AIRPORT RESTAURANT OPTIONS ARE SMOKIN' HOT
Doris Metropolitan proves Houston could use one more
I freely confess that I grumbled at the mere thought of Doris Metropolitan. Did Houston really need another imported upscale steakhouse taking over the big space that once housed Triniti, where the interesting progressive food never found a steady-enough audience? I thought not.
But my grumbling ceased at first bite. Literally: So engaging was the coiled feta-and-caramelized-onion roll that is part of Doris’ stellar bread service, I haven’t been able to shut up about it since. Warm from the oven and savory, constructed with what seemed to be lamination upon lamination of olive oil, the roll begged to be dipped into the golden pool of olive oil, balsamic and finely minced Israeli “salsa” that came with it.
Likewise a stretchy rectangular log of focaccia and a freckled snailshell whorl of black-olive bread. This was the kind of bread service that demanded full attention as a course in and of itself. They could charge for it
and I wouldn’t dream of complaining. Even on my third visit, it still knocked me out.
So, in its unexpected fashion, did the handsome steakhouse that has turned out to be a welcome addition to the Houston dining scene. Yeah, I said it.
Doris does fine by its carefully tended dry-aged steaks, which hang in their own baroque meat locker, stashed behind glass on ornamental silver shelving under a crystal chandelier — the sort of secular shrine more usually found in upscale shopping centers. These lovingly displayed hunks of beef can be good. Even very good, although a certain laxity of surface sear keeps me from calling them exceptional.
But nearly everything around the beef is so deftly and interestingly done that it lifts the experience well beyond the usual costly steakhouse feed.
The redo has rendered Triniti’s svelte modern interior more conventionally comfortable, a calm sea of soft blues and cream, with ivory-lacquered room dividers and pale wall coverings latticed in charcoal. Operations are conspicuously well-run, from the welcoming hostess stand to the charismatic floor manager, Troy Yearby (a preternaturally well-tailored New Orleans native), to the cordial staff and the Israeli owners themselves.
Although they have Doris locations in Costa Rica and New Orleans, the four founders — who started out in the butchershop business in Israel — are very much in evidence at their three-month-old Houston spot. I’ve seen three of them working the floor with eagle eyes, and the fourth, chef/partner Sash Kurgan, expediting like mad at the pass, his ball cap turned backward.
They’ve hired excellent people here, too. I was happy to see the talented James Caronna running the cocktail program at the big swoop of a bar, where his ideas sparkle with clarity, unusual spirits and ingenious Middle Eastern twists. Chris McFall, who impressed me at Pappas Bros. downtown, has signed on as sommelier, and his lieutenant, Beau Alpin, gives good advice about the scattered bargains on the pricey but sound wine list.
I like all that a lot. But what I love are the vivid vegetable starters and salad dishes, which leap with color and contrast.
“I could take my favorite vegetarian here!” I found myself thinking as I devoured a kaleidoscopic Tomato Salad done four ways: sliced raw, wedges briefly seared, cherry tomatoes halved, all finished with crisped, brittle tomato skins standing straight up at attention.
Factor in a tart vinaigrette, a cartwheel or two of jalapeño to slide over the tomatoes for a twinge of chile heat, scattered hunks of feta and black garlic and dark Moroccan olives. Then the kicker: an egg yolk to mix into the dressing, so that it plumps out and cossets each ingredient. So spectacular was this salad, I immediately fantasized eating it all by itself for dinner at the bar, along with the sainted bread service.
Much later, when I told the chef Kurgan how much I loved the tomato dish, he beamed with pleasure. “That’s the most Israeli thing on my menu!” he said.
Very nearly as exciting was an Artichoke Flower Salad, built high with a tall stemmed artichoke heart, smaller flash-fried baby artichokes and soft batons of Jerusalem artichoke, the sunchoke root. A bed of cool yogurt-based tzatziki propped it all up, and dabs of sundried tomato, olives and black garlic set up a mix-and-match festival.
And oh, the whole roasted beet! As the waiter sliced it open, a magenta-tinted lava of mixed cheeses gushed forth, salty and tart and smoothed out with goat-cheese yogurt. With a crunch of toasted pistachios for texture, this dish was an event.
There’s an intricate, layered quality to these substantial vegetable starters, an approach that occasionally goes too far. A Jerusalem Salad of cauliflower, shallots, tahini, yogurt, tomato salad plus dibs and dabs of this, that and the other proved too busy for its own good. I wanted to like it. It was basically good. But it exhausted me.
Teetering right on the edge of over-complexity was a crude-style plate of briefly spice-cured Gulf snapper decked out with a delicious remoulade, invigorating pearls of gelled sherry vinegar, plus pickled this and that, a circlet of jalapeño and improbable dark accents of blackberry and black garlic. Again, basically good, but subtract two ingredients and call Dr. Cook in the morning.
Not so the starter of simple, pristinely crumb-crusted sweetbreads in a stout demiglace softened with a touch of cream. Slippery little yogurt spheres (this is a kitchen that loves spherification) and orbs of pearl onions chimed in without distracting.
Like the sweetbreads, the meat main dishes exude simplicity and a certain gravitas. Of the steaks I sampled, I was most taken with the Classified Cut, which — though the menu and the servers will not identify it — turns out to be a delightful 9-ounce hunk of rib-eye cap, that rarely seen cut that is intensely flavorful with marbling and a tenderness that approaches filet. I’m a fiend for this cut (Saltillo does it magnificently, grilled over mesquite), so I guessed it immediately, despite the irksome wink-wink mystery.
The rib-eye cap was served on a bed of subtle mixed root purée: potato, sweet potato, carrot and celery root. I loved that, and the half-crisp sautéed baby bok choy bulb laid on top. What I didn’t love was the slightly oversalted demiglace on the side — a rare instance of over-seasoning here. It’s flip side was a meltingly tender, under-salted redwine-braised veal cheek astride an opulent polenta cushion. Solution: Grab a pinch of the red-wine tinted salt pile on the rim of the Classified Cut plate. Perfecto.
Doris Metropolitan uses a combination of sous-vide followed by finishing on the grill for its house-butchered steaks. I found that the diamond-patterned sear lacked the tension and tightness I look for in a steak exterior, both on a bone-in, 31-day dry-aged rib-eye and a 21day dry-aged strip.
Both pieces of beef were flavorful, tender and cooked to medium-rare specifications. But the textures never quite lit up for me. That’s personal, and one’s mileage may well vary. I’d eat the Classified Cut again in a heartbeat. And I was amused to see the equivalent of One Fifth Steak’s “Baller Board” paraded through the dining room aflame, marrow bone flying high, with various cuts of beef waiting to be sliced tableside, with ceremony.
Dessert is kind of a big deal here because it comes from the same gifted pastry chef responsible for those amazing baked-to-order breads. Michal Michaeli is an Israeli who has worked for Daniel Boulud in New York, and she is a talent to watch.
Her dish of creamy malabi pudding spheres under a rippled, luminous carpet of raspberry gel smells and tastes of rosewater, like something out of a Persian garden. I was fascinated by the slight sesame savor of her tahini semifreddo; by the lush but pleasantly unfamiliar labneh (yogurt-cheese) brûlée; and the unexpected topicality of her intricate passion-fruit soup.
As I departed, thinking that the restaurant was very close to three-star potential, I was seized with a single fervent wish. Please, Doris Metropolitan: Open a bakery. I’ll bet there’s a storefront or two waiting across the street.