Canteen

Of the many important responsibilities of a watercooler food critic, none is more grave and telling than his role as advisor to friends and coworkers on where and where not to dine. The questions are often specific: Where should I take my wife for our ten year wedding anniversary? Do you know where they make good Northern Chinese hand-pulled noodles? My in-laws are visiting from Chicago; who serves the biggest portions? But the most common – and most difficult – request is invariably delivered in a hushed underground voice, and before the question is punctuated I can tell what they’re after: the hidden neighborhood gem that, romanticized in their mind’s eye, glows amber-hued and serves the kind of comfort food that your great grandmother supposedly used to make in a wood-fired brick oven. (Unless she was Korean. Then she most likely served a small bowl of rice and stew made from old kim-chee.)

The inherent problem with hidden neighborhood gems is that the ones that are so good that you wish they would stay secret for your own private pleasure are, for the very same reason, publicly exposed. And the better the restaurant, the swifter its outing. So it was inevitable that Canteen skipped the clandestine affair with neighborhood locals in-the-know and wed itself nearly immediately to high-profile critics, with mentions from the Chronicle to several national food magazines. The story is a seductive one: a young rising-star chef leaves a prominent establishment to start a hole-in-the-wall restaurant as the arena for a very personal exploration of the relationship between man and food. After my visit, however, I have to wonder whether the attention and acclaim it has received is well deserved.

Canteen has many of the ingredients that make a great neighborhood restaurant. First and foremost, it is small. If it was an ipod, it wouldn’t even be a nano, it would be a shuffle: there is space for 20. It’s tucked away in an obscure part of the city - the TenderNob - adjacent to the lobby of a quirky hotel that looks as if it charges by the week, day, or hour. And finally, its menu is short but broad, and emphasizes fresh, local ingredients. So far, so good.

But Canteen ultimately fails because it also lacks several essential ingredients. The décor is pleasant, but its personality is forced. Obscure books are stacked to give the diner the impression that you’re dining in a well lived-in room. My friend leaned over to whisper that it looked like a staged kitchen in an Ikea showroom. By the front door a horizontal coat rack hangs above a pair of simple but stylish chairs: a shot straight out of a pottery barn catalogue. I didn’t know if I should order six of those chairs for my dining room or the Cod with Artichokes for my dinner. Personality was absent in the service as well. I hoped for the warm greeting one gets from a favorite aunt. Instead, the waiter greeted us quickly as he rushed by to grab something for another table. We came in for a hug, and we received a handshake. It was all so disappointingly perfunctory.

The short menu, updated weekly, reads just as it should. It tempts the diner with rustic but elegant fare: Beef roast with mashed potatoes, chard, and jus; cream of lentil soup; Ling cod with artichokes and Meyer lemon cream; Almond cake with cherries, prunes, and Armagnac; Chocolate and hazelnut pot de crème. The dishes are hearty and robust, conjuring up images of old groves, misty coastlines, and strong, stout farmers’ wives. But these pastoral pleasures and agrarian reveries come at post-industrial metropolitan prices. The entrees are priced at a hefty $22-26, a range that puts it in the same league as restaurants that serve far more exquisitely prepared dishes. Scott Howard, Range (recipient of a Michelin star), and Woodward’s Garden all offer better food at comparable prices.

Still, in this crowded space, there is room for Canteen. It is a program restaurant: there is a specific theme, a staged setting, paid actors, and its name evokes the specific scale and the particular temporal spirit of the place even before you step inside, as if it was the anticipatory title of a play. And program restaurants always have a way of attracting diners who regularly crave a theatrical display. Based on how difficult it is to get a reservation there, Canteen seems to attract plenty of them. For me, however, this pastoral drama, pleasant though it is, is so straightforward that there is no promise of deeper layers to be discovered in subsequent visits, no new nuances to ponder or subplots to explore. I'm happy to have tried Canteen, here in the country's Broadway of restaurants, but I'm ready to hit the next show.