Restaurant Review - Buzz from the Grapevine

Gerovassiliou Malagousia, anyone?

My plan of attack at Eno’s wine bar has always been the same: Rifle through the by-the-glass list, order several two-ounce tastes of something unfamiliar (perhaps even unpronounceable) and chugalug.

OK, well, first I go through the motions that seem so pompously irritating to non-wine lovers. I gaze mystically at the color. I swirl the juice around in its glass. I inhale profoundly and ponder the adjectives and analogies that describe what I smell. Then I chugalug.

It never feels pretentious at Eno’s wine bar, which manages to evoke a casual sliver of wine country in Midtown. The large windows overlook nothing much on Peachtree Street, but inside the neutral-colored niche, sitting on a brown suede barstool, I can contemplate a phonetically challenging glass of Greek wine and daydream.

So what about the dining room that unfurls just beyond the wine bar? Until last month, I had no idea. I’d always heard the food was mediocre. Save for the occasional nondescript tapas from the bar menu to temper the effects of alcohol, I came to Eno to drink, not to eat.

But a new chef in the kitchen, Milton “M.G.” Farris, prompted me to pass the hostess stand for the first time. It felt like walking through the wardrobe into Narnia. You can sit along the wood-floored stretch that runs the length of the restaurant, but most guests are shown to the sweetly simple nook off to the right. The angular, abstract images in the art around the room are striking. You can see the outline sketches of bunnies appearing through many of them. Wisely, the chef does not offer rabbit on the menu.

What he does proffer is his newly revamped, Mediterranean-themed collection of elegant sounding dishes. Sadly, I’d say the food currently works about half the time. I had one startlingly glorious dinner, followed by one obviously off night, and a third that fell somewhere between the two.

Here’s what we stumbled on that first enchanted evening: Goat cheese terrine wrapped in potato that was served with arugula juice and tiny lettuces to lighten the terrine’s creamy density. Herbed gnocchi with early heirloom tomatoes heightened by a complex brown butter vinaigrette and generously freckled with pepper.

A whole roasted, deboned loup de mer was prepared with crafty care: The fish was slightly under-salted but flanked with saline, dry-cured olives for counterbalance. A squeeze of roasted lemon added depth and brightness. The roasted potatoes alongside the fish were underdone, but layers from a chunk of tender braised fennel peeled off coyly. Lamb chops were crusted with North African spices (coriander was predominant) and good enough to pick up and chaw on.

An uncomplicated bowl of strawberries mingled with Moscato zabaglione made for a graceful finish.

I found a dish on another visit worth a trip in itself. Memorable carpaccio of summer flounder tastes like the culinary lovechild of Guenter Seeger and Sotohiro Kusogi. Translucent slices of sushi-grade flounder are arranged in a circular pattern and dusted with cardamom. Cardamom? I don’t know where Farris came up with that combo, but he pulls it off: The dusky sweetness of the spice gives the milky fish a tingly nudge, and micro celery greens provide the essential, earthy third note. It’s quite a magical tryst.

How much more disappointing, then, to eat oysters so exceedingly smoked that they taste like squishy cedar chips. Duck breast is wildly, carelessly over-salted one evening. Scallop and zucchini ravioli, on the other hand, are under-seasoned, and the zucchini juice dribbled around the plate tastes like grass (and I’m speaking of the lawn variety). There’s a lot of over and under business going on. Farris is new in his position, but I hope he finds the center target in his food soon.

Eating in Eno’s dining room also reveals other, less inspiring aspects of the restaurant’s wine service. Obviously, on three visits I can in no way thoroughly explore the lengthy and expensive wine list. But I did find some great stuff. Neyers, a California vineyard known for its Zinfandels and Chardonnays, also makes a hunky bulldozer of a Grenache. For a staple grape of France underused in the U.S., Grenache tastes big, jammy and American.

On another trip I splurged on a white Burgundy, a subtly rich and poised Marc Colin Chassagne-Montrachet. Of course, I ordered this after our disdainful server returned to the table to tell me they were out of all of the Viognier varietals I had requested but one - the one I’d had before. And at these prices by the bottle, I’m looking to discover dazzling new vistas in my wine glass.

Two other observations: The number of wines available by the half-bottle is astonishingly low. Half-bottles are hot in the wine industry right now, and for good reason. It gives customers - particularly parties of two - an opportunity to explore higher-end options in lower quantity and for less cost.

Also, in my three visits, I never came across a notably knowledgeable wine person on premises. The server who told me he was out of the Viogniers? He didn’t have much in the way of alternative suggestions, nor did he defer to anyone who did. It would be advisable, in a restaurant that specializes in wine, to have someone in the house who knows how to communicate the romance and largesse of wine to intimidated and/or inquisitive customers (and 96 percent of us fall into one of those categories).

But without personal guidance, you can still stumble upon transcendental wine moments eating a full-blown dinner at Eno. At dessert time during my final meal, we ordered “blueberry triplettes,” a decent dessert of lemon tart with blueberries, blueberry gelee and blueberry sorbet. Yet what lingers from that course was the wine pairing suggested on the menu: a honeyed, mouth-filling, late-harvest Viognier. It aroused so many rapturous adjectives and analogies that I want to return just to savor it again. Perhaps I’ll pair that Viognier with those lovely strawberries next time.

bill.addison@creativeloafing.com