Clio prepares a symphony of surprises for the palate
Type: American
Prices: Appetizers: $7-$15; en trees: $21-$32; desserts: $8-$9.
Good choices: Tomato salad with avocado; marinated yellow tail; seared scallops with parsley root and caviar; caramelized swordfish ''au poivre''; glazed short ribs with a stew of pea shoots; grilled hangar steak with roasted marrow bone; warm chocolate pudding; tarte tatin of fresh peaches.
Reservations accepted. Smoking at the bar and in lounge.
Credit cards: All major.
Access: Fully accessible.
CLIO
370A Commonwealth Ave., Boston
(617) 536-7200
Restaurant reviewed 09/15/97 by Alison Arnett
Webster's defines elegant as ''dignified richness and grace . . . luxurious or opulent in a restrained, tasteful manner.'' Clio, the new restaurant in the Eliot Hotel, lives the definition. Elegance shimmers in the very air.
One can sense that just walking through etched glass doors into the taupe-shaded dining room, with its long mirrors and moss-green banquettes, an understated leopard-skin rug and beautiful flowers. The supper club ambience makes the diners look beautiful, too. The noise level is subdued and when a waitress animatedly describes how a dish is prepared, heads turn to watch and listen, her enthusiasm slightly startling in the hush.
In an elemental sense, Clio is an old-fashioned restaurant. The service is gracious and accommodating, with the wait staff employing good cheer but no hint of showiness or condescension. The wine list has a wide array of interesting bottles in various price ranges. There's no background music thumping a bass tone over the conversation. There even seems to be padding under the rug. Everything in the room is focused: Chef Kenneth Oringer's food is squarely in the limelight.
Oringer has a California sensibility: small, light elements building to a beautifully composed whole; never too much (actually some diners might argue that it's never enough) on the plate. It's the intensity of flavors that distinguishes his food. That and a whimsicality. Oringer uses food to entice, to satisfy several senses, the imagination, as well as the eye and palate. He's definitely not striving just to fill us up.
An appetizer features two giant scallops, very fresh and sweet, on a bed of shaved parsley root with its earthy, slightly bitter taste topped with crinkles of fried parsley. A tiny tower of ossetra caviar presents a third visual element and a burst of saltiness against the scallops. The whole plate is satisfying, with its contrasts in flavor and textures, but still an appetizer, leaving room for more. I also liked a marinated yellowtail and yellowfin appetizer, as pretty and as clean-tasting as a first-rate sashimi plate.
This is a concise menu and has been in place since June. That means that the vine-ripened tomato salad is wonderfully in season right now, the stack of red and yellow tomatoes bursting against the tongue in acidity; the mound of avocado wrapped in shell of tomato giving a buttery finish to the dish. But in other instances, the ingredients strained our ability to transcend seasons. Roasted foie gras steak was a luxurious, almost too-rich morsel, and the ripe black and green figs the perfect sweet accompaniment to its savoriness. But the stewed rhubarb also twirled under the foie gras seemed out of place on a September menu.
Oringer, who has been chef at Tosca in Hingham and was formerly chef of Silks in San Francisco, talks in a phone interview of his intense thought and preparation for each dish. In the best of his dishes, that's readily apparent; this is cuisine that strives for and sometimes hits the level of brilliant. Something as basic as grilled hangar steak is a symphony of little extras. The steak is fine meat, thick and tender. But the dazzler on the plate is a roasted marrow bone, standing like a tiny column with a mound of oxtail marmalade underneath, poised to catch the juices of the marrow. Along with it is a ragout of 17 vegetables and wild mushrooms. The playful elements are as satisfying as the hearty ones and the whole is delightful. Swordfish, a center cut that must have been almost 4 inches thick, was caramelized with lots of pepper and red wine into a deep burnished color on top. It was quite wonderful, the sharp tastes of the pepper and braised shallots against the moist interior of the swordfish. Although the entire portion of fish wasn't large, it was so meaty that I couldn't finish it. Delicacy twins with luxuriousness in lobster in a rich buttery sauce. The tail meat of the lobster slowly cooked in a bath of butter and lemon juice is startling - it's almost fluffy in texture.
The glazed short ribs aren't to be missed, although at first the dish sounds unlikely for a restaurant with such rarefied tendencies. They were meaty and succulent with just the right balance of sweet glaze and piquant tones; a little stew of pea shoots, corn, and fresh truffles added a lovely counterpoint. The only disappointment, and I know this may be personal taste, was the mashed potatoes. Here and in the case of pureed parsnips with the swordfish, the puree was so thin to be something unpleasantly akin to baby food. It seems to be a trend everywhere in town.
Sweet underpinnings to fish also seem to be a trend. On one visit, the honey-basted endive accompanying pan-seared lotte gave just a hint of sweetness, delightfully contrasting with citrus notes in the sauce. But on another visit, the sweetness took over. It wasn't so much that I didn't like it, but that the balance seemed off. That was the same fault I found in an otherwise fascinating rack of lamb dish with spiced eggplant tagine. Oringer explained over the phone that the small eggplant stew and the curry carrot broth under the excellent pink lamb had myriad spices in it. On one visit, the taste was beguiling. On the next visit, cinnamon seemed to leap out, dominating the complex mixture.
Oringer formerly worked as a pastry chef, and the creativity of his food certainly doesn't stop at desserts. Pretty and petite, they have the same intriguing point-counterpoint of sweet-tart, smooth-crunchy as many of the savory dishes. A tarte tatin of fresh peaches, with a dark caramelized underlayer, buttery crust, and tasty fruit, was especially good, as was warm chocolate pudding with bursts of bitter orange. Three tiny pyramids of melon granitas - including honeydew and cantaloupe - were refreshing if a minute. However, the tiny accompanying glasses of melon puree carried the theme into absurdity.
All in all, dining at Clio is a treat. The cuisine shows imagination and care as well as skill; the presentation, a sense of beauty that goes beyond mere decoration. Oringer says he's striving to offer something different for Boston; sometimes he goes over the top, but when his restraint matches that of the restaurant's surroundings, he's brilliant. Clio shows great promise.
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