Metropole, Cincinnati

Tuesday 2 April

The new hot restaurant in town is Metropole. 

As Stefon would say, this place has everything: a neon smile with lightbulb teeth, a display window of camel figurines, an LED display that fluoresces under your feet as you go to the bathroom, and large yellow plastic penguins available to join your table.  But it also has an open hearth to cook in, and that hearth produces some seriously clever food.

We were not bowled over by the seared octopus - it's one tentacle, for god's sake - but we were by the green chickpeas, currants, and blood orange strewn around it.  It's only quality places that pay that much attention to vegetables.  Even better were the sweetbreads with English peas, carrots, apple, mustard, and red cress that we had as our other appetizer.

The string-roasted chicken is famous, and our chatty waiter gave a Stefon-like description of how it's trussed up to spin in front of the hearth.  Again, it was good, but the real winner was the bone-marrow onions and potato purée alongside.

Our other main was the fish special: roasted porgy with roast cauliflower, cipollini onions, salsa verde, and a soft-boiled egg.  It was not whole as on the menu, but came in two tranches, with tail but no head.  Still, very flavorful, especially when you compare it to the meagre slice of striped bass that everyone else had ordered.

Yes, they have Porgy and Bass, but they haven't put them together the way Barbara remembers the Ivanoffs did at their dinner parties in Elmhurst long ago.

Wines are definitely high-price here.  We had a Paso a Paso Verdejo la Mancha 2011 (on the web ca. $10) and Olivier Leflaive Bourgogne Blanc "les Sétilles" 2009 (ca. $20) at over 3 times markup.  If it weren't so overpriced, we would have ordered more.  

But hot new restaurants make their own rules, at least while they're hot; our waiter told us the owners are about to open 15 more restaurants elsewhere, so this may become just another chain, or Olive Garden with penguins.  So we'll enjoy it while the vegetables are still good.