Fountain Restaurant

Four Seasons Hotel, One Logan Square, Philadelphia, PA

http://www.fourseasons.com/philadelphia/dining/fountain_restaurant.html

There have been many great battles in the Philadelphia area over many disputes. The one that interests me the most is, of course, who has the greatest Sunday brunch in the city. There are two clear disputants: Lacroix and the Fountain. My love for Lacroix has been well documented. I had yet to experience the Fountain though, so it seemed I needed to. So, before the Auto Show (where I slobbered all over the C30 and the new Mini Clubman. However, my Honda is doing just fine thank you and I have one payment left), we went at it.

We were seated promptly at a two-top and lingered somewhat quizzically over the menu.

You see, the Fountain features something of a wacky hybrid brunch: there is an appetizer buffet, then you are presented with your selected entree, and then there is a dessert buffet. Not a fan. What if you are stuck with a sucky entree? I’d rather be able to sample around the main dishes than be presented with a fully-fledged dish, at least in this context.

So, we were confused. And, our server was of no help. It was almost as if he just couldn’t be bothered. He didn’t present a wine list or offer any potent potable options (Um, hello? Mimosa? Bloody Mary?). We overheard another server tell his table that the brunch would proceed at your pace: let us know when you’d like your entree and it’d be out in 15 minutes. Well, that would have been nice to know — I was cramming my face for a while, rushing to get the appetizers in before my entree arrived. In some contexts, I can understand having a more lackadaisical serving approach at a buffet brunch, but not at these prices (our entrees ran at around $40 a piece — buffets are included in that price).

So, off to the appetizer buffet.

Beautiful, no? Yes, definitely beautiful. Notice anything missing?

Wait. Look again.

No labels.

OK, return to that menu we were given (which was whisked away after we ordered): there are a trillion options, and it might be nice to know what we’re going for. So, in that spirit, here are our plates:

As you can tell, I went a little hogwild on the caviar. I quite enjoyed some dishes (that green empanada sort of thing was filled with rabbit and was delicious; the calamari was also lovely), while some left me underwhelmed (the sweet potato soup was strangely thin). It was all well done, but nothing was transporting really. Also, the temperature was odd on some — like some ought to have been hot, but were not.

When we got to our entrees, we were actually lucky, in that they were both lovely. Rick had the crab cake (natch), and I didn’t love it because it was filled with crab, instead of the filling stuff that I love:

I went with the beef tenderloin topped with a celery root ravioli:

This might have been one of the best beef dishes I have ever had. The beef was perfect, the ravioli a nice little change of pace, and the sauce rich but not ridiculous. It was really quite delightful.

Of course, we had dessert. Again, similar problems with labels. Plus, we were pretty full (gee, I can’t imagine why), so we didn’t go off:

We both went for the apple bourbon bread pudding, and we now understood why our server didn’t offer us alcohol, because that thing was strong — too strong. I went off with the raspberries, because how often do you get lovely raspberries in February? We settled the bill and were soon off to battle the crowds at the auto show.

The room and the service were both odd. The room is relatively formal: not quite as stuffy as I expected, perhaps in part to the loads of children there (who are these people who can afford to bring children here?), but it was also a bright day that lightened the room. It was a little too hotel-y for me though, something that Lacroix makes you forget about. We had at least four different people serve us, including the hostess/manager, who was actually the most attentive of the bunch. I hate tag-team service in general because I think it’s actually inefficient and definitely confusing. Our main server disappeared for long stretches and seemed uninterested in us. Not what I’m paying for.

So, the verdict? Lacroix, hands down. The presentation, the room, the service are all far superior, and I found the food to be more inventive, interesting, and put together. So, that makes things easy: when we need to spend over $100 on Sunday brunch, we know where to go.

PS: I should have known I was in trouble when there was no bacon to be found. Duh.

