Just shy of 30 years old, Adam Smith has spent more than half his life working in restaurant kitchens. Smith has cooked in a number of area restaurants since he was 14, working his way up to the position of executive chef at the North Hills Firebirds by his early 20s. In July, he opened Restaurant Eden - what better name for the first venture of a precocious chef named Adam? - in Durham.
Some might consider him naive for opening his first restaurant in the space where the acclaimed Starlu failed (on the ground floor of an office building, out of the night-life mainstream). Smith grew up in an apartment complex nearby, though, so he's familiar with the area.
No doubt he brings a healthy dose of youthful optimism to the task, along with his considerable experience. Both traits are evident in the young chef's menu, which offers a fresh new take on the contemporary American repertoire and is by and large well-executed.
But if the seasonally evolving offering shows flashes of originality evocative of the restaurant's namesake garden, it also suffers from the flip side: an untamed exuberance that sometimes leaves dishes in a "diamond in the rough" state.
Menu descriptions that are less than accurate don't help, either.
Not what you'd expect
An appetizer offering of "grilled artichokes" is a case in point. The dish turns out not to be artichokes, plural (presumably young enough to be tender when grilled), but a single mature specimen, steamed until tender, then split and briefly finished on the grill. The chef deserves bonus points for daring to put the dish on the menu, and I don't mind scraping the flesh off the leaves with my teeth in a restaurant setting. But those who order it, reasonably expecting an Italian-inspired knife-and-fork presentation, are in for a big surprise.
"Oysters tempura" is in fact not tempura-battered, but they are succulent in a crisp, light breading, and the presentation - with a citrus aioli dip and a garnishing scatter of chopped parsley and lemon zest - is delightful. So is an entree offering listed as "free range chicken," though no mention is made of the fact that it's deep-fried. The only trace of the promised "lemon caper vinaigrette" was a single caper and the merest trickle of sauce.
"Seafood paella" serves up an abundance of tender squid, octopus, salmon, mussels and shrimp (clams were a no-show in my order) over a mound of saffron- and herb-scented rice whose texture comes closer to risotto than paella.
You get the idea. The more flexible your expectations, the more likely you are to enjoy your meal.
Regardless of how flexible you are, you might want to request that the chef leave the squeeze bottle of balsamic reduction on the shelf. He's overly fond of using it as a garnish, in my experience, and often too generous in its application. While the coffee-dark sauce adds visual drama to the plate, its intense pungency often upstages the food. It overwhelms the subtle Cajun spice notes in an otherwise excellent flash-fried rainbow trout, and it fights with the pineapple salsa in a presentation of Hawaiian-style grilled pork chops.
Rough edges notwithstanding, chef Smith shows potential for becoming a solid, innovative contributor to the local dining scene.
Smith has assembled a young, capable kitchen crew and a wait staff who are, if not yet thoroughly knowledgeable, eager to please. When the Snoqualmie Riesling that my dining companion ordered recently turned out to be sold out, our server offered her a glass of champagne - Moët et Chandon Imperial, no less - on the house.
The dining room decor is spare and contemporary in earth tones, with an open kitchen, a floor-to-ceiling polished wood bar, and tables draped in khaki linens striking a balance between polished and relaxed. It's a suitable setting for Eden, where the dining experience may fall a bit short of paradise, but it's still a worthy destination for adventurous spirits.
