A young man springs from his chair and drops down on one knee beside his beautiful companion. He slips a diamond ring on her finger and says the magic words, “Will you marry me?”
We’ll have what they’re having! But for us, dining on beautiful food is thrill enough for one evening.
Romance wafts playfully through the flower-filled dining room at Sassafraz. It’s buoyed by the tinkling fountain and cool jazz echoing from the adjacent lounge. Discreet recessed lighting adds shimmer to the full-sized benjaminas in the soaring atrium. A series of shelves holds an array of fresh apples. Tempting.
Clearly the room is aimed at the sensualist, as is the menu created by executive chef Jason Rosso. After more than a decade of mediocrity, Sassafraz has finally scored a bull’s eye.
Appetizers that read as frivolities have substance. An ethereal gazpacho of yellow tomatoes spiked with Segura Viudas sparkling wine is soothed with a dollop of goat-cheese parfait. A bracelet of fat pan-seared scallops encircle tangerine Waldorf salad. Another chef might have been happy with a splash of balsamic vinaigrette, but Rosso adds mystery with an apple and cardamom emulsion.
It’s fun to experiment with exotic starters, but when it comes to a main course I like the basics. Rosso has the patience to cook “slow,” which, in this era of slap-it-on-the-grill cooking, is a rarity. He takes the finest Angus beef tenderloin, poaches it in red-wine consomme to its tenderest point and bolsters it with rich but seemingly weightless foie-gras gnocchi and small roasted onions, their bite transformed by slow cooking into sweetness. Roasted lamb loin gets even more voluptuous flavour when partnered with charred corn succotash and braised veal cheek. The elusive flavour of the darkly succulent coulis comes from wild grape and violet mustard. Only a confident, creative chef would use condiments as pricey as these in a restaurant kitchen. Rosso chooses halibut from cold waters, and rare escolar from warm waters. The latter he coddles with garlic-scented Swiss chard and shimiji mushrooms and sets in a deep bowl on a pool of cucumber and star-anise broth.
Related Travel Information
The Books by the River Series: Where Florida Literature Meets Florida History continues with Davie writer Cynthia Thomason discussing her showboat mystery series at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the New River Inn, Old Fort Lauderdale Village and Museum, 231 SW Second Ave., Fort Lauderdale. Thomason has published nine historical and contemporary romances and also is the author of a historical mystery series that takes place on the Mississippi River. She has received the National Readers' Choice Award, nominations for a Romantic Times' Choice Award and the Golden Quill. Her Web site is www.cynthiathomason.com.
The Florida Center for the Book concludes
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