NakedSushi

On our first night in the central coast, the BF and I went to a well-known Paso Robles restaurant by the name of Artisan. The BF had done some research and found several recommendations for the place. A woman working at a winery we visited earlier also was favorable to the restaurant, so we arrived with the expectation of a tasty dinner.

Since the BF was the designated driver and couldn’t drink too much alcohol anyway, we split a flight of red wines. I am by no means an expert on red wines, but I thought all of them were decent and I especially liked the far right one, the Denner Syrah.

As a starter, I ordered the Smoked Gouda and Porter Fondue, garlic toast, andouille sausage, and broccolini. I was practically salivating from reading the description. Unfortunately, it was the best part of the dish. The smoked gouda and porter sauce was barely warm when it got to the table and no amount of heating from the pathetic little tea candle could get it to a satisfying temperature. The sauce was lacking in flavor and tasted like the vegan mac and cheese sauce I make at home. While I like all types of sausage and the andouille sausage was decent, it tasted like something I could buy at any market. The broccolini was undercooked — which would have been fine if the fondue was hot enough to cook it further, but alas, it was not.

The BF didn’t fare as well either with his starter: butter lettuce with candied walnuts.  Even though the kitchen knew well in advance of his vegan diet, we were let down. The salad was a disappointing sign that the chef did not fully put his heart into preparing a vegan meal. The house dressing was on the light side, lacking in salt, and the salad as a whole was just plain bland.

The vegan entree was slightly better, but that wasn’t saying much. The potatoes were sufficiently crisp and seasoned, the morels were a nice touch, and the asparagus was cooked well, but the dish just lacked soul. It was standard vegan fare and just had no stand-out characteristics and that’s harsh considering morels are usually so good in a dish.

My entree, New York steak done medium rare, was just as soul-less. I had misread the menu, thinking that the black olive aioli came on top of the fried artichokes, but it actually comes on top of the steak. Blasphemy, I know. I’m very happy with a perfectly cooked piece of steak with nothing but salt and pepper as seasoning, maybe a little butter. Putting sauce on a steak just seems so wrong.

When the steak came, it was a perfect medium rare. I scraped some of the sauce off the top of the steak and had a bite. Decent, but maybe a bit on the tough side for a medium rare. The sauce, black olive aioli, was great, but just didn’t go well with the steak.

I had a bite of the fried artichoke, and almost did a double-take. The first piece I had was cold! There’s nothing worse than cold deep fried food. I love artichokes, but I did not love these. They were cold to lukewarm, tasteless, and even deep-frying didn’t help them. The bitter salad greens they were served on top of, something I usually like, were disappointing as well. It was like the kitchen completely forgot to dress it.

The potato gratin which came as a side to my entree was equally as mediocre. Instead of a gratin, it just tasted like some dried out baked slices of potato. It wasn’t even seasoned well. If it only tasted as good as it looked, I would have been a happy camper.

The only redeeming part of the dinner came out during dessert — maybe we should have had dinner elsewhere and just dropped by Artisan for sweets. I ordered the three chocolate creme brulee. Each small cup contained a different type of chocolate: white, Mexican, and dark. The dark chocolate was rich and bittersweet, the Mexican chocolate had a hint of cinnamon and spices, and the white chocolate was sweet and creamy. The only disappointing part of the trio was that without the bruleed sugar coating on top, I would have thought this was a trio of chocolate puddings.

The BF got three flavors of sorbet for dessert: grape, berry, and orange cointreau. The orange cointreau was the best, but the rest were too artificial tasting. All three were too icy.

Our first dinner in Paso Robles was a bust. It’s disappointing to pay so much money for such mediocre food. It’s also surprising that this place was so highly recommended. Maybe people drank a little too much during wine tasting to pay attention to the food. The presentation of each dish was great, along with fancy serving pieces like the Staub fondue pot and Staub cast iron baking dish. The BF remarked that Artisan should spend less money on fancy serving pieces and more effort on producing delicious food.

Between the starter and entree, we waited at least 20 minutes for food. The server finally apologized for the wait because a large party had taken up the kitchen’s resources.  That’s fine and all, but as soon as dessert was plopped down on the table, so was the check.  Although she said there was no rush, I thought it was rude that she handed us the check before I was even into my second bite of dessert. Popular restaurants need to turn tables quickly to get maximum profit for the night, but it wasn’t our fault it took so long for the entrees to come out.

The most disappointing aspect of Artisan was that as much as they like to boast about using seasonal and local sources, the restaurant was very meat and potatoes in a stuffy way. The vegetable dishes the chef came up with were uninspired and unexciting.  Judging from the other items on the menu, Artisan caters to the upper 40s, stodgy, meat and potatoes crowd, or the drank-too-much-wine-but-hungry crowd.

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Artisan
1401 Park St # 105
Paso Robles, CA 93446
(805) 237-8084