David Bull's Congress shatters the five-star ceiling: At the Austonian, a celebrated chef returns with a game-changing study in food, wine, service, setting and value

In more than two years as this paper's restaurant critic, I've chased my own definition of five stars: "An extraordinary restaurant experience from start to finish." When I found it at Congress, I had doubts. Not about Congress, but my own metrics.

Has it been in business long enough? Congress opened barely in time to celebrate New Year's Eve, but it's hardly this team's first party. Chef David Bull was a star when he left the Driskill Grill in 2007 for the Stoneleigh Hotel in Dallas, but he's rejoined now by a cadre of Driskill expats that includes Rebecca Meeker as chef de cuisine, manager Scott Walker, a handful of servers and line cooks and Jeff Trigger, who heads the La Corsha group behind Congress, Bar Congress and Second Bar + Kitchen. Bull calls it a restaurant family reunion.

Given Congress' narrow pricing options — $65 for three courses or $95 to $125 for seven courses — am I equating cost with quality? There's some correlation, but dollar signs aren't the only measure of real value.

Is Congress really one star above Uchi, Uchiko and the Carillon, the only places I've rated four stars? Right now, yes. And here's why.

Food: Check.

The prix fixe experience calls for a surrender of control, like when fate puts you at dinner with your girlfriend's ex, and he orders for the whole table without looking at the menu, and everything is great. No threat, tough guy. It just confirms what great taste she has, right?

Surrender doesn't mean being part of a science fair project at Congress. Bull renders balanced flavors from familiar foods, cooked and composed with elegant precision: American caviar with a smooth, sweet mousse of carrot and orange zest. Beef short rib ravioli, deeply savory, with burrata cheese that skirts the line between liquid and solid but defies that ambiguous state with full cream flavor bouncing off deep brown bordelaise sauce. Meat cut from the marbled rib-eye cap, rolled into a tight cylinder, finished with an espresso rub and smoked caramel sauce more savory than sweet, alongside buttery potato puree as smooth as a baby's blanket.

Smart, simple flavors rolled through gnocchi with a light sear that gave them full figured density but left the smooth potato flavor intact. Plated with shredded oxtail that had a pleasant rustic twang without aggressive gaminess, the dish was a small expression of meat and potatoes, finished with a delicately cooked quail egg. Veal sweetbreads were constituted into a rectangular slice, seared crisp on the outside, velvety inside with goat cheese for creamy accord. Micro-thin slices of green tomato brought a slightly acidic, grassy counterpoint.

The lamb chops were cooked a shade past medium-rare, with a salted crust and a tactful display that avoided being fussy. It was plated with strips of roasted salsify, a rustic root vegetable that gave a simple foundation for flavors from candied oranges and a cardamom-infused yogurt that referenced the Mediterranean. We gnawed the bones to a smooth museum ivory.

A disc of cool foie gras with toasted brioche and Minus 8 vinegar as direct as fortified wine raised the stakes. The heat of my breath was enough to release flavors more subtle than the iron hand of seared foie. Iron hand, meet velvet glove. It's a $24 upcharge on either menu.

Subtlety reigned over velvety hamachi (a kind of Japanese snapper), without the heavy-handed citrus that so often defines raw-fish preparations. Razor-thin red chiles and hearts of palm added zest and texture, topped with a neat shoelace bow of sesame soba noodles. Escolar took the form of three precise cylinders formed by browned chicken skin, a surf dish with turf flavor assists from chicken jus and bacon, although on a menu where pork is notably recessive, I wouldn't have missed the bacon.

Only one dish got lost in its collection of elements, a yellowtail with a trio of similar textures from peas, pistachios and bread crumbs, cradled by foam I couldn't make out. It was hardly a failure, just not as precise as the rest.

Pastry chef Plinio Sandalio has created dessert menus for both restaurants, and a trio of his creations is a $22 option at Congress. We sampled grapefruit sorbet with Campari pop rocks, more for snap-crackle-pop than flavor, which I didn't pick up among the astringent and sweet grapefruit in its icy and au naturel forms. A thick coin of dense, dark chocolate brought a liquid white chocolate center, finished with a dot of raspberry, toasted hazelnuts and a shard of something like chocolate-hazelnut stage glass called gianduja. A favorite was fried sweet potato beignets sprinkled with chicory, served with pecan brittle and salted butter ice cream, plus a suggestion of coffee, in case you weren't picking up on the Cafe du Monde vibe.