Lacroix

The Rittenhouse Hotel

210 West Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, PA, 19103

http://www.lacroixrestaurant.com/

There are few things better than brunch, and I’m not talking about just dining “things”: I mean, in general, brunch is one of my favorite things in life. It features food, lots of it, friends and family, lolling about: what more could one ask for? I have experienced many fine brunches in my lifetime, starting as a child when church was actually more a pre-brunch activity than an actual destination: like I had to do penance to the brunch gods (yes, going to hell, blah blah fishcakes). Among my favorites as a child were Arnie’s and the Seahorse (sadly defunct). In grad school, economics dictated a rest, but of late, I’ve had some fabulous ones, including the infamous Sterling Brunch in Vegas (about which there will probably be a “fond remembrance” post), and some bad ones (I’m talking to you, Coleman; seriously, don’t go there–it’s a total rip-off).

However, there is really nothing to compare to the Sunday Brunch at Lacroix at the Rittenhouse. It has become almost my life’s mission to turn people on to this place, and everyone I have recommended it to–all of whom first blanched at the sticker price of over $50–have thanked me to the point of embarrassment.

For our third visit, we went with Roland, Philip, and Mike to celebrate the holidays and pig out.

So, Lacroix is a great restaurant in its own right, but they don’t turn their brunch into a cash cow by skimping on quality and just providing quantity. They do both, and do it well.

So, just to set the stage, the room overlooks Rittenhouse Square, and is decorated plushly but modernly in green hues and dark wood. For brunch, the restaurant is given over to presentation. When you enter, you come upon a long table featuring cold dishes, at the end of which sits the raw bar. Once you can tear yourself away from that round, you are escorted into the kitchen, where the hot dishes are located, as well as the chocolate fountain and liquid nitrogen station (oh, don’t worry, we’ll get there). If you have room, the dessert table (ahem, “Garden Table”) awaits:

OK, enough with the setup. By the way, what follows is not for the faint of heart.

Plate #1

(Clockwise from bottom left: salmon crudo, fennel condiment; foie gras ganache; Parmesan “puff,” anchovy, roasted garlic; caramel green apple soda (off plate); unsure; California roll; BBQ eel roll; caviar; spiced baked apple panzanetta)

OK, obviously the star for me here was the puff. The foie gras ganache was, if possible, not foie gras-y enough for us, though I thought it was delightful nonetheless. Here’s the thing about this place: often I will be bowled away just by the very idea of the stuff they came up with. The ganache was like that. The panzanella was very good as well.

Plate #2 (sorry for blurriness; it’s the excitement of it all)

(Clockwise from bottom right: warm chickpea soup, homemade pitas; pulled beef hot pockets; smoked sturgeon salad, potato, horseradish vinaigrette; caviar; “chips and dip” (basically a homemade guacamole))

Yeah, so, going in, who would have thunk that a simple warm chickpea soup would be in the running for best of show? Wow. This little soup (oh, and are you noticing the fabulousness of the portions? Perfection) had us all losing our eyes in the backs of their sockets. It was perfectly smooth, tasting of the most wonderful chickpeas with hints of the expected spices: it was just amazing. We were licking the teacups.

Plate #3 (note, we are not even out of the cold dishes)

(Clockwise from bottom left: chilled spaghetti squash salad, truffle, sunchoke (my second time with this ingredient: the first was a soup at Majolica (see links on right) that was amazing. I may need to try my hand at sunchokes. Yeah, right.), cranberry; warm chickpea soup (everyone is shocked: the first thing anyone said when someone else returned from the cold table was, “are there still chickpea soups?”); crispy potatoes, escargot fricassee; coddled quail eggs with homemade mustard, smoked trout roe.)

Well, obviously there is the soup. However, the potato and escargot number was really quite nice. The potato was nice and light and balanced the earthiness of the escargot well. The spaghetti squash salad was not that memorable, but I loved the consistency of it, and the very idea.

Plate #4 (actually Philip’s because I forgot to photograph my final cold plate because I was beginning to enter a food coma.)

