201 S. Second St. Ste. 120, San Jose, CA 95113
Items ordered:
- Beets (multiple ways/ goat cheese/ dill/ truffle/ trail mix)
- Octopus (fennel/ citrus/ arugula/ marcona almonds)
- Dip Trio & Pita (cacik/ muhammara/ taramas/ pita)
- Tagliatelle (lobster/ beurre blanc/ tsar nicoulai caviar/ parmigiano)
- Branzino (spring cassoulet/ frutti di mare/ piquillo)
- Brussels (chili honey/ bacon jam/ tomato/ pickled onion/ house spice)
- Banana Hammock (mezcal/ amaro/ banana/ dry vermouth)
- Chenin Blanc (Love & Terroir “Jurassic”, Santa Ynez, CA 2024)
- Budino (chocolate, butterscotch, hazelnut, sea salt, mint)
This Mediterranean-style restaurant is right in San Jose downtown. It had great ambience and natural lighting. Definitely more on the high end side. Service was good. As for the food, it was the highest of highs, but also some unfortunate lows.
The meal started with a complimentary amuse bouche of a mashed sweet potato, topped with caviar, in an ice cream cone. It was cute, but I didn’t really feel the caviar flavor went well with the sweet potato.
For appetizers, we got the octopus, the beet salad, and the dip trio. These three were probably the best dishes of the whole evening, besides the dessert. Most of the octopus was eaten by the kids, but the meat itself was done perfectly, with a lot of char. The sauce underneath the octopus was fennel-based, and it was excellent. The beets were fresh and a nice blend of acid and sugar. The little goat cheese balls were visually appealing and very mild tasting.
The star of the whole evening for me was the dip trio, and in particular the taramas, which was new to me. It’s a dip that has salted fish roe as its main ingredient, whipped into a smooth blend. I originally thought this was just a fishy hummus because they also put actual fish roe on top, but as we kept eating, it became clear that the fishiness and brininess were the essence of the dip. Along with this, there was also a very rich and delicious tzatziki (although it was definitely very traditional). The last dip is a muhammara, which is made from red pepper. This one wasn’t quite as good. It wasn’t as smooth as the taramas, and there were huge chunks of red pepper. Also, it was very sweet, to the point where I’m pretty sure they added sugar to it. Finally, the best muhammara that I’ve experienced had really smoky flavors, and here there was no smoke at all.
The entrees weren’t quite as good. We got the lobster tagliatelle, which our waiter told us was the most popular dish in the place. It was good, but I didn’t get the rich lobster flavor that I was expecting. Instead, it was just a nice, creamy pasta.
The branzino was really peculiar. It was cooked in their wood fire grill. The fish itself was cooked perfectly. It was tender and moist. Unfortunately, it was almost entirely unseasoned. The cassoulet accompanying the fish was a really rich butter-based fennel and shallot sauce. That was really tasty, but it was similarly unseasoned (albeit more seasoned than the fish itself). The result is a dish that should have been extremely delicious and bursting with umami flavor, but it instead just fell a little flat. The branzino was also accompanied with some toast and uni. The uni was excellent, but it didn’t seem to mesh well with the toast or the rest of the dish. There was also, incredibly, some mussels and a grilled jumbo red shrimp. The mussels were fine. The shrimp was way overcooked. Ultimately, this dish could’ve been really good with better seasoning and maybe some editing.
We also got a brussels sprouts side, which was almost inedible. It was just sickly sweet. The description had “chili honey” and “bacon jam”, which should have been the hints to us, but we still bit on it. To me, this dish ate more like a dessert than a savory dish.
The actual dessert we got was heavenly. We got a chocolate budino, which came deconstructed and we had to mix ourselves. It was chocolate pudding, oreo cookie bits, hazelnuts, and butterscotch. This dish was a revelation. The pudding itself was extremely thick and rich. It also wasn’t too sweet. In fact, the dominating flavor was probably the sea salt, combined with the chocolate and hazelnut. Ironically, this dessert dish was more heavily seasoned than the branzino, and also less sweet than the brussels sprouts.
I’m not sure if we’ll be back. The price is not low. And there was a little too much hit or miss in the dishes.
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