Other than Valentine’s Day, there is no holiday more fraught with potential for disaster than New Year’s Eve. Loaded with anticipation, it contrives to be a celebration of both the end and the beginning; in between lies a frenetic race from one to the other, a treacherous path strewn with high hopes and forced frivolity, the aftermath frequently a wreckage of great expectations crushed by dour disappointment, not to mention a brutal awakening the next day marked by a head the weight and density of a bowling ball. Thirty minutes into my first visit to Sambuca, which opened in late October in The Gulch, I was prepared to offer this upscale restaurant as a just-in-time antidote to the New Year’s Eve quandary, a one-stop shop for dining, drinking and dancing—a supper club. In their 1930s and ’40s heyday, supper clubs were the epitome of glamour, excitement, elegance and sophistication. They were, as noted in a story in San Francisco’s Metropolitan magazine, a place where you could check your coat at the door and be out for the night. A supper club conjures up black-and-white images of beautiful women wrapped in fur, ruby-painted lips open in laughter, ample cleavage and manicured nails holding a martini glass and cigarette; and suave, handsome men in stylish dinner jackets, cigars clamped between their teeth, a highball glass set before them. A band onstage beckoned couples to the dance floor, where they glided cheek to cheek in languid foreplay, quite unlike the exhibitionistic booty-to-groin grind that is the primal mating ritual common everywhere today, from high school proms to gay dance clubs. Certainly, Sambuca’s room and ambience extend this retro proposal to guests. The heavy glass-and-brass door opens into a chic foyer, where attractive hostesses stand smiling, ready to escort you to your destination. The lounge on the entrance floor offers several inviting seating options for cocktails: either at the sleek bar (though two large flat-screen televisions are incongruous with the atmosphere), at high tops, or in conversational clusters of leather chairs and low tables. The main dining room—in basic black with vivid splashes of bordello red—is an expanse of space made sensuous by floor-to-ceiling swaths of gossamer sheers, velvet-covered walls, low lighting, plushly upholstered banquettes on two sides, and another wall outfitted with intimate and cozy half-moon booths just right for snuggling. A raised stage claims the rear end of the room, draped on either wing by sheets of black lace fabric and backed by floating shelves set with large candles that cast a flattering glow on the performers. Sambuca offers live music (mostly smooth jazz and primarily local talent) seven nights a week, which is lovely. Lovelier still is the club’s stellar sound system, which fills every nook and cranny of the multilevel restaurant, yet never overwhelms or forces guests to raise their voices to be heard. There is a small dance floor directly below the stage, though in four visits I have yet to see anyone take advantage of it. So, there I was, snugly enclosed in the booth closest to the stage, sipping a glass of wine, enjoying the four-piece combo while chatting at a comfortable conversational level with my companions and filling them in on Sambuca’s history: in 1991, brother and sister Kim and Holly Forsythe, who shared the admirable vision of a modern-day supper club, opened the first Sambuca in Dallas’ Deep Ellum neighborhood. They went on to open more in other cities, including Houston, Denver and Atlanta; Nashville is the sixth, with each designed and decorated specifically for the location. The concept certainly appealed to my party—none old enough to have experienced the original 1940s versions, yet all old enough to appreciate the defining features: live music, dancing and fine dining. And there was the rub; the third—and key—element of that equation fell far short of the considerable expectations raised by the first two elements. According to company representatives, much of the franchise’s menu is dictated by the corporate executive chef, though the executive chefs assigned to each location “create dishes to take advantage of the market in their region.” There was scant representation of the latter on the Nashville menu, and plenty to indicate that the corporate chef is calling the shots. The food is described as “global cuisine,” an ambiguous term that in this instance produces a menu with no sense of place, rife with dishes of mongrel bloodlines and schizophrenic personalities. Culpability for the failure of the food to live up to the rest of the experience does not lie solely with the corporate chef, but is shared by the local kitchen, though it is hard to know where one leaves off and the other begins. Maybe the stingy size of the $12 crab cake appetizer is corporate-prescribed, as well as the peculiar choice of apples, pears, strawberries and jalapeño aioli as accompaniments, but the two lonely and limp pieces of frisée on the plate came from the Nashville kitchen, as did the dice of fruits so teensy that it was impossible to discern the pear from the apple. The overzealous chopping was also an issue in the ceviche and the Caesar salad; is the prep cook on Red Bull? The beef and tuna on the surf-and-turf carpaccio were translucent, sliced so thin they literally had to be scraped off the plate with a knife and served at a temperature that froze out every bit of flavor. The calamari—marinated in amaretto and cream, tossed in almond flour, and plated with cherry peppers, capers and Parmesan cheese—came cold to the table on two different visits. The descriptions of the entrées don’t so much whet the appetite as induce perplexity and confusion. Is it the kitchen’s fault, then, that they frequently nosedive to a crash landing on execution? Diners will get dizzy navigating not only the height of the vertically composed Seafood Integration, but the lengthy list of ingredients: shrimp, potato-crusted red snapper, lump crab cake and grilled yellowfin tuna, stacked with roasted new potatoes, asparagus, roasted tomato and portabello mushroom, served with cilantro avocado pesto sauce. A jalapeño-basil-glazed frenched chicken breast served on pasta rags in a wild mushroom-and-roasted tomato ragout is disorienting to the eye and the mouth. But less complicated dishes fared no better. The doughy ravioli stuffed with lobster, shrimp and scallops struggled for life entombed in a sauce with the consistency of quicksand. The yellowfin tuna (falsely touted as sashimi-grade) seemed simple enough, but after sawing through the sinew with a steak knife to slice a bite-sized piece, we found the fish rendered inedible by a glaze with the sodium level of a salt lick. We decided against the lamb when our server assured us it would not taste like lamb. The point being? On the subject of service, though earnest efforts were made, the impact of the nearly 1,500 seats recently added to Nashville’s restaurant options is apparent in the experience level of the servers, who seem to have made the leap from fast casual to fine dining with little training in between. Hands went in and out of our line of vision, wine glasses were filled nearly to the brim, plates whisked away at the first sign of a pause—we nearly cut the fingers off one fellow who tried to take away half the crab cake my companion and I were sharing. On all occasions, the server removed each plate from the table as that individual diner was finished, leaving one guest in the awkward position of chewing on alone while crumbs were brushed away from the rest of the otherwise cleared table. Visits to Sambuca do not come cheap, though the corporate office notes that with no cover charge, the entertainment expense is factored into the food and drink costs. That would be perfectly acceptable if we were getting the package, but presently, when it comes to dining, we are not getting what we are paying for. While we’ve all suffered through some disappointing New Year’s Eves, most of us remain optimistic about each new year, confidently resolved to improvement. Sambuca holds potential, and there’s reason to be optimistic about this unique and welcome addition to Nashville nightlife, assuming it can get the food right. A new year is right around the corner, and it’s not a moment too soon for a couple of timely resolutions. Sambuca will present three seatings for a four-course prix-fixe meal on New Year’s Eve, 5:30 ($50 per person), 7:30 ($75 per person) and 9:30 ($100-$125 per person depending on the table). Last seating includes a midnight champagne toast; live music from 7:30 p.m.-1 a.m. After 9 p.m., there will be a $20 cover charge for bar only.
