Dining Review: Ten Prime Seafood in Providence

The second Ten Prime location from Chow Fun Food Group focuses on Rhode Island-sourced shellfish and seafood, plus Prime steaks.

16 hours ago

Karen Deutsch,

Local oysters with a pear martini. Photo by Angel Tucker

Chow Fun Food Group may have kept a low profile lately but that doesn’t mean it’s given up on its neon-hued, high-drama approach to life. Ten Prime Seafood is the group’s newest addition, setting up shop across from Trinity Rep in the building that housed Empire long ago, and, more recently, Bravo and Res.

Lobster mac and cheese. Photo by Angel Tucker

It’s a space that has challenged restaurateurs and, accordingly, this incarnation is largely focused on the ground level with the upstairs reserved for high-volume nights and private events (and maybe something new coming soon to capitalize on the illuminated views of the theater). That still leaves about sixty seats to fill downstairs with more than a third of those at the bar and high-tops. Other seating is separated into vignettes around the L-shaped room.

The dining room is lighter and brighter than in previous restaurants, with accents of oceanic blue, local art on the walls and a mural of octopus tentacles climbing up the staircase. Chow Fun’s native language is often tongue in cheek and, in this case, that manifests in a mermaid bust hovering overhead, jellyfish chandeliers facing Washington Street, and an “Art Department” sign hanging over the kitchen doorway.

Ten Seafood may be a more restrained, slightly more mature version of Ten Prime Steak & Sushi — with Chow Fun’s revered chef Jules Ramos back at the helm after twenty years away — but the link between all of the company’s restaurants is that everyone likes a party.

Nowhere is the invite more overt than in the drinks. Several cocktails feature smoke and one delights with a bubble that bursts. Many are oversized and served in vessels that look like winking women or gilded owls with pineapple fronds. (“Very Indiana Jones,” says the waiter as he places two down on a table.)

But while Ten Prime Steak & Sushi feels like a bar at every table, Ten Prime Seafood is a Choose Your Own Adventure that supplies a more restrained path. The Rhode Island-sourced raw bar of oysters and littlenecks, plus shrimp cocktail, is straightforward, with several varieties of raw tuna and salmon served as carpaccio ($18) or on small bricks of crispy sushi rice ($15–$18). Smoky haddock chowder ($12) makes a showing and though calamari isn’t on the menu — maybe the most daring move of all — a fried plate of rock shrimp, clam strips and hot peppers ($22) still feels like a section of the old guard.

The interior of Ten Prime Seafood. Photo by Angel Tucker

Chicken nuggets and caviar.

American icons — fish and chips, fish tacos — land somewhere around $25, which makes the restaurant viable for a night out. But this is not a space that builds its identity on affordability. Extravagance is an essential building block at Ten and that’s an easy path for a seafood restaurant to access. Caviar is available with creme fraiche and chives — served on potato chips instead of blinis — for $100–$125, which is pretty much what the market dictates. Or you can order the gateway chicken nuggets and caviar, a Gen Z interpretation that turns the traditional on its ear in more ways than one. It’s a pairing that works in both flavor (salt on salt) and texture (the chicken pieces are small and eat more like chicharron than a nugget). But, at $45, it’s slightly more than a garnish, which deflates the sails a bit if you’re bargaining for more than a novelty concept.

There are, however, other ways to satiate the longing for decadence, because if caviar is the keynote, then lobster is Ten’s spirit animal. As an appetizer, it’s served “Acting like Escargot” — chunky nubs of lobster sitting in puddles of garlic butter and topped with puff pastry caps ($25). For those who eat snails and mussels only as a vehicle for the sauce they’re sitting in, it’s a clear win.

Lobster main courses meander right into hyperbole: Mac and cheese saunters out with a towering lobster head on top or you can get the whole crustacean drowned in butter and Ritz crackers. Alternatively, Ten’s idea of “healthy” is a shallow bowl of lo mein that cradles a jumbo tempura-fried lobster tail for somewhere north of $40.

But while Ten Prime Steak & Sushi leads with drama, Ten Seafood often lets a spectacle unfurl gradually. Filet mignon appears restrained, except for its plating (“served on Versace”) and the plump tortelloni perched on top that spills a cacio e pepe center when prodded. It’s not an unusual combination (beef carpaccio loves Parmesan) but it’s a surprising translation and a good one. Better is a special of halibut lacquered with white miso and served with crispy duck fat potatoes. The $65 price tag is shocking but, if you’re willing to spend it, the mammoth snow-white piece of fish is one part throwback to Nobu and one part homage to the ocean.

Tuna tartare served on a coconut shell. Photo by Angel Tucker

If your budget has reasonable boundaries, however, there are less expensive dishes that still embody the restaurant’s extravagant viewpoint. Tuna tartare ($22) eats more like an island ceviche — bright and tart with plenty of lime — served in a coconut shell and festooned with fried plantain chips. Likewise, the house potato (listed as “oh those potatoes” on the menu) is a butter-drenched stack of thinly sliced spuds covered in melted brie. You could call it au gratin but that would be underselling it. At $12, it’s a trademark side that turns any restrained plate into a Ten meal.

You might expect the dessert tray (which servers present Vanna White-style at the end of each meal) to be a full-tilt circus, but it’s surprisingly muted. Apple pie, lemon tart, creme brulee and brown butter chocolate chip cookies all seem a bit mom and pop for this dining room, but the kitchen occasionally sends out something that feels more at home in this performance space.

A souffle brownie ($18) comes out like a Mardi Gras float, hidden under a chocolate dome that dissolves as servers pour hot chocolate over the top. Eventually the whole plate is a lake of chocolate with an island at the center. In other words, it’s way over the top, which seems just about right for a Ten Prime restaurant.

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