Dining Review: Audette in Newport

Beef tartare. Photography by Angel Tucker

My love for French food is unwavering. Though nearly any cuisine can stretch itself from colloquial to elevated, nothing seems to have a spectrum quite as wide as traditional French. From the comforting flavors of a roast chicken and a wine-laced bourguignon to the dizzying heights of a croquembouche or a layered terrine, it’s a formidable blueprint for the adaptability of a dinner table. But French cuisine is also deeply, inherently romantic. Maybe it’s the wine or the staunch and steady flow of butter that suggests, in every bite, that the quickest route to ecstasy is through a well-crafted meal.

chef de cuisine Jasmine Watson with the Grand Marnier souffle.

In an increasingly casual and swiftly shifting world, however, it’s a challenge to lure diners into a formal dinner that might take the whole night to reach its crescendo. But the TSK and Mission team (known more formally as The Mission Group) — who have focused largely on steak and burgers in Newport for the better part of a decade — felt certain they could bridge the distance between traditional European cooking and the modern American diner. The restaurant group is run by Anna Burnley, her chef-husband, Tyler, chef Chad Hoffer and his wife, Carmen Ratoi, who has worked for eighteen years at what was Bouchard, then Chanterelle, and now — under Mission ownership — is Audette.

Much of the staff and the dining room remains intact at the seventy-person restaurant attached to Bouchard Inn. The room is neutral — white and beige walls and white leather chairs — save for the modern, eight-person bar that sits just past the doorway in a sleek, midcentury aesthetic. (That vibe extends to the throwback soundtrack that includes a Spanish version of “These Boots Were Made for Walkin.’”)

Regulars still tend to hover in age at the half-century mark and Audette continues to cater to that crowd, with a tray full of colorful reading glasses perched on the hostess stand. But the forma  atmosphere and stiff attitude has softened a bit under the new ownership. A dress code remains (no sportswear), but when the youngest member of a party rushes in late wearing jeans and a T-shirt, the staff will ask little more than to remove the baseball cap. There’s something almost cozy about this polished restaurant and, if they request something more refined than shorts, it’s in deference to a kitchen that takes its job very seriously.

The Audette dining room.

The unconventional Caesar salad.

Some of the dishes from the restaurant’s earlier iterations remain as an ode to what’s revered in the French tradition. Caviar service ($85-$105) —  petite toast, creme fraiche, chopped shallot and grated yolk — is not novel but it’s a light that never dims. Even the plates that have history, however, are presented with a modern minimalism that reads as fully evolved. (The welcome exception is a collection of escargots steeped in garlic butter because, well, we will never tire of garlic butter.)

There are surprises where you least expect them, though. Servers often push the Caesar salad ($15) which seems like the most staid offering on the menu. Listen to them. Finely chopped, rife with white anchovies, and plated with a ring mold, the salad is covered in a fine confetti of Parmesan crumble that throws texture into a contemporary limelight. (Most often heard phrase at each table: “I wasn’t planning to order a salad but thanks for convincing me.”)

Beef tartare ($21) is also familiar, but drizzled with sauce espagnole (a tomato-rich brown stock sauce) that throws subtle shades of stewing into the bright chilled meat. The kitchen is, not surprisingly, keen on the agricultural gifts of the season and a few short weeks of white asparagus ($18) was translated into the very manifestation of verdancy. Fresh peas and lovage were spun into both puree and a nestle of greenery, punctuated with hazelnuts and lardons until each bite sang of spring.

Escargots served with the Gentian Spark cocktail.

Entrees at Audette do lean slightly more toward comfort food — if you’re comforted by copious amounts of meat. It may be shocking to declare that a $63 veal chop is worth its price, but it is. The gargantuan chop is deeply seared and smothered in a tangy sauce of earthy, wild mushrooms that speaks volumes about why every French chef begins their career with sauces. It’s a steak for the modern age that would immediately give a filet low self-esteem. Even the chicken pot pie (known in these parts as poulet en croute, $38) is a layered masterpiece of familiar fare. The base is a butter-rich pommes puree topped with softened leeks, several varieties of mushrooms, and finally, braised chicken encased in a dome of puff pastry. There’s probably a cup of butter buried in the bowl which is cause, in this case, not only for celebration but rapture.

The Quenelles: Turnip, Halibut, Lobster dish features a mousse in a lush seafood sauce.

Ironically, the most exciting dish on the menu is also the most old-fashioned and, arguably, the least attractive. It appears on the menu as Quenelles: Turnip, Halibut, Lobster ($36). In detail, it’s a poached mousse of halibut that looks like little more than a taupe log resting on tourneed turnips and chunks of lobster. One twenty-something diner, watching it walk through the dining room, exclaimed that someone had apparently ordered gefilte fish. But this is why cooking is tied to history, sometimes euphorically. This overtly old-school preparation is a study in how subtlety occasionally puts bold flavors to shame. The texture of the mousse is unbendingly uniform but, resting in a lush seafood sauce, each bite is remarkably intricate.

If the kitchen is capable of disguising its effort as restraint, however, that costume is discarded with dessert. Pot de creme is served in a shallow dish, swirled with Nutella and brownie bits — the most American of any offering here. But it’s the Grand Marnier souffle that knows it’s special. It arrives quivering in its sugar-coated dish with a teacup full of creme anglaise by its side. Perhaps a twenty-first century dessert might be more novel or more colorful, but it will never be more delightful or decadent.

 And that’s the philosophy behind The Mission Group’s acquisition of Audette: There’s a generation of young diners who are serious about food but who simply don’t know what gave rise to the modern era. They may be surprised to learn that the ancestors of contemporary cuisine can hit just as hard as the children they’ve produced. 

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AUDETTE

505 Thames St., Newport, 324-5802, audettenewport.com

Open for dinner Tuesday–Sunday. Reservations recommended, but walk-ins accepted. Wheelchair accessible. Street parking. 

CUISINE: French food that’s as proud of its history as it is of its present. 

CAPACITY: Seventy-two with the bar, plus outdoor dining. 

VIBE: Fine dining translated for a postmodern crowd. 

PRICES: Appetizers: $12–$105; entrees: $34–$63; dessert: $11.50–$14.50. 

KAREN’S PICKS: Caesar salad, escargots, beef tartare, any entrée (as long as someone at the table gets the quenelles), souffles. Don’t forgo the excellent cocktails and wine list.