Teresa Gubbins

had lunch on a low-key friday; we got there at 1:15 pm and the room was half-full, including a large party of 8 to 10 lady real estators.

we sat at a nice table by the window; the alternative, a booth, felt too "datey" for a boisterous dish session with a colleague

love the fabrication: the vestibule/waiting room has a sleek stitched-leather banquette with a velour rolled pillow; gorgeous blue-gray slate on floor and wall. dining room chairs had cool woven strips of leather - comfortable and pleasing to the touch

the waiter warned that "the food is family-style", which i guess means a side dish is too big for one person? we got five salad, vegetable, and pasta dishes and split them. it was just "enough". they also have entree-type things like chicken with collard greens or pork loin & cipollini onion

beet & roquefort cheese salad ($10) had red, golden, white beets cut in quarters and cooked until just soft. crumbles of blue cheese were soft and buttery. also had some mesclun-style mixed greens and the best part, crunchy, candied whole pistachios

arugula & lemon salad ($10) had lots. they used wild arugula but unlike some wild arugula, which can be scrappy and gnarly, these had enough green leaf to be tender. just the right amount of pine nuts (uh, maybe one pine nut per 10 arugula leaves)

buffalo tartare & smoked egg ($16) was like crostini: three oblong toasts topped with high, molded mounds of raw ground spiced bison meat. the meat was cool but not cold, with a peppery tang. where was the smoked egg: maybe mixed into the bison? the 5 house-made pickle slices on the side were dull and opaque. better pickles are the yummy crunchy bread-&-butter pickles from Tim Love's Love Shack in FW

ricotta cavatelli with smoked chicken & preserved lemon ($14) was listed under pasta side dishes. cavatelli is a rolled pasta made with ricotta similar to gnocchi in that it has cheese mixed into the dough. but the cavatelli, whose ridges made them look like fat maggots, was firmer and heavier than gnocchi. didn't get much smoke off the chunks of chicken but it was ultra-tender. nice artsy narrow white ceramic bowl

we also ordered brussels sprouts -- but while ordering, we asked about the mushrooms, and that's what the server brought ($12). no brussels sprouts. he disappeared for a spell so we ate the mushrooms and didn't bug him about the brussels. the mushrooms were a medley -- chopped cremini and hen of the woods mostly with a random shiitake or two -- and sauteed. it's one of their specialties and it was cool they didn't glop it with sauce -- they appear to have been sauteed in butter and served as is, but it was a little austere and lukewarm

complimentary house bread was four small round slices of very good crusty bread with moist, soft crumb, with a round of fancy butter sprinkled with crunchy kosher salt, all lined up on a rectangular slab of wood

we each got two cappuccinos which were of the "european" variety, meaning a small cup, maybe 6 to 8 ounces max. at $5.50 per cappuccino, that ended up being a grand total of $22 for cappuccino alone, and that felt like a rip-off

they often give you a gift when you leave; in this case it was a small packet of the housemade granola served at breakfast -- crunchy oats, pumpkinseeds, sunflower seeds, chopped almonds, very nice. i wish they served breakfast all day, they have some appealing baked goods, cereals, frittatas, and an eggs benedict with jumbo lump crab

they validate parking but, it being victory park, there was, sadly, plenty of street parking at 1 p.m.

lunch for two, including those outrageously-priced cappuccinos, was $88 (plus tip, we left 15%, woulda gone higher if it weren't for that brussels sprouts snafu). obviously, that's high for lunch, but for me, it was well worth it. for the most part, everything was impeccable. they're also offering a prix fixe lunch with three courses including dessert for $39 per person.