Jas McDaniel
The pheasant: Perfectly rendered schmaltzy fat and juicy meat, plus celery root puree.
Gavin Kaysen opening Spoon and Stable in Minneapolis. Gerard Craft opening Niche in St. Louis. Elizabeth and Tim Dahl opening Nostrano in Madison. Talented chefs have been taking their games from major cities to smaller markets in the Midwest for years, as the middle of the country’s reputation as a culinary destination grows. Sometimes it’s a homecoming, as it was with the Dahls in Madison, but often as not, it comes down to a tenuous connection, or just plain taking a chance.
Phillip Rodriguez, chef at the new Graft on North Carroll Street, is from El Paso, Texas, and worked with A-list chefs Rick Tramonto, Laurent Gras and Marcus Samuelsson in Chicago. It was a connection made years ago at Samuelsson’s C-House with two of the three owners at Graft that resulted in Rodriguez coming to Madison.
Graft opened in July with the menu already pinned to somewhere between summer and autumn, spring onions and asparagus sharing space with brussels sprouts and celery root. While the restaurant describes the food as “Midwest-inspired,” it could just as easily be viewed as representative of most of the world’s wine-producing regions.
From France, there’s a fresh and entirely satisfying rillettes of diced smoked trout (local Rushing Waters trout) mixed with chopped chives and a splash of crème fraîche. If Graft doesn’t find a way to get this onto the lawn for next summer’s Concerts on the Square, I don’t know anything about food.
Across the Mediterranean, North Africa is represented by a harissa-rubbed chicken thigh atop Israeli couscous with a bonus track of crisped chicken skin on the side. Served without those inconveniently inedible bones, this is a singularly great dish, one of Graft’s best. Similarly, the pheasant from Graft’s “large plates” section further demonstrates the kitchen’s skill with poultry. It’s a large portion but not gargantuan, with perfectly rendered schmaltzy fat and juicy meat. The accompanying kohlrabi is a touch salty, but mellows out in conjunction with the bird and the spectacular celery root purée underneath.
While the pheasant isn’t so large as to intimidate, the New York strip steak certainly is. The most costly dish on the menu (at $28), the behemoth lands sliced and covered with a scattering of “Midwestern succotash” — young peas and finely diced purple potatoes and zucchini.
My steak took some time to arrive, Rodriguez delivering it himself with the apology for having to fire a second after the first came out at medium rather than medium rare. While I appreciate the effort, truly, if the first steak had even a little bit of the sear that was missing from the second, I would have taken it. Perfunctory grill lines add appearance but not the texture and flavor of a good crust, and the final effect was something like an elegant backyard hamburger.
The flank steak with coffee butter represents beef in happier fashion, with a strong coffee flavor that paired nicely with my glass of the Saint Rioja, rich with currant and black pepper. Servers, who run the gamut from wildly over-earnest to subtly confident, are all willing to offer wine pairing suggestions. A massive bottle list runs from roughly $30 to over $125 in a couple instances. Glasses average about $10.
I liked the deployment of a savory granola underneath the walleye, as opposed to the more pedestrian wild rice or spaetzle, but the problem was the underneath bit. With the juices from the walleye — cooked nicely, it should be said — plus the butter sauce, the granola under the fish got soggy and, well, fishy.
The smaller dishes are where it’s at. Dollops of creamy fried chèvre with a sticky black pepper gastrique (but none of the promised honeycomb, sadly) looked like little rangoons, and would be great if nestled amid the roasted brussels sprouts with a balsamic reduction and a sort of Indian-spiced pumpkin seed praline.
What dishes aren’t there yet, could be with only a little work. Lemony grits with grana padano cheese should have been smoother and creamier, but the fried egg on top was ideally cooked. Spätzle mac and cheese, with gouda instead of cheddar, would have been quite a looker if it had arrived hot instead of lukewarm.
A handful of desserts (not printed on the menu) are appealing. An almond brown butter financier with fresh strawberries was good; the lemon pot de creme was something else altogether — equal parts creamy and tart, with fresh berries and a crisp sugary tuile. It’s a dessert that refuses to let summer pass.
Graft is a very pretty, capable restaurant that swings for the fences. It’s a menu with broad appeal, even if the seasonality is sometimes puzzling. Every little thing doesn’t have to be farm-to-table, after all.
Graft
18 N. Carroll St., Madison, 608-229-8800, graftmadison.com
5-10 pm Tues.-Thurs., 5-11 pm Fri.-Sat., $6-$28