diso2_1000x50

Temple Downtown

No secret handshake required
By BILL RODRIGUEZ  |  February 27, 2008

Temple Downtown | 120 Francis St, Providence | Sun-Thurs, 6:30 am-11 pm; Fri-Sat, 6:30 am-12:30 pm | Major credit cards | Full bar | Sidewalk-level access | 401.919.5050

Who would’ve thought? When plans were made to convert the abandoned shell of the Masonic Temple into the upscale Renaissance Hotel, what chance was there that a restaurant in the basement would be, well, adorably funky?
 
Temple Downtown is that and more. The Greek revival façade of the 272-room hotel looks as classy as the VMA auditorium next door and the State House that rises on the other side. But the best evidence of Providence’s renaissance is the design of the restaurant, a virtual memorial to the building’s former state.
 
Graffiti is the link. On doors and walls here and there, taggers were invited to show their colorful, calligraphic stuff, a reminder that it can be vibrant art and not just vandalism. For decades, graffiti artists flocked to the supposedly locked-up building to put their marks on the vast empty space. Construction had begun in 1926 and money ran out only two years later, on the brink of the Great Depression, with just the exterior complete. For almost 80 years, it stood unoccupied.
 
The restaurant is dimly lit, as befits the aura of mystery remaining from the Masonic rituals once practiced in the basement, the only portion of the interior ever completed. Banks of wide faux candles are suspended in racks above you, since chandeliers would break the mood. In the lounge, they glow from stone wall niches.
 
The place’s namesake remains in such signature cocktails as the Scottish Rite and Mason’s Jar. (It gets even sillier, and in wincingly bad taste, with a frequent diner point system called the 33rd Degree Program.)
 
After a long wait at an abandoned hostess station along with other couples who had early reservations — an initiation ordeal? — we were seated at a cozy banquette with a view of the State House, bracketed by rose-colored silk curtains. The floor is large black and white polished marble tiles. Temple has a pretty snazzy ambience.
 
A breadbasket arrived, filled with delicious multigrain slices and room-temperature balls of butter. The wine list ranges widely in price and provenance, helpfully designated as light-, medium-, and full-bodied. Oddly, the nearly two-dozen wines by the glass are not available by the bottle.
 
Though the raw bar is pricey (oysters $3), and à la carte dinner entrées can get expensive if you add a side or two, the calamari is just $8, and the market fish and chips only $16. Also, Black Angus beef and Atlantic salmon burgers are $10 each at lunch and come with fries or mixed greens. Being in a hotel, the place is also open for breakfast, at 6:30.
 
For starters, we passed up the interesting sounding pretzel-encrusted crab cake with baked beans ($13), and chose a white anchovy “flatbread” (read “pizza”) ($11.50). Ex¬quis¬itely tangy, the not-too-salty vinegar-cured an¬chovies were with fontina and mozzarella, with a bit of oregano and a stray clove or two of braised garlic.
 
We also shared something they call a grilled onion chopper ($7) when we realized it was simply a chopped salad. It too was a taste bud-piquer, with the perfect amount of lemon, rather than vinegar, tarting up the olive oil, pole beans there for crunch, and ricotta salata for an unobtrusive cheese.
 
Of the 16 main dishes, the most unusual one was the lobster and mussel pie ($21), with the maple-brûléed sea scallops with bacon-leek fondue ($23) close behind. Seven items were seafood, and most of the rest meat, including that Angus burger. The pan-crisped gnocchi with winter vegetables ($17) appealed to Johnnie. It contained chard and the sweet accent of butternut squash in a roasted garlic cream sauce, lightly accented with fresh sage leaves and pumpkin oil. It was a tasty combination.
 
I couldn’t pass up the surf ’n’ turf on the menu, skirt steak ($23). There were a few fried oysters and many deeply flavorful rock shrimp atop and around an upright spiral of reasonably tender steak, not too thin to remain rare. The horseradish-accented barbecue sauce allowed all the flavor components through. For a side, I had truffled macaroni and cheese ($7) and enjoyed the balance of four artisan cheeses.

1  |  2  |   next >
  Topics: Restaurant Reviews , Culture and Lifestyle, Food and Cooking, Cheese,  More more >
| More


Most Popular
Blogs
Lena Dunham’s risky book deal
Phlog  |  October 12, 2012 at 3:43 PM
Q&A #7: Brown Or Warren
Talking Politics  |  October 12, 2012 at 1:00 PM
Q&A #6: Devaney Challenge
October 12, 2012 at 12:53 PM
Free Fun Shit: Oct 12-18: Food Truck Throwdown, Maker Faire, GDGT tech showcase, Kerouac lit fest, new night @ ZuZu + more
Phlog  |  October 12, 2012 at 11:45 AM
Monica Castillo at NYFF, 2
Outside The Frame  |  October 12, 2012 at 11:14 AM
 More: Phlog  |  Music  |  Film  |  Books  |  Politics  |  Media  |  Election '08  |  Free Speech  |  All Blogs
ARTICLES BY BILL RODRIGUEZ
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   A HIGH-FLYING CATCH ME IF YOU CAN AT PPAC  |  October 10, 2012
    The subject and story of Catch Me If You Can sound like the flights of fancy that customarily keep musicals aloft, but it's propelled by an actual rascal and the unlikely high points of his actual career(s).
  •   UNUSUAL SOULMATES IN 2ND STORY’S THE GOAT  |  October 02, 2012
    Edward Albee has always managed to drill deeply into the human heart and not stop until he gets a gusher, never more so than in The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?
  •   LEIGH AND MELISSA’S DELIGHTFUL HAMLETTE  |  September 26, 2012
    A two-person female Hamlet set in contrast to the drudgery of office work?
  •   REVIEW: BISTRO 9  |  September 26, 2012
    Although Bistro 9 is located at the East Greenwich Golf Club, you don't have to be able to tell a nine iron from a tire iron to be comfortable here.
  •   THE HORROR OF GENOCIDE IN YERMEDEA RAW  |  September 26, 2012
    As difficult as it is to capture onstage an enormity such as genocide, a play at Brown University Theater is doubling the stakes by also addressing the maternal consequences of the deaths of young innocents.

 See all articles by: BILL RODRIGUEZ