CityZen - (DC - Southwest)

From the moment you sit down at CityZen, it is clear that Chef Eric Ziebold apprenticed under Thomas Keller. The sleek, minimalist decor and menu descriptions send a clear message that the food is the center of attention.

I don't want to focus too much on chef Ziebold's former employer - and he himself is no doubt eager to come out from under that shadow - but the menu here adheres to the same philosophy of simplicity, honesty and emphasis on serving whatever is local and in-season that has been the hallmark of cooking at The French Laundry for years.

We were seated at the table nearest the kitchen, which suited us perfectly. Several couples (no doubt Capitol Hill types looking to conceal extra-marital affairs) shied away from the seats around us, opting for more intimate surroundings elsewhere in the dining room. We were then offered a drink while we perused the wine list.

The wine list is exorbitantly expensive.

The most egregious example I noticed was a 2001 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay, listed at $118. This is one of my favorite white wines (and heir of the former winner of the 1975 Paris tasting), but it retails for a small fraction of this price. I bought a bunch last year for around $26 per bottle (after case discounts). If the sommelier really thinks that this is a reasonable price, I have some in my cellar that I would love to sell him. Maybe we can barter two of my bottles for two of CityZen's tasting dinners?

I am well aware that restaurants make their money on alcohol sales and I have grudgingly come to expect a solid 100% markup to retail pricing on most wine lists. Rather than bring my own wine and pay corkage fees, I view paying these nosebleed prices as a sort of "charitable contribution" in support of my favorite restaurants. I also understand the economic arguments around the higher prices (storage and shrinkage costs, the 80/20 rule around inventory turns, etc.) but this list was absurd.

I hate to harp on it, because the rest of the evening was delightful, but as they say, "first impressions are everything." Letting me stew over this, "too far off-market to be taken seriously," wine list for ten minutes before seeing the food menu was perhaps not the right tone to set.

After realizing that two splits of wine and a glass of champagne each would easily cost us $140, we opted instead to have glasses of wine paired with each course of the tasting menu (at $70 per person).

The canapé consisted of a mushroom fritter with truffle oil. This was two bites of warm, gooey, mushroom essence accompanied by a stripe of truffle oil and mushroom pureé that is lick-the-plate good.

This was followed by an amusé of big eye tuna sashimi with cucumber and dill. The tuna was nearly translucent and an excellent match with the cucumber, yogurt and dill (imagine tuna sashimi on top of raita).

The first course was soft-shell crab with sesame vinaigrette and pickled rhubarb. The crab was lightly sautéed to perfection and artfully presented, split in half with one of the halves plated vertically like a sail rising out of the middle of the dish. The sesame vinaigrette was a little swath at the bottom of the dish and the pickled rhubarb was tucked off to the side under a bundle of wilted greens.

Having grown up in Baltimore, I have been eating soft-shell crabs my whole life and this was as good as any I had ever had. I can't be sure, but I suspect chef Ziebold may brine his soft shells before cooking them. Maybe I am wrong, but his preparation was sweeter than most and devoid of that overly heavy, fatty mustard flavor that often overtakes soft shells. In addition, when combined in one bite, the mellow nutty flavor of the sesame vinaigrette complemented the crab nicely, with the sweet-tartness of the pickled rhubarb rounding out the dish.

This was paired with a Willamette Valley Riesling that was off-dry and yeasty, almost like a very mellow sake. The pairing worked well (I have heard some people say that, while beer is the official beverage accompaniment to crabs, sake is the best wine pairing they can come up with).

The second course consisted of seared black bass with summer squash and basil pistou. This was a beautifully seared, skin-on piece of black bass sprinkled with sea salt and served astride a pile of yellow and green summer squash brunoise. The fish was crispy on one side and delightfully moist throughout. The dish was then finished tableside with a crisp, clean, basil pistou that tasted like a liquid concentrate version of the freshest summer basil. The combination worked perfectly.

This course was paired with an Austrian Grüner Veltliner that was light and crisp. The wine's herb notes played well off the basil and it was acidic enough for a clean finish.

From there, we moved to a third course of seared foie gras with pepper shortbread and plum soup. The foie was delicately seared on the outside and more or less medium rare (pink) on the inside. It was plated on top of a piece of peppered shortbread and surrounded by a lagoon of light pink, chilled plum soup. This dish couldn't have been simpler, but the cacophony of flavors and textures was amazing: Warm, soft, fatty, gamey foie combined with crunchy, peppery shortbread and cold, sweet plum.

This was paired with a Patz & Hall Pinot Noir from California (I don't remember which of their four Pinot bottlings it was). I was initially suspicious, having grown accustomed to dessert wines with my foie, but instead, in this dish the plum soup provided the sweetness and the plum notes in the Pinot tied the two together. Very well done.

