Let me start by explaining why it has taken so long to pen a review of Café Fundamental, which opened late this summer in East Nashville. Housed in the location of the bygone Zavos, it's the kind of place I get excited about — small, local, independent, Francophile — so I should be chomping at the bit to spread the word, along with the velvety chicken liver mousse. But my eagerness may have slowed down the review process. I may have jumped the gun, visiting too early, before the kinks got worked out.
(For the record, we like to allow a month for things to get ironed out in a new establishment. Still, there's a case to be made that a restaurant charging full price should be operating at full quality from Day One, no excuses. This may be a topic for another day.)
Anyway, I went for lunch and brunch on three separate occasions, after the one-month mark, and things were, as they say, uneven. More precisely, they were all too even, with a balance of good and bad that could lead one to describe the equilibrium as "so-so."
But that was the rub: There is nothing so-so about Café Fundamental, where chef Jamie Watson, a graduate of the French Culinary Institute in New York, blends classic European technique with Southern tradition. (Watson co-owns the restaurant with Sandra Westerman.) It just so happened that on our first few visits, our lists of pros and cons were about the same length. And most of the shortcomings had less to do with the fundamentals of the cuisine than with execution and delivery.
First impressions in the pro column included fresh housemade pastries and rustic preserves, excellent coffee, friendly service, thick straps of house-cured bacon, flawless fluffy omelets, and perfectly crisp frites on the side of perfectly pink steak. Most memorable of all was the exquisite duck confit hash with poached eggs, a brunch composition that could be described loosely as buttery pulled duck topped with plump mashed-potato latkes, soft-poached eggs and a delicate sauce choron (a béarnaise with a touch of tomato).
First impressions in the con column: Red pepper bisque arrived cold in the center of the bowl. Brunch arrived in so many shifts — with so many wrong items — that one diner had finished eating before another received the correct dish. Pain perdu (literally translated: "lost bread" — what the French call French toast) had indeed lost its way. It was so dry and crisp that only syrup could save it, yet there was no syrup. And remember that perfectly pink steak? On another visit, it was a somber gray that could put the gris in grisly. Furthermore, that once-friendly service degenerated into indifference bordering on rudeness.
In the face of such extremes, we pondered this philosophical question: When it comes to dining out — or anything else, for that matter — would you rather have the chance of greatness or the certainty of mediocrity? This topic could occupy us for days. Perhaps that is why it took me so long to synthesize my feelings about Café Fundamental.
In fact, it wasn't until a couple of months later, when we finally returned for dinner, that the scales tipped dramatically toward the positive side and Café Fundamental lived up to our early anticipation. Under lamplight reflecting from yellow walls, espresso machine and vermouth bottles, the evening opened with an amuse bouche of brie en croute drizzled with apricot preserves and honey. From that decadent mouthful of pastry oozing with molten triple crème, we launched into appetizers of rustic pâté with housemade pickles, chicken liver mousse with housemade croutons, and seared scallops with sweet corn purée. Of these, it was the ramekin of fluffy liver mousse that most delighted. Surrounded by yellow and red accents of zesty-but-tempered mustard and faintly tangy tomato coulis, the presentation was perfectly balanced in terms of color and flavor, earth and air.
Meanwhile, pan-seared scallops — with bronzed grittiness over sushi-grade interior — paired beautifully with a velvety corn purée painted onto the plate and dotted with sizzled niblets. Its only detraction was the $12 price tag for two large scallops. (Again, I feel a philosophical debate coming on.)
It's not often that entrées exceed appetizers when it comes to creativity and intrigue, but Chef Watson upped the ante as we segued from starter to main event.
A tranche of pork belly the size of a large sweet potato was slow-cooked in the sous-vide style and finished so that it both crisped between the teeth and melted across the tongue. The layered slab of meat and fat basked on a bed of cheese grits and pickled cabbage, riddled with diced apples infused with Calvados. The traditional marriage of pork, cabbage and fruit offered such an uncommonly full spectrum of sweetness, salt, fruit and acid, with unctuous and crisp textures in equal measure, that we couldn't stop eating, despite the excessive portion size. We regret that we had but one stomach to give to that meal.
Due to the pork belly's bountiful size and our consequent discomfort, we preferred the more modest duck entrée, which put both light and dark meat to splendid use. The breast was pan-roasted to rosy pink, sliced and fanned around a base of mashed potatoes. Atop the starch, a tangle of wilted collards was strewn with hunks of rich confit leg and capped with a lacy browned wafer of grated potatoes, which the French might dub a tuille but Southerners would call hash browns. Potato, potàteau.
As we made quiet cooing noises over citrus crème brûlée and indulgent clouds of Olive & Sinclair mousse topped with cocoa nibs, we couldn't help notice that there were only two occupied tables in the restaurant. With such excellent food coming out of the kitchen, it's hard to explain how things could be so quiet in the dining room. Unless, of course, I wasn't the only person with a less-than-perfect early impression. (Some of my East Nashville sources tell me that weekends are fairly busy; we dined on a Wednesday.)
Based on our most recent visit, there is reason to believe the Fundamental experience is improving, as Watson & Co. fine-tune the logistics. If that trend continues, the greatest improvement of all just might be a mounting buzz of conversation in the dining room, weeknights as well as weekends.
Café Fundamental serves breakfast and lunch Wednesday through Sunday and dinner Wednesday through Saturday. Full bar and high-alcohol beers are available.
Email arts@nashvillescene.com.
