32 Bleu serves cool fare for hipsters/ Eclectic menu reflects

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Jan 31, 2003 | by ANNE CHRISTENSEN

A good chef is a terrible thing to waste, and when I heard that La Petite Maison alumna Chris Adrian was chef at nightclub 32 Bleu, my heart nearly broke. Could Adrian be slumming? The answer is most emphatically "no." My heart beats again.

Co-owners Jamie and Jason Spears and Martha and Lon Frohling have transformed the former Art Hardware building downtown into a lively live-music venue and hired Adrian to develop recipes for a bistro menu. I simply cannot imagine how they looked at this once-dull corner retail establishment and visualized a dining room with swoopy curves and eye-catching angles, a street-side bar with big windows for people-watching, and a second-story stage with good acoustics. Everything works. Waiting for my lunch dates, eyeing the dcor, I was seized by the impulse to run home and rip apart my dining room to redo it just like 32 Bleu - that's how much I love the colors and lighting and the smooth, stylish feel of the place, right down to the heavy bistro silverware and cool plates.

That's not to say that Adrian is living up to her technical potential. As with Chef Ketil Larsen at Phantom Canyon, it's clear after an entre or two that Adrian's menu reflects the identity of the hipster restaurant/nightclub more than the skill level of the chef. Prices range from low to average for the upscale/downtown spots on Restaurant Row. Dishes are interesting but informal, such as spaghetti with Sunday gravy of meatballs and beef shank ($13) and pan- roasted salmon with curry shrimp sauce and sweet potato confit ($21) for dinner, udon noodle bowl ($6) or chicken sandwich ($7.95) at lunch.

I loved my own lunch, fish and chips ($8) with three cylindrical pieces of hoki that stayed pristinely white and soft under a thin, puffy, crunchy batter, and the tarragon-laced remoulade both defied and satisfied my expectations. The hush puppies alongside, soft to the point of squishy, may appeal mostly to those who don't like Southern-style pups, but I'm traitorous enough to go for both. The other outstanding lunch at our table was the Monte Cristo ($6.50, $8 at dinner), with perfect French toast (impregnated with custard but not soggy) around really good ham and Monterey Jack cheese, though the guest who ordered it would have preferred strawberry jam to the currant jelly it came with. Me, I'm just glad to see this forgotten classic come back into style.

Our lunch salad Nicoise ($8) spoke in insistent south-of-France accents of the joys of pure ingredients assembled and left intact: big chunks of albacore tuna, barely dressed to accent the fresh ocean breeze taste, accompanied by sunny egg quarters and big chunks of potato to make a real meal as well as tiny piquant olives and capers for sharp, pungent flavors to offset the rich tuna. The French dip ($8.50), although good, seemed insipid by comparison despite the very good beef inside. After lunch, I checked the menu in the window and tried to figure out how to dress for dinner, given the wide-ranging menu. I needn't have worried: I saw everything from wispy women in swoop-backed cocktail dresses to guys who seemed to have come directly from a pick-up hockey game, a true testament to successful hospitality.

And of course, we were all well-fed. The same kitchen that produced those cheeseburgers (they looked and smelled great) also sent out my grilled breast of duck ($24), tender and juicy with superbly basted, slightly chewy skin that I relished gnawing. The bean and cranberry ragout's hardy, stout flavors were an excellent backdrop, and evidence that Adrian has let her imagination take over a few dishes after all.

The chicken piccata ($13), on the other hand, struck me as more of an intro dish. It's nicely executed and well-balanced between lemons and capers, but bland. Mussels ($16) were treated like the hardy creatures they are - steamed and steeped in a sharp, slightly spicy garlic fennel broth that would have coaxed anyone to open their shells for a sniff.

Our dinner server was a bit puzzled by my guest's request for rice with the mussels, but brought it cheerfully. Aside from a few minor bobbles like misidentifying my wine and then consistently misplacing the glass (it goes outside the water glass, friend), he was attentive until check time, then disappeared for long periods. Lunch servers were flawless except for a forgotten fork. In fact, one of the first things I noticed after being seated at 32 Bleu was that everyone greeted me, not just my own server. Desserts, you ask? I have to wonder whether Adrian's specialty may have been turned over to a lesser chef. Pumpkin mousse in a papery, gingery pastry cup was both beautiful and sophisticated ($4.75); a dense, slightly dry brownie made a tasty ice cream sandwich ($4.50). However, the almost-liquid tiramisu ($6) in a wine glass seemed more like a sloppy trifle, and a Mexican chocolate cake ($7) was burned around the edges.

Adrian perhaps has not yet mastered the training aspect of the executive chef's role, but she's got everything else in its place at 32 Bleu.