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Today I'm checking in on two more upscale Charlotte restaurants that have parted with longtime high-profile chefs in recent months:
Upstream at Phillips Place is the most upscale place in the Harper's Restaurant Group, focusing on seafood and led for about nine years by chef Tom Condron. Since Condron left (his new Liberty opened last Saturday), Scott Wallen has manned the helm, now serving as executive chef both here and at the group's nearby Mediterranean concept M5.
And this was the most seamless handoff of the handful of places I've checked.
Wallen had been chef de cuisine for six years, the menu hasn't changed much, and execution on my visit was strong - from a delicate sea bass nigiri sushi to a lush special of king salmon over lobster risotto (the weakest part of the dish) and white corn (marvelous). Also exceptional: a signature ahi tuna with eggplant "salsa" and noodles. That prep shifts in the October menu update to crusting the ahi with potato and serving it with a puree of butternut squash and pears, and broccoli rabe. Also new: Alaskan halibut is now sided with Wagyu-fried-rice - from the Carolina-raised Wagyu that Harper's is offering in several incarnations at its various restaurants.
A handful of signature dishes, both seafood and other proteins ($21-$38), joins a mix-and-match section that allows diners to pair a fish or shellfish with the sauce and side of their choice for $17 to $24.
Service has stayed graceful and conversant, and ours was quite enthusiastic.
Go for: Its classically handsome interior - particularly that leaves-on-water ceiling - and the well-edited, simple menu. 6902 Phillips Place Court; 704-556-7730; www.harpersrestaurants.com. (The Web site for the group's restaurants was slated to be brand-new this week.)
Aquavina, on The Green in Uptown, also has an idiosyncratic décor that has proven less durable since the restaurant opened about seven years ago - but the real problem is the food. Jason Pound left (he's now at Plaza Midwood's Soul Gastrolounge), Vincent Giancarlo is chef and steaks have taken a prominent place on the formerly seafood-and-whimsy-heavy menu. Which could be fine, but what we had was done dismally.
A monkfish special was watery and mushy, rather than the "poor man's lobster" texture one hopes for this fish. Surf & Turf Three Ways offered a mini-buffet of beef tenderloin and tiger shrimp that included three golf-ball-sized chunks of minimally flavored beef: two broiled identically and the third Thai-chile-glazed - which meant with a pool of sauce. All were barely warm. The shrimp were medium-sized: one "hushpuppy dusted" (fried, and very well, and hot, which one can surmise meant that all the dishes waited for this one little shrimp), one butter-poached (rubbery) and one minced into a dumpling, accompanied by the best of the entire plate: sweet and sour spinach with great flavor.
The lackadaisical execution extended to an appetizer of mushroom caps (again, barely warm) with a mound of stuffing that included beef but in hardly the proportion you'd expect from the menu's "stuffed with Kobe Beef & Garlic." She crab soup was tinny.
Our server was bright and helpful, but not around much - odd, since the place was nearly empty.
Aquavina still has one of the city's best terraces, and it still overlooks The Green attractively.
435 S. Tryon St.; 704-377-9911; www.aquavina.com .
