[ONE] Restaurant is closing

I just learned this news via a bulk email message.  I'm sad.  [ONE] was the best restaurant in the Triangle, a place I recommended to everyone and ate at regularly.  The food that Chefs Kim Floresca and Daniel Ryan produced combined modernist techniques with local ingredients in inventive ways that always resulted in delicious dishes.

April 2 will be the last dinner service there.  If you live in this area, do not miss this last chance to enjoy their wonderful creations.

Bummer.

[ONE] remains the area's best restaurant

Earlier night, a group of us headed to [ONE] for our second special tasting menu from its fine chefs, Kim Floresca and Daniel Ryan.  We were hoping that the amazing meal we'd eaten there before Christmas was not a fluke and that we would again enjoy something special. 

[ONE] did not disappoint us.  The food was creative, beautiful, and most importantly, consistently delicious. 

Click on an image to see a larger version.

As is the case at many restaurants that feature modernist cuisine, the menu serves only to hint at what you be eating.  You can't really know what a course will be until it appears.  (I say that as a compliment, not a criticism; I love the magic show of a great tasting menu.)

Before the first course, though, we received four different amuses, each delightful.  I liked them all, though my favorite for sheer fun was probably this riff on deviled eggs.

I'd never tasted swordfish belly, but after this light, springy dish, I'll eagerly try it in the future.

From this garden of fish and veggies, we moved to a course that appeared to come from the woods.

And on and on the meal went, with the chefs even throwing in an unplanned beef dish that was incredibly flavorful.

If you live in this area or are visiting, and if you love good food, do yourself a flavor and check out [ONE].

[ONE] restaurant: World-class cuisine in the Triangle

I've reviewed [ONE] in multiple past posts.  I've talked about its good start, some less good periods, and its recent dramatic transformation.  I've talked about its potential. 

Last night, I got to experience that potential.  Calling [ONE] the best high-end restaurant in the Triangle is accurate, but it's also inadequate.  As someone who has eaten in many Michelin three-star-rated restaurants and in many of the places ranked in the top fifty in the world, I'm here to tell you that the full truth about [ONE] is so very much better than that bit of praise.  It's simple.

[ONE] can deliver world-class meals.  The one I ate last night was on par with anything I've had anywhere, from El Bulli to Robuchon, from The French Laundry to Guy Savoy (the real one in Paris). 

In an earlier blog post on [ONE], I talked about my desire to have its star chefs, Kim Floresca and Daniel Ryan, cook the meal they would love to create were there no restrictions on price or creativity.  Last night, a group of us ate a version of that meal--not the full, no-holds-barred version, which was not possible due to this being a holiday Saturday night, they told me, but a version good enough to merit a world-class ranking. 

The chefs created this meal despite having to deal with a large group with two vegetarians and a pescetarian.  Here's the menu I ate.  (The distortion is due to the angle at which I had to take the shot not to have my phone's shadow in the picture; sorry about that.)

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The meal began with four snacks, each a lovely bite-sized morsel, all delicious. 

Then, the menu began.  I'm not a fan of the beet, a trait I consider a foodie weakness but nonetheless the truth.  Thus, I was a little nervous about this dish.  I did not express this dislike to the chefs ahead of time, however, because I have learned something important over the years of superb meals:  When a great chef prepares a dish that includes ingredients I think I don't like, I often find I like the food after all.

Tonight's beet dish had me scraping every last bit of flavor from the dish.

While we were enjoying this beautiful and delicious mixture of ingredients, Chef Floresca showed us a loaf of rye bread in which they were baking the rutabagas that were central to the next dish. 

You can barely see many of the ingredients in this one because of all the white truffle shavings, which Floresca applied herself to each of our plates.  Wow, was this superb!

Next, they threw us a curve ball, as Floresca said in her introduction to the dish, by adding a dish to our menu. 

A mixture of lamb tail, lamb heart, and lamb bacon in an amazing sauce over absolutely flawlessly prepared pasta--all topped by black truffle shavings that she again applied--this small bowl was as perfect a dish of pasta and as perfect a winter food as I have ever tasted.  I would love to have this available every time the weather turns unreasonably cold. 

I could go on and on, through every dish, but the outcome was the same each and every time:  The food was creative, fun, and, most of all, delicious.  Our table filled with laughter and exclamations of joy as we ate.  The desserts, which I had once critiqued as weak, were delights.  I didn't catch the pastry chef's name, but he did great work.  In my previous entry on [ONE], I'd praised the snowball as a dish that showed what this team could do.  Here it is, now refined, in a special ice sculpture and with fingerlime caviar atop it--an addition that elevated the already great concoction.

After the two dessert treats on the menu and the two small ones they added, I spent a few minutes in delightful conversation with Floresca.  We talked about food, art, the value of experiences, the importance of humor in art, and many other subjects. 

I cannot recommend [ONE] too much.  It wasn't full on a Saturday night, so I worry (I hope needlessly) about its future, but I very much want it to succeed.  It deserves to be a destination restaurant, the kind of place that brings foodies in New York and LA to North Carolina. 

If you live in the area, do yourself a favor:  Open yourself to culinary wonders, let the chefs cook whatever they'd like, and eat a world-class meal at [ONE].  If you don't live nearby, no worries; you can get to RDU from just about anywhere in two flights. 

Chefs Floresca and Ryan, as well as the whole team at [ONE], flat out deliver the goods.  This is a world-class cooking team. 

Go eat their food.  Be sure to come by and say, "Hi," if you see me, because I'll be there every chance I get.

