“Are you sure you’ve got the right address?” the cabdriver asked, when I requested a ride to Pluton. I thought he was making some joke about the solar system; it turned out he couldn’t believe I wanted to be dropped alone, after dark, next to the Gold Coast Car Wash on North Orleans. When I got out on the deserted stretch, I half-expected a dodgy joint with diners who look like they’re going to stab their mothers (to paraphrase Woody Allen).
Pluton turned out to be a sweet jewel box of a restaurant, with simple and lovely design elements (polished river rocks bordering a shirred fabric wall; curvy architecture) and plenty of dramatic flourishes. Even the butter dish has a little silver dome that the waiter removes upon bringing it to the table.
Only about 50 people will fit into the cream-colored dining room (there’s also a 400-bottle wine cellar and private wine room downstairs), and the night I was there it was 50 particularly well-heeled people. At one point I thought I saw Oprah and Dr. Phil dining together across the room. (It wasn’t them.) Later I heard a man who could have been the skinny brother of Donald Trump interrogating a pleasant waiter about why his beef tenderloin portion was so small.
All the portions are small, though. That’s the trend these days–you have to try a million “plates.” With a four- or five-course self-selected menu and a six- or 10-course chef-selected tasting menu, Jacky Pluton, he of the acclaimed Jacky’s Bistro in Evanston, is obviously not going for huge turnover. My friend Anita and I followed the lead of everyone around us and ordered the 10-plate degustation. We didn’t finish until almost 10:30 p.m. even though we started at 6. And I’m a really fast eater.
Ten plates, however small, is a lot of food. By the end my senses had sort of shut down. I had plate fatigue. Still, in spite of the large number of dishes that were brought to me, I found my mind wandering to the menu items that were not. Disgusting but true.
After a nice amuse of lamb carpaccio with diced strawberry and a tiny spelt salad, we were served a bite-sized piece of seared foie gras with lemon filling (a.k.a. lemon curd) and a roasted baby beet. It was quite tasty, but I would have chosen the sweetbreads, which come with a lentil salad and Fourme de Montbrison, a cheese that was allegedly first produced by Druids, although that seems difficult to prove.
The next course was lobster salad that Anita and I decided to describe as a difficult dish. A layer of two kinds of seaweed–one of which resisted mastication, to put it delicately–topped by pieces of lobster that also fought us, and a dollop of squid-ink vinaigrette. The little side dish of granite was lovely; that squid-ink vinaigrette made our lips turn black. We looked like vampires.
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Turnip and rosemary soup arrived sweet and foamy, with a small island of Dungeness crabmeat and an extraneous buckwheat tuile that tasted like . . . buckwheat. We ate all of it. Next we were served a generous piece of grilled Dover sole that was too chewy but had nice flavor, accompanied by a braised leek, a sweet razor clam and a little potato fritter. Again, I would rather have tried a dish called Warm Salmon with Oyster and Sea Scallop, but I ate most of the sole anyway.
The dish that followed–pan-seared squab breast and leg confit–was slightly scary: the spindly baby pigeon leg, set down in a dark hazelnut emulsion, pointed up at me accusingly. Gory as it was, it was also truly juicy, and so was part of the next dish (that’s right! more food!): a fine lamb chop and a little pile of unremarkable chopped lamb shank, with peppermint jus. This was accompanied by a refreshing salad, dressed simply with olive oil, fleur de sel, and miniscule mint leaves, atop delicious homemade yogurt, which was perfect with the lamb, I think, although I can’t be certain. At this point I’d become an unreliable narrator.
Now, try to imagine eating more food at this point. It’s difficult. But the thing about this sort of arrangement is you can’t go back. You’re obligated by custom to forge ahead, which, on the upside, sort of gets you off the hook for gluttony.
Another salad arrived, this one made of lamb’s lettuce dressed in truffle oil with lots of pepper, around which slices of black Oregon truffle were arranged. The truffles were pretty flavorless, but I ate the whole thing, anyway.
To speed things up here: Then we had cheese (big rolling cart with a dome, American artisanal, delicious, blah blah blah) and not one but two desserts (a large bowl of oven-roasted winter fruit, with “French butter enriched vanilla ice cream,” according to the waiter, and a raspberry ice coulis with a rich chocolate tart). I consumed as much as I could. And then the waiter had the nerve to bring over a two-tiered tray of petit fours. I felt obligated to take a bite of every single one of them. They were delightful. Whatever. And it was only $109 apiece, which is actually a bargain.
But next time, I’d go for a four- or five-plate deal ($59 and $69). I like to remember what I’ve eaten.
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Pluton is at 873 N. Orleans St.; 312-266-1440. Open Mondays through Saturdays for dinner.