'Lodges' bring rustic home cooking to the big city

Nation's Restaurant News, Oct 21, 1991 by Florence Fabricant

The hunger for homey, nostalgia on the plate has spawned any number of diner updates and other retro operations serving meat loaf and mashed potatoes. Increasingly, this kind of food is finding its way into creations of rustic vacation lodges, complete with big stone fireplaces, log cabin walls, knotty pine trim, mooseheads, snowshoes and duck-decoy decor.

Places like these have existed for decades in the mountains and near lakes across the country. Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, N.Y., and Rudy's Big Indian in the Catskills are just two examples. But what is happening now is that this look is being transplanted into urban areas, creating a setting of vacation escape in which to serve down-to-earh American fare.

The newest example is the Blackhawk Lodge, which opened earlier this month in Chicago. This Levy Restaurants operation replaces Randall's Rib House with a twig-framed screened area on the sidewalk, heavy loglike beams along the dining room walls, twig furniture accessories, stone columns and an elevated dining area inside that looks like a back porch, complete with brown-stained clapboard siding and windows.

Wicker furniture, canoe paddles, decoys, old photographs and the like decorate the room. The bar area, while not completely redone and still retaining an oddly formal look, has been lightened. Similarly, the coffered wood ceiling suggests a cabin by being painted the color of raw wood and dotted with trompe l'oeil knots.

"We wanted to address the notion that people in America are going back to a simpler life, taking family vacations and being more value-oriented," said Doug Roth, a partner in the project. "The idea was to match a simple American menu with decor that suggested a typical vacation lodge or roadhouse. It's not meant to be literal but to provide a reference, and we think it's an original idea."

The originality may be limited to downtown Chicago. It's a reference that can already be found at Shelly's Woodroast in Minneapolis; Mackinac and Saranac in Manhattan; Adirondacks in Washington, D.C.; and Buckeye Roadhouse in San Francisco, to name some other new urban lodges. Phoebe's, a new operation in Manhattan that sits adjacent to Mackinac, plays up the porch look with rustic facades and windows on two sides of the dining room.

What Blackhawk Lodge lacks is a fireplace as decor, an element made difficult by the location in a high rise. One may be installed in the future, adding another $60,000 to the $750,000 renovating expense. The kitchen also does no wood-fire roasting because that is seen as the claim to fame of Levy's Bistro 110, just two blocks away, where 25 percent of the food orders are for roast chicken.

"A wood-burning oven is more bistro," Roth said with somewhat puzzling logic. "Besides, we did not want to compete with ourselves," he added, making a better argument.

What Blackhawk Lodge does emphasize is smoking and barbecue. The chef, Matthew Lasof, a 32-year-old native of Houston who lived in New Orleans for many years, does a fine job with the menu. Fried chicken is lightly smoked before being dipped in batter and nicely crisped with a touch of spice, baby back ribs are very good, whole grilled fish is presented in a grilling basket before being filleted at tableside. The fish is served with basil-infused olive oil, giving it that nouvelle roadhouse chic.

"We wanted to take barbecue to a new level and respect the kind of eating that people are interested in today," Roth said. "Above all, the food had to be familiar, not intimidating."

Main dishes are $10.95 to $18.95. Sandwiches and noodles (not pasta, although the list includes egg noodles with tomato-basil sauce and shells with sun-dried tomatoes and vegetables in garlic cream, which would certainly be called pasta elsewhere) are $6.95 tp $9.95.

Crab hash, excellent black bean chili with a grits cake, barbecued shrimp, grilled and roasted chicken, old-fashioned roast turkey, smoked brisket and a steak-burger are some of the choices. The kitchen shines when it comes to sides like sweet potato or corn pancakes, house-cured pickles, grits cake, biscuits and corn muffins. Enough salad and fish choices are availble to please customers who insist on the Mediterranean diet.

Desserts range from pecan pie, fruit cobbler and hot-fudge sundae to warm cookies and cold milk. Before the milk and cookies tempt the customers replaying childhood memories, there are enough choices from good American microbreweries and wineries to accompany dinner.