Lacroix

Eating out in a wide variety of restaurants confirms more and more that whilst food is the principal reason for choosing a place it can be rendered irrelevant if the service or the room itself jar. Honestly, if a website shows a dining room full of ranked tables laid with heavy tablecloths and full service my usual instinct is to steer clear and look elsewhere. But, just occasionally, it’s good to try a meal in a rarified dining room where your main conversation as a lone diner is the waiter’s descriptions of the dishes. But there’s no way I’d make a habit of it.

A weird travel schedule over the last couple of months meant seeing a lot more of Philadelphia than expected. Carry on at this rate and it’s odds-on to replace Indianapolis as my most visited US city. Funnily enough, this visit is a stop off between Indianapolis and flying out the following day to Europe. The late night flight means that there is time for a leisurely lunch before drifting out to the airport for the red eye to Holland.

Philadelphia doesn’t have many fine dining places but one that has consistently rated highly is Lacroix. I’d had some reservations based on a friend’s recent poor experience but despite that it seemed wrong not to give Lacroix a go because I’m always looking for a place in Philly that I can truly recommend.

Lacroix is on the second floor of the Rittenhouse hotel on the west side of Rittenhouse Square. The restaurant was established in 2001 by French-born Jean-Marie Lacroix, a veteran of the Philadelphia dining scene. Since he retired, a number of people have led the kitchen and now Jon Cichon, who worked his way through the ranks in the kitchen, serves as executive chef.

The dining room is unusual to say the least. It’s every bit as stuffy as expected but the thick round pillars in the middle of the space dominate everything. They break everything up so it feels more like a formally laid out mezzanine than dining room. There are some good tables to be had if you end up at the rank of tables along the front window overlooking the hotel driveway and out onto Rittenhouse Square. That way it’s easy to ignore the bizarre setting.

The lunch menu gives a choice of à la carte options and a four-course taster menu. A bread basket comes ahead of the lunch choices and includes a mixture of sliced baguette and homemade lavosh with a triangular pat of salted butter. The lavosh is a delight with its generous sprinkling of crusted seeds. Caraway dominates but there is welcome notes of sesame seeds, poppy seeds and star anise.

First course of the tasting lunch is Spring pea soup with oyster, red quinoa, chamomile multigrain crisp and crème fraiche. The dry ingredients are in the bowl that is placed on the table and the soup is poured on at the table. The fresh pea is bursting with wonderful Spring flavours while the Ninigret Rhode Island oyster kicks in an emphatic marine whoosh of flavour that makes it sing.  Best of all is the chamomile that adds a zing to the dish. All in all a very nice start to the meal.

This is followed by Spanish octopus with pickled beetroot, mustard seed, walnut gremolata and goat cheese. The tender octopus works well as the principal component of the dish. The pickled beetroot is strongly acidic but the octopus is easily its equal. The different spice blend spice on each type of beetroot means there are a welcome variety of flavours to play with the cephalopod, with the clovey emphasis on the golden beetroot the outstanding partner. The goat’s cheese also works well as the mellow counterpart to the stronger elements of the dish so overall this is a very nice dish.

The pork belly with sunchoke, pear and rosemary is definitely the highlight of the meal. The centrally cast pork belly is full of flavour from the crispy skin through the thick fatty layer to the delightful meat. Other touches are wonderful too. The Asian pear butter is a superb combination with the pork. The aromatic earthiness of the rosemary crusted Jerusalem artichokes gives an interesting texture and wonderful flavours that play superbly with the pork. I love everything about this dish.

The meal closes out with a trio of petit desserts. Mini portions of carrot cake, raspberry mousse cake with raspberry gel and chocolate mousse cake come presented in small bowls on a larger ceramic tray. All three work well with the raspberry mouse cake the star of the three. The light carrot cake sits on a white chocolate base and has a good nutty flavour. The cream filling and topping is not too sweet so rounds it out nicely. The light sponge base of the raspberry mousse cake also builds from a white chocolate base. The strong raspberry flavours work throughout especially in the sweet gel while the fresh raspberry on top adds that zing that sets a perfect seal on the dish. The chocolate mousse cake combines a thick layer of dense chocolate sponge with an equal amount of mousse with mini chocolate honeycomb balls on top. 

The bill comes with a tray of petit fours. Confectioner’s sugar dusted almonds, cranberry raisins and house made candied orange peel are all good without being something that you’ll crave once you leave the room. 

So based on the food this is a really enjoyable lunch. My expectations weren’t high but there’s very little to fault about any of the lunch courses. But it’s a hotel restaurant and the room performs as poorly as expected. But even more irritating is the obviously ingrained habit of delivering each plate to your right. Even though I’m sitting adjacent to the window and there’s no room between me and the windowsill. Not impressed by the inability to improvise depending on how the table is set out.

Would I go back? It’s a tricky one. The food justifies a return visit but the setting and typical starchy service means that Lacroix won’t be a priority to go back to. I’m glad I visited though because this was a good lunch.

Overall Rating – 4/5