The Keep brings flair to the familiar
The Keep Kitchen and Liquor Bar has a sophisticated menu rooted in casual French cuisine, global influences and updated techniques.
The restaurant, located in the Hotel Leveque Downtown, bills itself as a chefdriven brasserie, offering more than a few familiar dishes, such as French onion soup ($9).
Starting with a rich beef stock, the soup offers caramelized Spanish onions deglazed with sherry wine, with crusty bread floating under a layer of bubbling Gruyere cheese.
“It’s a great start to a meal, and it could be a meal with a little sandwich or salad as well,” chef Johnathan Olson said.
With the steak frites ($26), the restaurant offers a 9-ounce prime flatiron cut finished with a bordelaise sauce containing chopped shallots. The steak is served with hand-cut fries tossed with freshly grated Parmesan, tarragon, parsley and chives, with a garlic aioli dipping sauce on the side.
“The herbs in the fries lighten things up a bit,” Olson said.
Roasted beets are paired with rounds of Steak frites at The Keep Liquor Bar
goat cheese rolled in green onion “ash” and softened in the broiler ($12). Also on the plate are roasted cipollini onions, carrots, Belgian endive and frisee, garnished with a balsamic reduction.
Seared duck breast ($24) is served over a puree of celery root and pear. Both radicchio and acorn squash are warmed in the pan with the duck. Hazelnuts provide texture while agrodolce, a vinegar reduction seasoned with Calabrian chiles, provides sweet, sour and spicy counterpoints.
“I really enjoy duck,” Olson said. “It’s just wonderful and not always an easily found protein on the menu.”
He serves a stylized beef Bourguignon ($30) that uses wine-braised Ohio short ribs served over whipped potatoes with lardons, carrots, mushrooms and pearl onions.
“It’s like beef Bourguignon meets pot roast,” he said.
At lunch, the Cuban sandwich ($11) combines smoked pork loin with spreadable North Country chorizo, house-cured pickles, Dijon mustard and Swiss cheese on crunchy grilled bread.
“We want and try to make everything approachable, whether it’s the protein on the plate or the way it’s prepared,” Olson said. “We want to have a familiarity to our customer base but also just challenge people and give people something different that might be new to themselves or other people.”