"Of all the dishes on the menu, this is my favorite one to serve," said my waiter. It also happened to be my favorite to eat -- OK, one of many.
The wide white bowl in front of me was partially filled with a pair of tender dumplings, precisely cut carrot dices and dainty snips of fresh dill. As my server carefully poured a pristine chicken stock, I closed my eyes and inhaled. The steam curled up into my nose and flirted with my appetite.
My stomach rumbled. My mouth watered. I reached for my spoon. Then a thought flashed across my mind for a split-second: Matzo ball soup, in a French restaurant?
But that's what I love about Meritage. Chef/co-owner Russell Klein fully embraces his Gallic restaurant roots, and that's a gutsy move in a town not exactly known for its Francophilian ways. But he's also not locked into a rigid brasserie model.
That emotional connection comes through in that soup. I got a similar visceral jab off another triumph: roasted wild striped bass, so delicately crispy outside, so moist and succulent inside, with additional textural playfulness from bits of cauliflower and rock shrimp masquerading as one another.
An exceptional duck breast, paired with a superb house-made duck sausage and sprightly spaetzle, demonstrates how Klein is confident enough to occasionally step back and allow top-shelf ingredients to speak for themselves. Ditto a stunner of a beet salad. Pan-fried chicken is extraordinary, and it's a steal at $18. But even the menu's priciest item, a $32 venison loin, is worth every penny. Klein rolls medallions in powdered black trumpet mushrooms before he sears the meat.
Brasserie standards are delivered with aplomb, including steak frites, a sturdy cassoulet, a crock of hearty onion soup, a beautifully aromatic bouillabaisse, an excellent burger. Sometimes it feels as if Klein is toying with classic dishes to stave off boredom, both his and ours. There's a rabbit rillette, sure, but then he fashions it into a cake and pan-fries it before adding a perfectly poached quail egg and bits of squash and curly frisée. With escargot, he drops the familiar butter-garlic-parsley formula in favor of a rich, seasonally appropriate port wine-root vegetable stew. Ricotta-filled gnocchi, unbelievably light, are made with pâte à choux rather than potatoes, sautéed in brown butter and finished with a pesto that replaces basil and pine nuts with arugula and walnuts. Heaven.
Lunch, sunny and cheery, is a treat, too -- it's essentially an abbreviated dinner menu that's boosted by a few uncomplicated noon-hour regulars, including pretty open-faced sandwiches, a well-prepared daily omelet and several pleasant salads.
