I was hesitant about publishing this post. I don’t enjoy panning a meal, and do so even less when a restaurant is attempting to do right by high quality products.[1] In many cases, I prefer that the ordinary and less than ordinary experience remain unwritten about.
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But this wasn’t supposed to be just a run of the mill restaurant. Rattlesnake holds itself out to be “Detroit’s finest dining experience,” featuring “the highest-quality sustainably harvested seasonal foods.” And, there being a dearth of information about Michigan restaurants and the Detroit area being my home for the next two years, I decided that a quick blow-by-blow of my meal here would be appropriate. If this really is the best Detroit can do, we should be alarmed.
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Dinner here was an impromptu affair, and we called thirty minutes prior to our arrival to make sure Rattlesnake could accommodate us – we were told to just come on in. I was worried, this being a Friday evening. Of course, I shouldn’t have been – at least about getting seated – we were the only table in a restaurant that seats at least 100. In the hour and change that we were dining, only one more group arrived.
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Oysters poached in a champagne beurre blanc were good enough – meaty and a touch sweet, but could have benefited from some acidity. The tobiko served only a decorative purpose.
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The downward spiral began at course two. The braised pork belly was served room temp, and doused in a sickly sweet bbq sauce. The braise seemed capably executed but as the dish was not heated properly, the layers of fat remained unpleasantly thick and waxy. The overly oily slaw below was composed of seemingly equal parts cabbage and raw onion, which was so pungent as to make the salad unpleasant to eat.
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We soldiered on and I was rewarded with four rather large tranches of fried lake perch straddling a base of mashed potatoes and crispy, oily potato strings. The citrus fennel sauce tasted only of butter and cream and, despite the copious capers, cried out for salt.
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I was steered toward this dish by our waiter, who said it was one of the chef’s favorites. I would have never ordered it if I had known how thickly breaded the perch was – the menu described is as “pan crisped” but this appeared shallow-fried. Upsetting, really, as the perch was quite good: sweet-fleshed, moist, flavorful. But severely lacking in seasoning and surrounded by a thick batter that turned soggy almost immediately because the enormous stack of fish created so much steam and heat.
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And why on earth would you serve, in such ample quantities, both mashed and fried potatoes as sides for a breaded fried fish? Never mind that the mash was ordinary and the potato strings greasy. My friend’s steak fared no better – little in the way of flavor, a cloying red wine reduction, the same mashed potatoes that clogged my plate, and a thick ring of drab grey meat surrounding a pink center on a steak ordered medium rare.
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It appears, from my admittedly limited experience with restaurants in and around Detroit, that the dining populace values quantity over quality and demands its chefs produce innocuous looking, easily identifiable, high-fat dishes that serve to sate the appetite. Much of this food has nothing to offer – no new tastes, no sense of place. Worse, the chefs procure fine local ingredients only to reduce them to a fried, over-wrought mess.
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But armed with Steve Plotnicki’s guide, and some local recommendations from the Godfather himself, I will continue to give Detroit the benefit of the doubt.
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Rattlesnake Club
300 River Place
Detroit, MI 48207
[1] And less still when this restaurant is, I’m sure, struggling to tread water in the rubble of downtown Detroit.
