XL

Blu Cafe

Breakfast, lunch and the lounge life at the 360 tower

By Mike Sutter
AMERICAN-STATESMAN RESTAURANT CRITIC
Thursday, March 12, 2009

You know downtown is firming up its identity as a neighborhood when a place like Blu Cafe pops up, a place where you can get a breakfast crepe and coffee on the patio in the morning while the dog walkers stroll by, or a sandwich and cappuccino alongside the stray construction worker for lunch, then bruschetta with a martini at night, when a jazz duo might set up in the corner while a group of 10 urban party people celebrates a birthday across the room. Blu Cafe is a three-in-one spot whose multiple identities can shift to fill in the weaker spots and step back to show off the strong spots. But the only way to find that out was to have breakfast, lunch and late dinner at Blu. There are worse ways to pass the day.

Breakfast

At 8:30 in the morning, parts of downtown are still waking up. Either that, or the growing population has headed off to work already, because I was alone at Blu for most of breakfast. The menu looks like a lot of other sandwich-and-coffee places: paninis, salads and pizzas. But the breakfast side includes breakfast crepes with prosciutto and provolone cheese (4.99) and a parfait with fruit, oats and yogurt ($3.45).

We'll get to that, but it starts with coffee, and Blu pours a mean cup of drip coffee at $2.50 for a double. The house brew is Lavazza, a stylish Italian brand with a blue-and-white logo whose sexy photography (it's not polite to stare at the teaspoon bikini) adorns the wall tiles, the menu, the bathroom, everything. It'd be easy to draw a Starbucks branding analogy, but I don't think Starbucks ever used cups and saucers as cascading stalactites or uncomfortable lingerie. But Lavazza clearly sets the wood, steel and white Euro-tone here, part design museum, part lavatory.

Given all that snazz, the crepes were a humble affair, paper-thin and cooked crispy around the edges, garnished only with two tomato slices. But the prosciutto was redeeming, tangy and salty in its thin blanket of mild provolone. And the crepes became part of a decent breakfast paired with the yogurt parfait, dense with blueberries, strawberries and green apple. I felt welcome and at ease, with time to read the paper, overseen by a server who didn't mind how long I stayed.

Lunch

I'm wondering if the wind ever stops its gale-force assault at the base of the 360 Condominiums, where Blu Cafe counts among its neighbors the wine bar Mulberry, the new Royal Blue Grocery and the coming-soon upscale taqueria from Jeffrey's alumnus David Garrido. Do we finally have enough skyscrapers to create a perpetual wind tunnel here? Inside, a woman reads in one of two cushioned seating groups, a man in jeans and a blue work shirt has lunch at the bar, and a sport-sandaled tourist couple takes a low table in the center. The owner himself, Shannon McGill, is running service by himself, and he's efficient and personable.

Here's where I think Blu Cafe is most at home, in the early afternoon when the light streams in and it's busy enough to keep everything streaming out fresh and hot. I have one of the best cappuccinos I've ever tasted ($2.95 for a single), stiff-foamed and robust, served with a cinnamon dusting and pearls of coffee candy. The crunchy-crusted bread on the chicken panini holds up to the generous amount of chicken inside, dressed with an herbed pesto and sharp black olives. It's served with a simple spinach salad with balsamic vinaigrette. It's lunch in a neighborhood spot, one that's nice enough to suit a condo development with units in the neighborhood of $400K, but not too nice to treat you like you belong anyway.

Dinner

Scoot the furniture around to make room for some live music, light some candles, streamline the menu and add a fixed-price wine dinner option, and suddenly Blu is a nightspot. Listening to a trumpet-guitar duo sing Chet Baker, bathed in the cool blue light from which the cafe draws its name and motif, hearing the chatter of ice in the cocktail shakers and the chatter of people animated by the night (and the potions from those shakers), I could spend some serious time here. Wine is sold by the half-bottle, with an Australian red as low as $9. And the fixed-price option is a solid deal, with a half-bottle of wine, bruschetta, pizza and dessert crepes at $29 with Cambria pinot noir or $27 with Santa Margherita pinto grigio.

But here's a time when I think the atmosphere outshone the food. The salad with smoked salmon ($8.25 at dinner) looked and tasted thrown together, with slices of bland salmon bunched at the corners of uninspired greens and weak tomatoes, and the pizza margherita's thin crust was scorched, robbing the basil on top of its herbal powers. I wondered if I'd pushed it too far, trying to repeat the success of my daytime food pairings with the clubbier nighttime environment. Lots of drinks, lots of people for the service staff to look after. But it takes all types to make a neighborhood, and most of the neighbors seemed just fine with Blu's nocturnal phase.

msutter@statesman.com; 912-5902

Blu Cafe

360 Nueces St., at the base of the 360 Condominiums. 904-5666, www.blu

austin.com.

Hours: 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday-Wednesday, 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. Thursday-Saturday.

Prices: Coffee starts at $1.95 for espresso or drip and goes to $3.95 for specialty drinks. Smoothies are $4.99. Breakast (from biscotti to breakfast tacos and crepes) $1.25-$4.99. Sandwiches $6.95-$7.95. Pizzas $6.99-$7.95. Salads $4.95-$7.25. Desserts $2.95-$4.75. Some prices are higher during dinner.

Payment: All major cards.

Bar: A roster of martinis — including espresso, key lime and the standards — for $8.50. Wine is sold primarily in half-bottles, about seven whites, 10 reds and three sparklers, ranging from $9 to $29. Two 512 Brewing beers on tap, $4. Seven bottled beers, $3.50-$4.

Happy hour: From 5 to 8 p.m. Monday-Friday, specials include $5 pizzas and $5 Texas martinis.

Wheelchair access: Yes.

Worth mentioning: At dinner, the wine fixed-price dinner comes with a half-bottle of red ($29) or white ($27), plus tomato-basil bruschetta, a pizza and Blu crepes for dessert.