Picking the right comparison for the delightful [ONE] Restaurant

A couple of months ago, I wrote an entry praising Chapel Hill's [ONE] Restaurant and calling it one of the Triangle's best dining spots.  Earlier tonight, a small group of us visited it again to see whether it was still delivering on the promise of its obviously talented chefs. 

The answer is a qualified yes, but how qualified depends on the comparison points I use.

If I limit myself to only area restaurants, then I need no qualifications at all: [ONE] remains one of the elite establishments of the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area.  Service continues to be a challenge (more on that later), but the food is both inventive and excellent.

The problem is, I don't want to limit myself.  I've eaten in many of the world's very best restaurants, and I believe these chefs have the talent to stand up to any of them.  Bits and pieces of various dishes demonstrate what they are capable of delivering, but one offering justified that belief beyond any doubt: the snowball.

Click on an image to see a larger version.

A group of chefs served us this dish as a special, after-dessert treat.  The serving bowl was ice-cold, and the chefs told us to pick up the snowball with our fingers and eat it in a single bite.  It proved to be a mound of cold joy, a concoction whose flavors of lime (I think) and sugar and other goodies mingled and amplified one another perfectly as it melted in our mouths.

This one bite proves just how much game these chefs have.

The thing is, I want them to make every bite that amazing and delicious, and I think they can.

Not, mind you, that the other dishes were bad.  All were extremely tasty and quite lovely.  My main, for example, featured glazed beef with sweet potato, house-made soy forms, puffed tendon, and other goodies.

As delicious as this dish was, though, the beef was chewy, as if they had gone for a cheaper cut to keep the entree price under $30.  That's a very reasonable business decision, but I still regret it; I wanted that beef to melt in my mouth.

The amuses, a strength of my last meal at [ONE], were much weaker this time, three of them served lukewarm and all a bit doughier than they should have been. 

Again, though, the comparison issue rears its head, because at almost all other Triangle restaurants, those amuses would have been superstars.

I've put off service as long as I can, largely because I liked all the people I met, and all were trying hard, but it simply was not up to the standards of the area's better restaurants, much less the food. The service team felt shorthanded and in the weeds, and the errors were frequent and numerous.  Each and every person was extremely nice, apologetic for all mistakes, and quick to rectify any issues they could, so I hate criticizing them, but if [ONE] wants to hit the levels it has the potential to reach, it must invest in more serving staff and better training for them.

As dinner was ending, I had the chance to chat with C. Paul Jennette, the General Manager.  He gave me his card, so I emailed him earlier and asked if he and the chefs would be interested in creating a special, screw-the-cost tasting menu that would let them show off their complete games.  I hope they choose to take me up on the offer, because I believe the result could be an amazing meal.

Regardless of their response, however, I will absolutely go back to [ONE], and I recommend it highly.  It is indeed one of the best restaurants in the Triangle.

I just want it to aim to be one of the best restaurants in the world.  Succeed or fail, that is the goal at which these chefs should aim their talents.

[One] of the Triangle's best

I've had only good meals at Chapel Hill's [One] restaurant.  Through the several chefs that have led its kitchen, the food has been consistently tasty, the service reasonable, and the atmosphere a pleasant urban feeling, something rare in these parts.  When I saw that the management had changed chefs yet again, I wondered if this would be the time the cuisine suffered.

Until I read about the places this new chef team has worked, a list that includes El Bulli, Alinea, French Laundry, and Per Se. 

Then, I was eager to try their food.

A group of us checked it out earlier tonight, and I'm happy to report that [One] is better than ever in almost every way than its previous incarnations.  (I'll return to the caveat in a bit.)  All the starters and mains we sampled were utterly delicious, as were the several amuses.  All were also beautiful creations, not a single bit out of place.  The chefs beautifully maintained the delicate balance between modernist techniques and local tolerances--in food styles and in budget--to create a lovely, wonderful menu. 

The service has also improved, with wait staff working hard to get all the details right.

I now want to figure out how to arrange to get the chefs to do a no-holds-barred tasting menu.  I would love to see and taste what they could do without any restraints on their creations. 

The reason for the earlier "almost" is that the desserts, always a strong point of [One], were the weakest part of the meal, simply not up to the rest of the menu.  Their descriptions read well, but the flavors were generally muted, the creations just not as inspired as the savories.

Still, [One] is now among the Triangle's elite restaurants, and I look forward to eating there again.

[ONE]

One of our area's better restaurants has, for some years now, been Chef Shane Ingram's Foursquare Restaurant. It's no surprise, then, that the moment I learned Ingram had opened a new place, [ONE] Restaurant, I was intrigued. Then, I read a review and learned that Ingram's team at [ONE] was dabbling in deconstructing dishes and even a bit of molecular gastronomy.

I immediately secured a reservation for a group of us, and the other night we headed over to check it out.

I'm very glad we did. The meal was excellent. Every dish we tasted was delicious, and several were stunning. The pork belly croutons deserve all the accolades they've been garnering. The short rib meat was so tender it practically fell apart and a perfect rich, strong dish on a cold winter night. The mushroom pizza combined a perfect thin crust with flavorful mushrooms and a gentle scattering of covering cheese.

Even the desserts, which are often suspect in an adventurous kitchen, were superb; in fact, they may have trumped the main courses. We tried five, and each was a winner; I was particularly fond of the deconstructed goat's cheese cheesecake.

I also loved the look of the place: gray and red chairs, gray walls, black floors and ceilings, everything elegant and subdued so that nothing drew attention from the real star: the massive open kitchen that runs along one side of the main dining room. (If you go with a small group, sit at the bar and enjoy the show from the best seats in the house.)

Though [ONE] is new, it is already among the best local restaurants. I recommend it highly.