I’ve never thought it was a good idea to name your restaurant a word that people are unsure how to pronounce. Why introduce any hesitation into their decision to talk to their friends about going there? Few Americans, including me, can pronounce well this quintessentially French word (“cœur” means “heart”) — but that doesn’t seem to have slowed down the restaurant’s success one bit.
In fact, Metro Times readers voted Coeur, open since August, Best New Restaurant (Oakland) in this year’s Best of Detroit poll. How Ferndale has changed, when none of the Yelp reviewers thought the prices worth mentioning. I’ll follow their non-grousing lead and just say that my party of two stayed off the high end of the menu, ordered two appetizers, two entrées, one dessert, and one glass of the cheapest wine, and spent $162.74 including tip.
Another night I went with the $89 five-course tasting menu and left stuffed and happy.
The food was mostly great, if not absolutely can’t-wait-to-tell-my-friends. Portion sizes are reasonable and there is a plethora of smiling servers dancing attendance; on tasting-menu night, it seemed like each course was delivered by a different person. The restaurant’s self-description emphasizes informality — the servers wear plaid flannel shirts — and the décor is minimal, with bare tables but one gorgeous glass sculpture hanging from a corner ceiling. On each visit the servers were eager to say that their spiffy new menu holders had just come in from Kyiv.
Among the appetizers I liked best was a velvety mushroom velouté (“velouté” actually means velvet), a soup with five kinds of roasted mushrooms. A milk bun for dipping was stuffed with mushrooms too, surprisingly cold. Chef-owner Jordan Smith, a Culinary Institute of America grad, says the restaurant gets them all from Stony Creek Mushrooms at Eight Mile and Pinecrest.
Ethereal potato and comté croquettes were light as a cloud inside, lighter than cotton candy by far, with a matching weightless crust and a burnt leek dip in a color you don’t often see in food — stone gray. These were worth eating just for the sensation of insubstantiality and the unusual piquancy of the dip.
I thought maitake mushrooms, also called hen-of-the-wood, were less successful. The tempura was perfect but there was little mushroom flavor. A honeynut squash, course No. 2 on the tasting menu (which changes as Chef Smith desires), was the texture and taste of a sweet potato pie and enlivened with pomegranate seeds and persimmon — it felt like a lot going on, in a good way.
Course No. 3 was chewy potato gnocchi in lobster bisque, high praise for its texture, and I have no problem with two soups in one meal when they are this quality.
For main courses, I’m putting the tom kha broth that came with the black cod on my list of “best things I ate this year.” The kohlrabi and carrot were fine and the tiny white beech mushrooms as cute as could be, the fish pretty plain. But that silky rich broth! It’s the coconut milk, and a reminder to eat Thai again ASAP.
More mushrooms accompanied the teres major steak — you’re sensing an autumn theme here — and of course were good complements, a similar kind of umami. The teres major is a shoulder cut that its advocates say gets a lot of movement, therefore blood flow and therefore complex flavor, while lacking the connective tissue that causes toughness. It was indeed tender as could be, which could not be said for the accompanying rapini, which I chewed for a while with little result. Potato pavé requires a huge amount of fussy work with the humble spud, and in this case was not worth all that precise slicing and layering.
A short rib was tough, if tasty, and its side dish, potato rösti, was much more successful. Creamed greens were kohlrabi tops that night; I like it that Smith will use whatever type of green he has on the cutting board, if it works with the dish.
For dessert, I have no complaints (I seldom do), only a satisfied sweet tooth. A pear tart on a hazelnut crust was sublime, with little blobs of yogurt mousse encircling it. I could have had a pumpkin spice (!) latte semifreddo but chose a slightly salty “almond Snickers.” You can see the resemblance; an actual Snickers has caramel, peanuts, and nougat under the chocolate, but here you see what a masterful pastry chef can do with top-notch ingredients. Dulcey is a “blond chocolate” from Valrhona, which has been described as “somewhere between white chocolate and milk chocolate” and “like dulce de leche but more toasty than overly sweet.” Then there are the candied cocoa nibs and the salted caramel crémeux, plus the toasted almonds on top. A kid would like this and so would you.
Because it was November I tried the newly arrived Beaujolais Nouveau; small but mighty. (Ever notice that the size of your wine pour is proportional to the grandeur of the restaurant? I’ve been rash enough to order wine in a dive bar and gotten enough in a $6 glass to put me on my heels for the night. A higher-end place will make sure the bottom of the glass is covered.) That night a western Michigan supplier was advertising its own offering as a “nouveau” alongside the French version. It was served quite cold, a practice that supposedly enhances a nouveau, but I thought it hid the wine’s qualities.
Smith and team are serious about wine. Once a month sommelier Sean Crenny picks a region or a varietal to highlight and teaches a class on a Sunday afternoon. New Year’s Eve will see a seven-course dinner with wine pairings.
Coeur is open for brunch on weekends, with such delightful-sounding dishes as brisket hash, babka French toast, almond pancake with charred milk caramel, and fall panzanella.
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