Out of the Shade comes Alice Blue
The squash fritters looked overfried when they were set before me at Alice Blue.
They were spiky critters. I eyed their mahogany shade askance, then bit — to find the lattice of fat zucchini shreds inside quite lovely, twanged with cilantro, softness against exterior crunch. Dipped into yogurt dusted with earthy sumac, they overcame my initial misgivings.
So, in a larger sense, did Alice Blue itself. The restaurant is chef Claire Smith’s reconfiguration of 14-year-old Shade, her pioneering spot on West 19th Street in the Heights. It’s named
for a favorite shade (pun intended) of Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Teddy Roosevelt’s eldest, who famously said, “If you haven’t got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.”
Smith chose a less barbed Alice aphorism to quote when she opened Alice Blue: “I have a simple philosophy: Fill what’s empty. Empty what’s full. Scratch where it itches.” It fits because Smith has pared back and refocused her Southern/ Gulf Coast repertoire, with its intricate global touches. Alice Blue is all about gently Mediterranean small plates and a handful of sharable main courses, animated by a lively wine list and serious cocktails.
Even the new look of the high-ceilinged space, sleeked up in varying shades of blue, could pass for a modern tapas bar in urban Spain. Smith has always had a gift for creating interesting rooms, dating to 1994 and Daily Review, her first venture with then-partner and design guy Carl Eaves. I still have vivid memories of the bumblebee textile that covered the banquettes there. And lo, the walls of Alice Blue are clad in an arresting blue-and-white graphic covering, while the front face of the long, hospitable bar jumps with pattern. With Rihanna on the sound system and tables of 30-somethings studded through a more mature neighborhood crowd, it all feels lighter and brighter and younger than Shade.
It tastes that way, too. The smoked butter that makes a bowlful of cavatelli so sultry seems up-to-the-minute in barbecue-crazed Houston. Soft, pillowy blobs of burrata make the pasta dish rich and comforting. Cherry tomatoes, roasted to bursting, make it pop. Paddle-shaped nasturtium leaves scooting across the surface give it a green, peppery bite. And the noodles, oval folds that catch the sauce, are all spring and bounce.
This is great stuff. So is a small plate of roasted eggplant zapped with a chopped-pistachio gremolata spangled with tart pomegranate seeds, to scoop up with a crackle of house-made lavash, the Mediterranean flatbread. Just as good: a racy chickpea salad dotted with tiny French lentils and feta, its dressing alight with satsuma and sesame. Or a side of barely roasted broccoli showered in lemony fennel-seeded bread crumbs, ready to take its place as part of a shared mezza-style spread.
A couple of items need only a tweak to bring them into better focus. I love brandade, the Provençal salt-cod-and-olive-oil spread, but Alice Blue’s version seemed not quite voluptuous enough the night I sampled it. An interesting morcilla fondue of blood sausage and thinnish cheese sauce did not quite cohere: All the cheese gravy seemed to tamp down the vitality of the morcilla.
Spongy, house-baked bread to transport such dishes mouth-ward add value. So does some of the most gracious, enthusiastic service I’ve encountered lately. Not to mention a slate of wines by the glass so unexpected it’s almost (but not quite) too idiosyncratic, a condition I would swap for dullness any day of the week. I’ve even had fine luck with cocktails here, from a brisk, well-balanced Airmail of rum, lime, honey and sparkling wine; to a Mezcal Eclipse with aperol cherry heering. It all amounts to a beverage lineup that really suits the tapas-style format.
Even the larger main courses arrive ready (or almost ready) to share. A really nice, juicy roast chicken comes to the table sundered apart and grabbable, poised on buttery potato purée with deep-toned oyster mushrooms and an even deeper-toned chicken jus, rendered down to a dark walnut shade.
It’s been years since I’ve ordered salmon in a restaurant, but Alice Blue’s current version captivated me with the satiny slip and side of its interior and its daring tonnato sauce, a purée of tuna traditionally paired with veal. Sautéed bok choy added greenness and crunch; a fillip of pickled-jalapeño escabeche added a very Houstonian note of surprise.
Even a sliced steak dish rises above the norm with its dusky tug of blistered shishito peppers, the snap of well-crisped fingerlings and a fluffy béarnaise sauce fairly singing with fresh tarragon. It may not be the most serious New York strip you ever ate, but it’s swell.
Finish with a slice of rich olive oil cake, swirled with a fig-balsamic glaze and served with crème fraîche, and you’ll depart happy.
But. It pains me to report that my brunch at Alice Blue was a disaster. The menu read like a dream, but the potato pancakes that sounded so good, with their smoked fish, scrambled eggs and “everything” cream cheese, turned out to be a harsh mishmash. Grievously overfried potato cakes hacked up and tossed with hard-scrambled eggs and chunks of decent smoked whitefish is not my idea of a good time.
Nor is a salty, rather violent potato hash with salsa mocha, peanuts, escabeche and fried egg, accompanied by a “crispy pork belly” option that proved to be little more than a few hunks of fat. Both dishes had a Brutalist air: big, rough, raw shapes and textures without much finish to them. Works in architecture. Not so much at brunch.
The letdown reminded me of the difficulty involved when a chef oversees multiple restaurants. Smith runs Canopy in Montrose, plus an active catering company. It’s hard to keep everything consistent. Indeed, over the years, I drifted away from Shade (and never took to Canopy) because I felt the chef didn’t always have the kitchen staff that could execute her vision.
Still, the ingredients for a solid two stars are there at Alice Blue — right along with the fine seasonal ingredients that Smith helped to pioneer in this city back in the mid-’90s, at Daily Review.
Four months in, executive chef Kent Domas and menu consultant Jason Vaughan have made a good start. Alice Blue is already a solid neighborhood choice. It has the potential to be more.