Situated on a dazzlingly unremarkable block on South Jefferson, The Lucky Accomplice clearly hasn’t needed Clayton rents or Central West End foot traffic to draw attention. A delicious combination of raw brick, wood tables and retro-style enclosed booths hold a group of diners, mostly young, who understand they’re the lucky ones. They’ve gotten a chance to knock back Logan Ely’s uncommon takes on food.
Amiable employees are happy to discuss the menu or the pacing that customers might prefer. That menu is not divided up into courses, but does go from lighter food to heavier. And everything is sharing-sized, so I was happy to dine with a pal to cover more of the territory.
WARM BREAD $10 reads the first item on the menu. It could be a stopper for some folks. For others, it’s a sign the kitchen thinks this is a worthwhile experience. Yes, it’s something to make money on, but that’s not inherently evil. Food’s gotten more expensive, and money pays cooks and servers and dishwashers. So indulge your curiosity, or at least let us do it for you.
The bread was focaccia, about a 5-inch square, and indeed warm, but not in that hot-inside-dried-outside-on-the-cut-edges way. A generous scoop of cultured butter put this squarely over the top. Cultured butter is made from cream that’s been cultured with yogurt or the like – there are good discussions on the internet – and the butter has a mild tang that makes it stand out. Also on the bread plate was tapenade, made not just with chopped olives but with (presumably pickled) cauliflower, a sharp, salty accent to everything. It’s difficult to hold back, but one dish we had later made us wish we’d resisted the urge to eat all the bread.
Two halves of a split romaine lettuce heart were showered with crunchy bread crumbs after being anointed with what the menu calls romaine cream. It’s a pale green dressing with lemony notes and just a touch of sweetness plus other, more mysterious notes. Obviously a knife-and-fork salad, it’s combines the lightness of the cool lettuce with flavors that demand thought. While it feels like a relatively virtuous dish, gastronomically it’s quite worthwhile.
At this writing, there are two mushroom dishes on the menu, a roasted maitake served over purple polenta (no idea there – blue corn? beet juice?) and black trumpet mushroom malfada, which is a somewhat irregular pasta, resting on a foam of grana padano cheese. The mushrooms are part of the pasta dough as well as a sauce which also incorporates bits of kale. While it’s not a terribly handsome dish, it’s knock-you-out-of-your-chair delicious. This is what we should have saved the bread for, the sauce left after we scooped and scraped the dish almost clean. Between the woodsy mushroom and the cheese, the umami factor was outta sight. The pasta itself, obviously made in-house, kept its al dente very nicely, a little garlic showed up for the party. It all left us shaking our heads in amazement and delight.
Chef Ely seems fond of pork collar, a cut not seen on restaurant menus very often. It is, appropriately enough, between the shoulder and the neck, and has that moist tenderness a pork shoulder offers, along with a certain amount of connective tissue. Currently he’s showing it off as a roast piece, cut into thick fingers with a sauce made with preserved lemons. The salty-sour-slightly bitter notes are very at home with the pork. A broccoli persillade alongside adds a little more acidity, but clearly plays second fiddle to the meat – that is, until the next day, when the remnants were brought out for lunch. Then the cold persillade came into its own as tasting very similar to a finely chopped but very zingy slaw, although with well-cooked broccoli instead of cabbage. It seemingly grew more flavor overnight, the way some dishes can. I hope someone in that kitchen has discovered it would be a valuable component in a sandwich.
One item on the brief dessert menu that seems a staple is what’s called a Lil John. Is this a tip of the toque to the now-gone-but-legendary California Donut further south on Jefferson and its Long John? Next time I’ll investigate the concoction, made with chocolate, cream cheese and pecans. This time, we got distracted by the idea of a beet cake. Please note, this isn’t the chocolate cake with beets that former Kansas City star chef Bradley Ogden brought to eager Californians at his Lark Creek Inn. Instead, what we have is an individual upside-down cake with a slice of beet as the foundation-turned-topping. The beet-ness is pretty much subservient to the flavor of the almond flour used in the cake, but it’s all tender, even gentle, including the oval of sour cream sorbet alongside. And, yes, that red dust is indeed beet dried and ground to a fine powder. (Note streak on plate.)
A fun evening, including a short-but-interesting by the glass list; I knocked back a sparkling Lambrusco from Cleto Chiarli and my pal, being a beer aficionado, went with Side Project’s Coeur de Cuvee No 4. Definitely a place for inquiring minds and palates.
Reservations strongly encouraged – the outside picnic tables are walkup seating, but I daresay that’s gone for the next five or six months.
The Lucky Accomplice
2501 S. Jefferson at Victor
314-354-6100
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