At Julian, Celina Tio delivers on her promise of “feel good food”
Like all new dining spots, celebrated chef Celina Tio’s new Brookside bistro, Julian, has a few troublesome kinks that need to be ironed out. Don’t even get me started on the adorable but dizzy hostess. But the potential for greatness is all over the little place.
Julian’s slogan is “feel good food,” and it’s certainly a feel-good restaurant. The stark but comfortable interior bears little resemblance to its former tenant, Joe D’s Wine Bar. Tio and her staff have given the tiny space — built in the 1920s as a gas station — a simple but strikingly clean makeover in cool silver, gray and white. Chairs are brushed aluminum, and the tables are bare except for unpretentious placemats and cloth napkins. The idea, I think, is that one is eating home-style food — glamorous home-style food — in a setting so casual that no one looks twice if a patron knocks over a glass of water, laughs a little too loudly or asks too many questions about the menu.
I asked a lot of questions, though, because Julian’s menu is almost too simple: two narrow pages clipped to a board. One page is the wine list; the other lists 28 starters, sandwiches, main plates, side dishes and desserts. Each listing could probably use a little more information, or maybe not — the servers (including a couple of burly guys who could pass as bouncers) can explain the ingredients and construction of each dish with great knowledge. And, honestly, does it really matter whether the menu explains the two mustards that are served with the yeasty, house-made pretzels — a potent, coarse-grain mustard and a dark, satiny version made with wine must (unfermented grape juice) that tastes vaguely like tamarind sauce? Servers are happy to explain all of this, and, even better, they’re candid enough to guide diners away from dishes that they don’t think are top-notch.
On the night I ate there with my friends Stacy and Cory, we noticed that the names of several dishes on the menu were in quotation marks, which Cory found troubling. “What does that mean, exactly? That they aren’t exactly what they seem to be?” We agreed that in the case of the “breakfast for dinner” starter, we didn’t give a damn what the quotation marks meant. We just knew we didn’t want it. The “popcorn sweetbreads” sounded more intriguing. Stacy, who was born in the Deep South, knew what sweetbreads were — the thymus glands of baby lambs, cows or hogs — and correctly guessed that the popcorn reference meant they were deep-fried.
Cory turned up his nose at the whole idea of the sweetbreads and was happy dipping into a hearty bowl of mussels steamed with Boulevard ale, onion and thyme. But Stacy and I were more adventurous. Anything deep-fried tastes, well, deep-fried to me, so I was delighted to see the mound of crispy, golden fritters served in a little basket with a side of lemon-pickle mayonnaise. They were very tasty under that deliciously crunchy armor but, honestly, they could have been fried clams, squid or mushrooms for as little as they tasted like sweetbreads. Maybe that’s a good thing.
Other than its occasionally befuddling punctuation, the menu lists two different prices for six of the nine main plates. Our bearded, burly server explained that the less expensive price is for an entrée of fewer than 500 calories. A bigger portion with more calories is three or four bucks more. I voted for more calories. So did Stacy, who was thrilled with her “pot roast” of sumptuously tender braised short ribs mounted on a tower of roasted potatoes and carrots. (Still, it wasn’t a hefty ol’ Midwestern portion by any means.)
Cory fought off his skepticism about “shepherd’s pie” and trusted the server’s description of the dish as a bowl of house-made mashers and carrots topped with a lobster tail — a good-sized one, too — that turned out to be excellent. My own meal, the seared salmon on a bed of Asian noodles in an addictive ginger vinaigrette, was a lovely but modest portion, so we ordered a couple of side dishes: cheesy grits (Southern Stacy thought they were undercooked) and divine steamed broccoli in a rich sauce made with Musser artisanal Cheddar.
I ate too much to consider a sweet finale when our server presented the dessert tray. But my companions were intrigued by the array of miniature dolce all under 400 calories and all costing four bucks: a slice of grilled pound cake with a baked-apple compote; a hunk of maple-infused bread pudding; a slice of cheesecake made with organic summer squash; the pieces of a deconstructed banana split — maybe a little too creative; and a buttermilk panna cotta that was as light as a feather but a bit bland, even with the berry compote topping.
Stacy and Cory adored the signature sweet: a little bowl of silky milk-chocolate pudding sprinkled with sea salt and topped with a marble-sized ginger doughnut. I don’t even like chocolate pudding, but this was extraordinary.
It was so good, in fact, that on my second visit to the restaurant, with Dan and Robin, they insisted on tasting it because it was the prettiest thing on the tray. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Everything was visually stunning. The meal started with a tiny potato-chive pancake topped with a generous dollop of house-smoked trout; it wasn’t easy to share, but we did it. Dan whispered that Robin makes a better macaroni and cheese than Celina Tio’s version, which I thought was great if a tad dry, made with broccoli, Boulevard ale and a creamy, nutty Gruyère.
Dan’s tender, basted flatiron steak was perfectly prepared and served on a bed of firm, chewy farrow (the ancient speltlike grain that’s coming back into fashion) and braised carrots. In the case of my plate of fish “tacos,” the quotation marks were justified: These looked and tasted more like elegant pot stickers, with the hunks of flaky halibut tucked into fried cornmeal crepes and sprinkled with chopped egg and cilantro. Fantastic!
After dinner, Dan polished off that chocolate pudding (after letting me take a bite) and even threatened to lick the bowl clean. “We have seen that happen here,” the waiter Adam told us, “so don’t be embarrassed.” Robin ate her grilled pound cake with more decorum.
Even though the main dining room at the back can get awfully noisy, we were able to have a stimulating conversation without feeling as if we were competing with the din. “It’s a great little neighborhood bistro,” Dan said as he sipped the dregs from his glass of wine. “I actually want to come back.”
I do, too.
