Walk into Prima at the corner of Division and 12th, and the first thing that grabs you is the lighting. Bruce Munro's installation, two dangling banks of LEDs, dominates the restaurant in a way unlike any other dining space in town. Walking to their tables — and even while sitting at them — patrons gawk at Munro's handiwork, simple in design but shimmering and complex when considered as a whole.
In some ways, it's a brilliant design solution. Prima's high ceilings and northern glass wall already make the space a little austere, but Munro's squares-within-squares LEDs eliminate much of that dead space and fill it with light. It makes sense, because every decision about Prima has been measured and calculated. From the long lines of banquettes that order the dining room, to the menu's steakhouse style and the team-style service that anticipates all of your needs, there is rarely a hair out of place.
And undoubtedly, the best decision made by Community Hospitality — the restaurant group behind Prima — was tapping Salvador Avila as chef. Often when you hear the term "Mediterranean," it's code for Italian, or maybe a little bit of Greek cuisine. But Avila casts a much wider net, tapping the North African coast to great effect. The lamb osso bucco ($27) takes a dollop of heat and richness from harissa, the chili paste ubiquitous from Algiers to Tripoli, while the grilled chicken ($26) and pork Manhattan ($29) make liberal use of chermoula, a blend of herbs and spices found in Morocco and elsewhere.
It's in dishes like these where Avila soars — which is odd, because Prima is supposed to be a steakhouse. At Bistro 360, Avila showed he could combine his Mexican heritage with experience doing rustic Italian food to create really compelling dishes. He's up to more of the same here, floating between the interesting — starters like butternut squash fondants ($10) and grilled spicy lobster in a semolina gnocchetti with cashew lemon cream ($15) — and the technically brutal, such as tiny, sweet roasted quail with sesame ($16), which were fall-apart tender, and a Spanish mackerel entrée in a veal reduction ($27) that had all kinds of wonderful fish cookery on display.
Even in spots where I thought Avila missed, such as the swordfish ($29), it was because of an off choice — not due to lack of skill. The grapefruit that was paired with the fish simply brought too much of a whang to the plate. But I tell you, I moved those pieces over and ate every last bit of that swordfish — it was perfect.
The salads, all priced at $10, sang, whether it was the red Russian kale with bits of blue cheese and crispy sweet potato chips, a sublime arugula with turnips and a little shower of grana over the top, or the grilled broccoli.
Which brings us to Prima's ostensible raison d'être: the steaks.
At this point, in a city relatively awash in steakhouses, you'd have to do something pretty spectacular to make your steaks memorable — and Prima's steaks are not memorable. It's good beef, but hell, it's just not that hard to take a decent piece of meat and not do something stupid to it on the grill. I get what ownership is trying to do here with a $52 bone-in rib-eye and a 3,000-bottle wine collection; they're positioning themselves to slug it out for the top-dollar diner who is going to places like Kayne Prime or The Palm. The service and decor are all designed to impress the expense-account crowd. But at nearly every turn, the top-end was shown up by something else at half the price, like a barbecue duck breast ($27) — perfectly tender slices with a bit of sweet jus drizzled across the plate to contrast with the crisp skin. What steak can compete with that?
There are two different restaurants vying at Prima. One features a pretty exciting take on Mediterranean food, while the other is a trophy wife of a steakhouse, complete with all of the accoutrements you would expect, right down to à la carte sides of buttery mashed potatoes, grilled Brussels sprouts and foie gras home fries. It's as if the two sides of Prima don't know each other.
It's not that a steakhouse can't have other things on the menu. But if you put an 8-ounce filet ($46) up next to the house-made chorizo ($21) of pork, lamb and beef with salted ricotta shaved over it like snow, I'm going to choose that chorizo every time. It's not even a matter of price — the sausage is that much better.
Last fall, some friends and I went out to Cheekwood for the final weekend of Munro's Light installation. The crowds were heavy, and the temperatures were chilly — so much so that I hopped from one hot apple cider stand to the next. But the way that exhibit set the old grounds aglow was pretty magical, and there was visible joy as capacity crowds stared at the colors. Walking out of Prima, I had the very opposite reaction — everything was beautiful and warm inside, but much of it left me cold.
There's a really good restaurant in there somewhere, and an excellent chef in Avila, but as long as Prima chases being a steakhouse, it won't live up to the wonder of Munro's lights.
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