The basil-roasted Guinea hen ($31), while not heavily basil-flavored, had the slight gamey flavor of turkey, plenty of moisture, and a sauce based on wild oyster mushrooms and seasonal vegetables. The steak-frîtes entrée ($28) was a small steak so tender it must have been the old level of prime beef (likely a filet cut), a watercress salad, and entirely competent French fries. The porcini-crusted scallops ($29), an old favorite at Blu, were further fungus-ized with a novel side of large tapioca with truffle, as well as chopped tomatoes, baby spinach, and a pea-pod stem as salad. As with the coffee on the pork chop, the mushroom dust on the sea scallops adds an undertone of richness rather than overt flavor.
The wine list at Dante is very good, but it starts at around $30 a bottle and doesn’t linger at the starting gate. Check the bottle list for vintage years omitted from the by-the-glass section of the menu. Much of the list is friendly to all kinds of food, such as the 2004 Seven Terraces sauvignon blanc ($9/glass; $37/bottle). This is the typical New Zealand bundle of tropical fruit to match any strong flavor, with more body and length than most. Our bottle of Irony Wines’s 2004 “Life’s Strange Twists” pinot noir ($12/$49) was good with beef, veal, and poultry, and would’ve been fine with salmon. This is certainly a pinot noir to savor, with considerable complexity and a long flavor of smoked cherry wood. It tastes older than it is, and is lower in alcohol than listed (14.5 percent). Decaf ($3) is outstanding, and tea ($3) is made loose-leaf in a metal pot.
The hotel guests will probably order a lot of strawberry-rhubarb cobbler ($9), very nicely made and emphasized with slightly sour crème-fraîche ice cream and an herbal sorbet. They’ll also go for the hot chocolate cake ($9), which is one of those small, intense, flourless jobs, topped with pretty good strawberry slices for September, more of the crème-fraîche ice cream, and an enticing side garnish of roasted walnuts. But they’d really like the fritelles ($9): eggy, meltingly good doughnut holes surrounded by four sauces of chocolate, mango, blueberry, and perhaps honey or caramel.
And they’d love the “ginger soda” ($9), actually a ginger ice-cream float in cream soda, topped with a ginger snap and caramel mousse. However, you have to wait a while for the ice cream to melt into the soda and the flavors to combine. The lemon cream puff ($9) is actually four lemon desserts on four square plates: a poached lemon-coconut meringue that was marvelously light and tasty; lemon cream in a fried shell; a fascinating sorbet of lemon and bay leaf (making a whole new flavor); and sticks of sautéed pineapple, as if to avoid saying “lemon” the fourth time.
Service was excellent, although sometimes overly descriptive. But with so many novel combinations, you need to be reminded of what’s what. The room is not the greatest place to eat a great meal (in warm weather the outdoor deck with a view of the Charles may be the best place in the world to drink and snack). Black placemats on blond-wood tables look modern, but don’t create as fine a setting for fine food as, you know, tablecloths. Still, the walls have paintings of geometric shapes in groups. It’s all oughties-as-’50s, and rather cool.
