change on the menu.
Both of our dishes were excellent w/ respect to the fish. Although I am not typically a fan of cod, I did think the cod on my fiancée's plate tasted quite good - the outer surface was crispy w/out being overburnt. My trout was also scrumptious, although I thought the almonds distracted somewhat from the natural taste of the fish itself. The spätzle tasted as though it was freshly made. However, both my fiancée and I agreed that the truffle butter was a bit overwhelming. We were somewhat disappointed that we couldn't savor the eggs in the spätzle due to the excessive butter in the dish.
As for dessert, we've noticed that Parallax also suffers from a truly uncreative dessert menu. The dessert menu at L'Albatros also had rather unimaginative offerings such as crème caramel, mixed berries w/ crème fraiche, cheesecake, warm chocolate brownies. Compare this to Lola (Pear & Walnut Backed Alaska - oregonzola blue chese, brown sugar meringue, roasted concord grape), Blackbird (manjari chocolate pave with black mission figs, crispy chocolate and lime salt), and Radius (goat cheese and huckleberry cheesecake w/ huckleberry ice cream, buckwheat tuille and tart lemon syrup). Anyway, Zach Bruell would probably benefit from hiring at least a part-time pasty chef to develop a dessert menu for his restaurants. We ordered the frozen lemon soufflé. The candied lemon peels were delicious and added immensely to the taste of the frozen soufflé. However, we could not help but wistfully think about other more creative desserts we have had in the past at some of the other places listed above. Even the fig ice cream at The Flying Fig would have been better....
In summary, we had a pleasant but not really memorable meal at L'Albatros (:(). We really have enjoyed our meals (w/ the exception of the desserts) at Parallax in the past, so we were looking forward to a similar experience at Zach's new restaurant, L'Albatros. As it is, however, I would have some reservation about recommending L'Albatros at this time and instead recommend that people check out Crop, The Flying Fig, or Parallax instead for restaurants in the same price range. I really wanted to enjoy L'Albatros, and while the service staff was gracious (albeit a bit slow due to understaffing), I think that we will probably hold off on returning until these early kinks are worked out.
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