I went to Cortez a couple of weeks ago and have been meaning to write about it. Though the restaurant staff seemed rather stuffy, the food itself was fantastic. We had an 8:30 reservation for a party of four, but had difficulty finding parking and had to drop off two members of our party to claim our table on time. (If you go, go early to find street parking or be willing to pay extra for a garage, which we ended up having to do.) The two people who went in explained to the hostess that we’d be there in just a moment and then sat down at the bar to wait for us. It took several minutes, until when we joined them, for the cocktail waitress to get around to taking their drink order (and the bar was not full). At that point, the hostess seemed unwilling to seat us (we told her a couple of times that we were ready for our table) even though the table was empty and waiting. Maybe they wanted to get some drinks into us, but if so, they should’ve been a lot speedier with it. Anyway, the ambience is kind of dimly lit and modern, with colored globe lights hanging in simple mobile formations and a lot of dark woods and clean lines. Disappointingly, our group was sat right in front of the exposed kitchen, though that did help to provide the illumination necessary to read our menus.
Since the menu at Cortez is organized around the small plates trend, we ordered six different plates, one pick for each person and two general picks. We had: 1) “house made ricotta ravioli with fresh peas, mint, preserved grapefruit & brown butter emulsion”, 2) “roasted natural chicken breast with white asparagus ragu , parmesan fava purée & braised lardons”, 3) “pan roasted Hanger steak, creamy swiss chard & spice dusted crispy onions”, 4) “braised beef shortribs with smoked fingerling potatoes and vanilla scented glazed baby turnips”, 5) “prawns a la plancha with basque pimentos, lemon garlic butter & creamy crab rice”, and 6) a variation on the halibut which appears on their sample menu. The fish items came first and ended up being my favorites. The prawns were slightly different than described here, but were large and flavorfully grilled to a perfect salty tenderness and served atop a really delicious crab/coconut risotto. The halibut was melt-in-you-mouth tender, so lovely and fresh and served with avocado and clover sprouts or some such thing. The chicken was, in my opinion, a little boring, so I won’t discuss it here, but the ravioli were tasty and light with a nice complexity to them. The beef dishes were both prepared very well, particularly the Hanger steak, which was my favorite of the two. For dessert, we ordered the sorbet trio, which included strawberry, rhubarb, and mango sorbets (rhubarb was best), and the hot chocolate tart with espresso ice cream. Mmm, what a way to end a meal. Altogether, the meal was wonderful, the standout dishes more than made up for the couple of “good, but okay” things, and our food coma (induced by deliciousness rather than being overstuffed) helped us forget the initial confusion at the hostess’s station. The last word: If you’re looking for somewhere to celebrate a special occasion and don’t mind your date’s fork stealing over to your plate, be sure to try Cortez.
