|
July-August 2002
|
The Tastes of Boston |
|
Proprietors Chris (the sommelier) and Diane Campbell ran the wine-oriented Uva in Brighton before wooing chef Scott Hebert from New York City to open Troquet last year. "We grew up and became a little more sophisticated," says Diane Campbell. "We had this as a vision—we wanted to move downtown and be a very comfortable place where people came to get a bite to eat before or after a play, to celebrate, or just to enjoy the wines." Several reasonably priced wines that can be ordered in two- or four-ounce servings are recommended for each dish. This allowed us to try a variety of excellent labels with one meal—a simple, yet luxurious, innovation that does not distract from the food, prepared in a fresh, unfussy New American-style with French and Italian undertones.
Chef Hebert, who runs a tight kitchen despite his impish looks, sidesteps the ubiquitous goat cheese salad by frying the chèvre in a hazelnut coating ($9). The very chilled salmon carpaccio ($12) arrived spread out over the plate like a giant orange jellyfish sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds and scallion bits. Slipped underneath was a grassy-green mound of whipped avocado. The Fisher 2000 Riesling Ockfener Bockstein Kabinett mingled perfectly. A terrine of foie gras ($18) came with a jiggling slab of golden Sauternes gelée, a miniature hillock of tender rhubarb cubes, and fragile toast points. Reviewers tend to call potato gnocchi ($21) "soft pillows." Hebert's were more like deluxe bolsters that melted in our mouths amid a lusty sauce of braised mushrooms and truffle oil that made us want to lick the plate clean. A munchkin-sized Dutch oven of mashed potatoes accompanied the robust New York sirloin ($36) slathered with a sauce made from Armagnac and green peppercorns. Dainty spring carrots and a slippery, pan-juice-infused cippoline onion—worth ordering all by themselves—sat on the side.
Desserts—each $8.25—included an outstanding vanilla-bean panna cotta coated in a passion-fruit gel, topped by a dollop of guava sorbet. The polenta torte—a very good, upscale corn muffin—was served with a trail of pistachio custard and raspberry sorbet. Petite chocolates, made in-house, came with the check. Their unexpectedly thrilling burst of flavor made the sweets a metaphor for Troquet itself. It's a small, unpretentious venue that mounts a production worthy of the main stage.
~N.P.B.