The fourth course was beef with English peas and mushrooms over melted spring onions and veal reduction. This was served along with a box of miniature Parker House rolls. Here again, chez Ziebold allowed summer's bounty to flourish with a minimum of human intervention. The spring onions, peas and mushrooms played well together and were a lovely accompaniment to the beef.

At first, I thought that the veal reduction was a mistake - a rare instance of an "extra" ingredient in a menu that features no more than 3-4 flavors and textures per dish. Once I dredged one of those delightfully chewy, doughy Parker House rolls though the veal reduction and beef jus, I was sold.

This course was served with a South African Syrah that marked another good pairing. The musty nose echoed the mushrooms, the sweetness in the Syrah picked up the spring onions and the spicy backbone packed enough tannin to stand up to the beef.

The chef then served a watermelon sorbet as a palette cleanser. It arrived at our table as a ball of light pink sorbet floating in a tiny dessert wine glass full of a slightly anise flavored aperitif. The watermelon and anise flavors combined surprisingly well and the presentation was a triumph of both form and function.

The cheese course offered the opportunity to select three or four cheeses from a grouping of roughly twelve cheeses organized horizontally by type of milk (cow, goat, sheep, etc.) and from front to back in order of firmness. These selections were accompanied by bread, some spicy toasted almonds and a tandem of fresh peach and pear puree.

Everything was delicious, but the server's knowledge was a bit disappointing. When my wife asked him to describe some of the differences between the goat cheeses, he replied, "good question - nobody has ever asked me that" (further lowering my estimation of the average Washington restaurant-goer). He then proceeded to say, "This one is spicy, this one is nutty and this one is grassy." Really? Thanks.

I will be the first to admit that the pageantry around selecting and describing cheeses is quickly becoming as obnoxious as that of selecting wines (I am certain that we are not far from the day that we get to slice off a piece of rind and inspect it, then take a tiny taste of the cheese before declaring it acceptable for the rest of our party, the way we currently scrutinize corks and swill and slurp wine in a show of faux expertise and self-import), but give me at least a little information. I'm not asking about the terroir, what the shepherd's name was, which hamlet in France the cheese is named after, what temperature they maintain in the cheese cave, or which bacteria gave the cheese its flavor, but please give me a little more than, "spicy, nutty and grassy."

We continued to sip the Syrah throughout the cheese course.

Dessert consisted of a Valhrona chocolate soufflé and cafe con leche ice cream with coffee granita. This was accomplished by serving an individual soufflé on the left side and a scoop of ice cream on the right, topped with granita.

The soufflé was a simple, clean, perfect execution of a classic. No frills, no theatrics, none of that phony, "I'm going to finish it tableside by pouring crème amglaise in the center so that you don't realize I made it ahead of time and just reheated it for you," nonsense.

The same can be said of the ice cream. On its own, it was sinfully sweet frozen custard with the faintest hints of coffee. When combined with the coffee granita, you had the whole package - like drinking an iced cafe con leche. My wife may, or may not, have taken the last remnants of her cafe con leche and poured them into the last of the chocolate soufflé to create an haute mocha latte of sorts. What can I say, we're Philistines.

The dessert was paired with a 2000 Vintage Port from the Douro (they had decanted it, so I missed the producer's name). This was a relatively young port, full of fruit and life and willing to pair with these desserts in a way that older, dowdy ports can not.

We rounded out the meal, savoring the last of the port, with a plate of mignardises. There was a raspberry gelee, an almond tuille and several chocolates. All were excellent (especially the diamond-shaped ones comprised of soft chocolate and hazelnut brittle) and a great way to finish a fantastic meal.

Chef Ziebold is a dynamo in the kitchen. In a World where many chefs are absentee landlords who lend little more than their names and recipes to their restaurants, Ziebold is everywhere and doing everything.

Saturday night, I saw him do everything from cook and plate starters himself, to plating desserts, expediting orders, and in one instance, when all of his servers were occupied, I saw him walk a course out to the dining room to avoid having it die on the line. Towards the end of the night, I even saw him take advantage of a lull in orders to make plates of snacks for the guys (and gal) on the line.

Here is a guy busting his hump and really pouring everything he has into his restaurant.

Once Ziebold straightens out the front of the house (you know, hand out a few copies of the Cheese Primer and fix that ridiculous wine list), CityZen will really be something special.

In the meantime, you can find me enjoying his fantastic cooking and appreciating his hard work from the table closest to the kitchen - perhaps ignoring the cheese steward and paying corkage fees.