 Executive Chef Joe Drift holds a plate of Chilean sea bass. The Saffron Bistro 80 Main St., Nashua 883-2100 thesaffronbistro.com
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We were greeted at the door by the dapper Ben Mercuri, who co-owns the restaurant with Joe Drift. Both have restaurant experience including at Cassis in Andover — and they’ll need it because this is one ambitious venture. We were early for our reservation so we moved into the bar to check out that scene, and a lovely one it is with a cool marble top and some small tables. The piano is in the dining room, but you can still see it from the lounge.
The cocktail list is the now ubiquitous array of creative and refreshing “martinis” and we had a nice chat with the young bartender who aspires to be an actress. She also mixes a good cocktail.
Mercuri showed us into the large dining room, one that made me say to my companion, “They spent a whole lot of dough on this place.” It’s decidedly upscale with elegant lines, serene colors, fine linens, elegant upholstery on high backed chairs and tasteful landscape paintings on the walls — not a hint of the usual Creative American Bistro funky and whimsical quirkiness that I’m used to, which made me look forward to something more luxe in the cuisine, especially since they bill it as a kind of French meets American style.
After being presented with a canapé of soft bread with lobster, a gift of the chef, we started with the bistro beef, described as thinly sliced rare beef tenderloin with warm garlic croustade, harissa aioli and fresh watercress salad ($12). I asked our waiter, Marc, if that meant it was carpaccio style and he said that the beef was not that thin and it certainly was not. While tasty and tender, it was like a sliced brochette of beef and far too heavy and inelegant for an appetizer. I loved the hot harissa aioli, however — harissa is a spicy red chili paste used in Middle Eastern cuisine, here mixed with a mayo to mellow it out. The greens were very fresh and tasty as well.
A goat cheese tart was indeed a nod to more country French cuisine. The large flaky puff pastry was filled with ripe red tomatoes and a creamy goat cheese along with more tangy greens, this time a peppery arugula with a citrus dressing ($9).
We also ordered a Caesar salad prepared tableside for two ($14). Marc rolled a cart over and mixed our dressing with fresh egg yolk, oil, lemon juice, garlic, romano cheese and white anchovies, which he mashed up in the mix. I saw a jar of Dijon mustard on the table but he didn’t put any in the large wooden bowl with the rest of the ingredients. He tossed chopped Romaine lettuce into the bowl topped it with croutons and served it to us on two small plates. I enjoy the whole tableside preparation thing and the salad was very good, the dressing fresh and rich with garlic. I also thought the presentation fit the fancier ambience of the room. That started me thinking about the rest of the dishes we’d tried so far, which weren’t nearly as upscale in feel or preparation.
For entrees I tried the rack of lamb, three ribs on the rack served with some very tasty and creative chick pea fries, hot and tender inside and crispy outside ($25) I found the dish too expensive for the amount of meat served, although nicely cooked and flavorful with a pinot rosemary vinaigrette. Braised leeks and Savoy cabbage were a nice side dish. My companion tried the caramelized sea scallops on a sweet corn risotto ($22). The scallops were large, tender and sweet and the risotto came out like a more robust creamed corn, both rich and tasty. The dish was topped with some more terrific greens, this time the unusual amaranth, with gorgeous reddish purple leaves. A saffron beurre blanc was a flavorful, but actually unnecessary, sauce.
The wine list is small and inexpensive with a few bottles on a reserve list. Again, I was actually surprised at how ordinary the list was given the upscale ambience of the restaurant. I assume the list will expand and they’ll try some more out-of-the-ordinary bottles. Desserts are good here with a creamy and perfectly executed vanilla rum crème brulee, the rum adding some more interesting flavors than the usual ($7). A chocolate gateau was also good, a thick slice of dense, but still remarkably light dark chocolate cake with a crème anglaise to moisten it up a bit ($8). Despite some incongruities in food vs. ambience, I like what Saffron Bistro is doing. The cuisine does have some French influences, a goat cheese tart here, some truffle oil there, but there’s also polenta and risotto on the menu that doesn’t fit into what they say they’re trying to do here. The menu is really what we’ve come to know as creative American cuisine, one that uses fresh primarily seasonal and local ingredients and that draws on a variety of culinary cultural influences.
It’s also a cuisine that fits into a more casual atmosphere and if I were running the show, I’d take a chance and make the food fit the room by going more elegant in the cuisine. Everyone likes to dress up, go out and have a fine meal and this might just be the perfect place to do that in Nashua.
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