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Thursday, March 5, 2009
Zoot opening its doors on Bee Cave
It’s been 10 weeks since the chefs and staff of Zoot traded knives and aprons for paintbrushes and brooms as the restaurant moved from a 70-seat small house in West Austin to a 100-seat renovated space in the La Hacienda shopping center on Bee Cave Road.
Their efforts will pay off when the 18-year-old gourmet institution reopens at 5 p.m. Monday at 11715 Bee Cave Road, just east of Texas 71.
Co-owned by Stewart Scruggs and Mark Paul, who also own Austin’s highly regarded Wink restaurant, Zoot will continue to showcase the cooking of Andreas Exarhos, with dishes such as seared foie gras with first-of-the-season Poteet strawberries, chile-braised lamb shank and paprika-glazed duck breast, not to mention a simple roasted chicken breast with creamy polenta. “We changed locations, but we didn’t sell our soul,” Scruggs said.
Appetizer prices will run $10 to $18, soups and salads $7 to $8, with main courses from $21 to $30 and $8 desserts by pastry chef Mary Catherine James, including a salted caramel ice cream sundae with peanut brittle and chocolate sauce.
Zoot (477-6535, www.zootrestaurant.com) will be open daily at 5 p.m., with an abundant wine list and beer, and Scruggs said lunch hours are planned in the coming weeks, with full bar service on the horizon.
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Austin Restaurant Week: Green Pastures
My Austin Restaurant Week dinner ($25): Tempura lobster tail (above), flat-iron steak with blue cheese, bread pudding. Other options include a toasted brie sandwich, gnocchi with mushrooms and rainbow trout with crawfish. (Green Pastures, 811 W. Live Oak St. 444-4747, www.greenpasturesrestaurant.com. The second half of Austin Restaurant Week runs March 8-11. Check the list of $25-$35 fixed-price options here.)
The pageantry continues inside, in more muted tones, weaving in and out of a warren of rooms set with antique couches and an impossible number of tables. Green Pastures has been around for six decades, and the staff knows the drill: stay calm, dress well, be attentive but not chatty or hovering, bring the courses at the guest’s pace, not yours. This must be what formal service feels like.
If you prefer your waiters decked out in rave hats and wallet chains, formality and the prices that follow it can be intimidating. At Green Pastures, main courses veer into the $30-plus range, which is why a $25 three-course menu during Austin Restaurant Week is startling and inspired. The fried lobster tail alone was worth the ride, but a flat-iron steak and a New Orleans-style bread pudding made the bargain surreal.
Flat-iron steak is a cut from the beef shoulder that had its rock-star moment a few years back, before people became leary of paying New York strip prices for surgically altered blade steak. Too bad, because in the right hands, flat iron marries the density of sirloin with the flavor and tenderness of a strip. Green Pastures took it to another level with big crumbles of powerful blue cheese and a light beurre blanc sauce. Whole green beans with pecan pieces and a pair of sweet and spicy fried onion rings were more than just pretty plate garnishes.
Custardy bread pudding the height of a big country biscuit was rich with bits of white chocolate and plated with dustings of sugar and dots of cinnamon, robed in a Jack Daniel’s sauce so whiskey-bright that I think it counted as an after-dinner drink on the veranda, a thoroughly Southern ending to thoroughly Austin experience.
(American-Statesman photos by Mike Sutter)