The key thing to mention here is on the bottom: the polenta fries. They had been constantly missing whenever I went up (an oddity, as they are usually quite good about keeping things in stock on the tables), but I finally snagged one and knew why: crispy yet soft, the fry was topped with homemade “ketchup” (God knows why they used scare quotes), which reminded you of potato fries, but balanced nicely with the polenta’s flavor. It was great.

Plate #5 (Hot Stuff!)

(Clockwise from top left: Niman Ranch smoked bacon; unsure: might be a crab cake; rabbit leg paella; unsure: might be sweet potato; Guinness braised beef short rib; center: poached organic eggs, lobster and leeks)

First, the bacon. One of my first websites reviewed brunches, and I had a separate rating for bacon. I love bacon. I own bacon salt. This is some damn fine bacon. The paella was fine; the poached eggs were awfully good (and isn’t that thing they’re in just the dickens? Lacroix has the best containers. Given the restaurant’s ridiculous use of them, we decided that we are going to open a ramekin-only restaurant. Don’t we need this?); the ribs were ridiculous: almost literally melt in your mouth. God they were good.

Plate #whatever

(Clockwise from bottom: bacon (natch); handmade sausage dumplings, truffled white beans; roasted duck breast with cherry compote; axis venison loin au poivre, huckleberry gin jus (well, sure: I make that every Sunday); savory Tuscan bread pudding with fontina and asiago cheese; brussels sprouts with bacon and chestnuts; pumpkin seed pancakes with pumpkin butter)

Yeah, this might have been the best plate. The meats were ridiculous: so tender, so creative, so complex. The bread pudding? Seriously? My God. It put sweet bread puddings to shame, kicking them while they were down, asking them who their daddy was. I don’t know if I have had brussels sprouts more than a couple of times in my life, and if they are half as good as these, I’ve been missing out big time. The pancakes were just pumpkin-y enough, and would you look at the color of that pumpkin butter?

Plate #mmmfffmfmfmmf (me trying to keep going with a mouth and stomach stuffed; sorry again for the focus)

(clockwise from bottom: gratin of potato, lemon, and roasted hazelnuts; food of the gods; belgian waffle with fresh mixed berries)

The gratin had an amazing flavor combination: the lemon was just barely there, but added a wonderful acidity to the pedestrian potato, and the crunch of the hazelnuts were awfully welcome. It was an inspired dish.

Plate #I really should stop…oh, but there’s dessert!

(clockwise from top right: rice crispy treat dipped in the 5-foot tall chocolate fountain; vanilla ice cream with raspberry coulis; milk chocolate malt foam with banana gelee)

Yeah, so the liquid nitrogen station. Here’s what happens. The pastry chef at the station loads a dollop of the foam, tops it with the banana gelee, and then encloses the gelee with another dollop of foam. She then opens the vat of liquid nitrogen and plunges the orb into it. What comes out is this quick-frozen though not hard concoction. Is it worth all of the trouble? Probably not (it was good, but not life-altering), but the theater!

Plate #Must stop eating can’t focus

(orange poppyseed cake with sour cream frosting; coffee pot de creme)

Both were excellent. Frankly, I can’t remember. The food coma was in full effect.

We started at 11, right when they open; we left at 2:45. I had umpteen glasses of water, cups of coffee, trips to the bathroom; I also got the wine duet with a lovely glass of bubbly (Marquis de la Tour) and a glass of a 2004 Chateau Saint-Suplice Bordeaux.

I can’t tell you what it all cost; whatever it was was worth it ($100? maybe more?). Oh, I haven’t mentioned service. Our waiter was sort of odd (like he was nervous, though he’d obviously worked there a while), but the service overall was impeccable: attentive, but not cloying; knowledgeable and respectful–they didn’t once glare at us for our gluttony.

So, yeah. You have to go if you are the area. At some point, we will probably try the other Philadelphia brunch standby, the Fountain, but it’s hard to say no to another trip to Lacroix.