Review: The Gilt Club

Note that Gilt Club changed chef and menu in June 2006. New review will be posted this summer

I face a bit of a quandary when a new restaurant comes to town. How long do I wait to make a review? On one hand, readers really want to know what the new places are like before they spend their hard-earned money. Since everything is new, they want to see what the menu looks like. On the other hand, how fair is it to review a restaurant that has just opened?

As one who has been involved with restaurant openings in the past, I am aware of the dilemma of training staff and perfecting the dishes, versus opening the doors and stemming the hemorrhage of cash. It is a difficult decision to make, but I strongly believe in a ‘soft opening’, letting the staff get their feet wet before you shout your presence to the world.

Taking this into account, I am faced with two new restaurants: Gilt Clubdowntown on Broadway, and Roux on NE Killingsworth. Gilt club opened with little publicity, just a small blurb in Portland Magazine. Roux opened with the finesse of a freight train calling everyone in town to supper. After some thought, I’ve decided to do an ‘initial impression’ of Gilt club and list the menu. On the other hand, since Roux is obviously craving publicity, I’ll jump in with both feet and give a full review. First off is Gilt Club. Here’s a good portion of the menu:

Appetizers:

• Fresh pear salad with prosciutto, candied pecans, blue cheese, endive, frizee arugula, and sherry shallot vinaigrette $9.00
• Crispy bisteeya and pork shoulder confit with apple and apricot chutney $8.00
• Caesar salad, made to order with creamy dressing, pandano cheese, and long croutons $8.00
• Charred rare beef sirloin tartar with a seared scallop, served with avocado, preserved lemon $10.00

Entrees:

• Grilled porcini-rubbed Cascade Natural flatiron steak, sliced thin, with pomme frites, red wine jus and salsa verde $19.00
• Fillet of black cod over saffron scented chorizo potato stew with smoky paprika $19.00
• Boneless chicken leg under a bed of spinach, new potatoes, and agua dulche sauce $18.00
• Spaghetti with North African spiced lamb sausage, roasted tomato sauce, arugula, and pecorino cheese $17.00
• Grilled pork tenderloin with bulgur, butternut squash, pilaf, scallions, walnuts, and apple apricot compote $20.00
• Grilled wild salmon on a dollop of mashed potatoes, braised lentils, root vegetables, Carlton Farms apple wood smoked bacon $22.00
• Fresh fettuccini with caramelized butternut squash, sage, walnuts, lemon butter, grana and padano cheeses $16.00
• Cascade Natural Angus burger, pickled onions, gruyère cheese, monchego red pepper catsup and spicy aoli with pomme frites $12.00

(I’ve read they have a good risotto, but it was not on the menu the times I went)

Desserts:
Five desserts are available, all $7.00:

• Bittersweet chocolate cake with caramelized bananas, chocolate hazelnut pralines, and whipped cream
• Vanilla-scented yoghurt crème berry compote with an almond tuille
• Cypress Hill fromage blanc with roasted figs and wildflower honey
• Pumpkin crème brûlée with spiced pecans and whipped cream
• Caramel apple brioche bread pudding

Alcohol:
There are 12 wines by the glass ranging from $7-14.00. Nothing stood out by the glass or bottle; a pretty average selection.
Eight beers are available, running the gamut from Lindemans to Deschutes Mirror Pond, Black Butte Porter, Stella Artois, and Amstel light. The cocktail list is rather uninspired compared to what others are offering in this town. They need to do some work on it.

First of all, Gilt Club is beautiful in an old-school, clubby kind of way. The bar space to the left of the entry is attached to the dining room, so everyone gets to watch the action in both areas. A large flat screen TV behind a mirror floats over the bar area. When the TV is off, you just see the mirror. Kind of neat, it allows people at the bar to watch TV without being intrusive in the dining room. 60’s light fixtures hang above the bar, with two very dramatic fixtures above the dining room. Everything – floor, ceiling, booths, tablecloths, curtains – is dark red. Lots of big, plush draperies warm the space. The booths are very tall-backed and comfortable. Incongruous paper-bag colored paper is put over the red linen tablecloths. In spite of a plethora of candles on the tables, the lighting is terrible – one has to pass a candle around to see the menus. A friend of mine was given a blue flashlight, being told it was “a common request”. Give me a break and fix the damn lighting. Music was loud enough to be intrusive on an otherwise slow night. The whole place has a very comfortable feel. I have a feeling it will be full of young, trendy, Pearlites when word gets out about the ‘cool interior’. I suppose this all sounds good, but how about the food?

Bay Area chef Paul Irving is running the kitchen. I was told he was formerly the executive chef at the Coconut Grove supper club in San Francisco, and the Petaluma River House in Sonoma County.

The Caesar salad was decent. You can pick whether you want chopped anchovies or not. The dressing is rather creamy, perhaps mayonnaise based. Two huge thin, crisp garlicky croutons are served alongside. No taste of lemon at all. A little bit too salty.

A butternut squash soup special with maple crème fraîche came steaming to the table. It was a bit heavy, rather thick bodied. While it was fine, I would like it to be a bit thinner, and have had better elsewhere. Still, it was fine.

The salmon was too soft; one would even call it mushy. This can be caused by cooking at the wrong temperature, using farmed salmon (though their menu claims wild), or even being frozen. The most likely reason though, is late-season salmon tends to be a bit mushy. Unfortunately, it was so dark, I couldn’t really tell what was the cause of the problem. Either way, it was an unacceptable dish. As my companion said, “I want some kind of texture!”

The dish of pork tenderloin was cooked correctly, though still a bit dry – surprising since it was fairly rare. The bulgar on which it rested suffered from the “too many ingredients” syndrome, though I did enjoy the apple apricot compote. Overall though, nothing special and I wouldn’t have it again.

The fettuccini with butternut squash was the best thing I’ve had at Gilt Club. Fairly simple, good ingredients, not too salty. A decent dish, though I don’t think I would drive across town for it.

Bittersweet chocolate cake with caramelized bananas, chocolate hazelnut pralines and whipped cream was a disaster. The pralines provided unexpected, unwelcome crunch, and didn’t go with the chocolate. None of us cared for this dessert. Same goes for the caramel apple bread pudding. It was better than the cake, but still nothing to write home about. Standard restaurant fare.

Overall impressions: Service was excellent. I started to wonder if the table was bugged, because every time I thought of something to complain about, the waiter would immediately show up to rectify my issue. This restaurant has several things going for it. 1. It serves the whole menu until 2:00am. Right now I can’t think of any decent late night place downtown. After a few drinks, the food here would probably taste much better. 2. The space is nice. Will this be enough to keep it in business? Time will tell. I’ll keep it on my list and go back when it would be fair to give it a full review. Maybe by that time I will have a chance to taste the hamburger with the ‘naughty slice of gruyere’ the Willamette Week review talked about, but then maybe the reviewer spent too much time looking out the window at the porn store across the street and got confused. No score, too early to say.

503-222-4458. 306 NW Broadway Portland. Google Map Reservations recommended late night and towards weekends. Website Monday-Saturday 5 p.m.-2 a.m.

Tags: $$$, Bars/Taverns, Downtown, Northwest Cusine, NW Portland, Open Late, Open Monday, Review