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C. Stiles
The halibut with risotto instead of fennel.
C. Stiles
Chef Christian Clair took over after the Ritz 86'd Cero.
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Via Luna, 1 N. Fort Lauderdale Beach Blvd., Fort Lauderdale. Open for breakfast 7 to 11 a.m., lunch 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., and dinner 6 to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 6 to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Sunday brunch noon to 3 p.m. Call 954-302-6460.
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In the movie version, our waiter would be played by Kevin James or some other likable funnyman. He made quick small talk that always ended with a punch line. He stopped by just when you needed him, not before. And his advice was spot-on, like when he suggested to sub the risotto for the fennel that was usually served with the halibut.
"I don't know why they changed it, but when they switched the menu a couple of weeks ago, they made it fennel instead," he explained. "The risotto is amazing. Get it with the risotto."
He was right, but his suggestion also brought up a bigger issue with Via Luna, the restaurant inside the Ritz-Carlton on Fort Lauderdale beach: What exactly is the Ritz trying to accomplish with this place?
It's not that the food is bad — in fact, it's quite excellent. But the menu and the concept seem straight out of a corporate conference call; it's as though some group of suits used spreadsheets to decide what South Florida diners are into these days.
Chef Christian Clair alluded to that kind of oversight when asked how he came up with his restaurant's menu. "They," he said, referring to unnamed Ritz higher-ups, "wanted comfort food because it's the trend in restaurants right now." Clair didn't say this as some rebuke of his corporate masters; really, he seemed to respect the decision. But by his answer and by the food Clair is capable of making, it's clear the Ritz ought to just let this guy cook.
The Ritz took over the location in 2008 from St. Regis hotels, which had called the restaurant Cero, a high-end seafood concept that was a favorite of restaurant reviewers. New Times printed a review in July 2007 that gushed: "If you really care about cuisine, pinch your pennies and go for a splurge at Cero... You'll learn how real food, carefully sourced and painstakingly prepared and presented, should taste."
The good reviews weren't enough to fill the cavernous, 130-seat dining room, so the Ritz bet on change. The hotel brought in Clair to oversee Via Luna in March. The Ritz didn't change the look of the place. For good reason: Diners voted the space best décor in Broward County in the 2010 Zagat Survey. Inside, tables feature large armchairs with comfy pillows. Huge, upturned lights cast a yellow glow on the marble floors. A wall of windows looks out onto a balcony, where a row of tables gets a full view of A1A and the ocean beyond. When it's full, the place looks like a 1920s-era hotel, with a massive painting of rolling waves over the handsome bar across the hall. When it's empty, though, the place feels soulless, akin to a cold museum.
A month after Clair arrived, he rolled out an Italian grill concept featuring old-school classics like orzo soup and rigatoni with Italian sausage. Clair admits he wasn't sure he was the right chef for red sauce. "When they changed the menu from Mediterranean to Italian, I was a little nervous about it," he concedes. "This was not the food I know." Clair is a native of France, and he learned to cook watching his grandmothers build flavors in the stews and sauces of the Champagne region. He's classically trained and earned his stripes as an executive sous chef at the Sofitel Water Tower in Chicago and at the Ritz in Laguna Niguel, California. Asked to name his favorite dish, Clair explains that he likes the halibut because "it's the most French dish on the menu."
The recent tweaks to the menu were simply to add in-season ingredients, Clair says, like the leeks in the halibut. But there seem to be some corporate-suit-style decisions here too. Gone are the pizzas, even though the Ritz had installed a special brick oven before the conversion to Italian. Decision-makers replaced the pizzas with more pasta and risotto dishes, including a Maine lobster ravioli, and removed one of the two burgers, which seemed out of place unless you consider the tourists who frequent the place.
All of Clair's training and all that time spent in his grandmothers' kitchens paid off. That was clear from our affable waiter's other suggestion, the arugula and beet salad ($10). It came out in something of a deconstruction, with piles of cherry tomatoes, sliced beets, and candied pecans. A pile of arugula with an excellent vinaigrette sat in the center, next to two breaded and fried chunks of goat cheese that looked like tater tots. Mix them together and you've got a tossed salad, or savor each one separately and you can just about taste the soil where the beets were grown.
Our waiter didn't suggest the meatball appetizer ($12), but with an Italian concept restaurant, there's no better test. It came out as an apricot-sized hunk swimming in red sauce with Parmesan and fresh basil over the top. For this dish, Clair, knowing he's no meatball expert, leaned on his chef de cuisine, Jason Coperine, who got the recipe from his Italian grandmother. It's a damned fine meatball too, tender and juicy with a long-simmered sauce in which the vegetables retain definition. But it's also not the best appetizer; shared among a table of diners, maybe, but otherwise even this excellent meatball and red sauce gets old without some ricotta or other counterpoint to break up the flavors.
