HENRY COFFEY

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THE IDAHO STATESMAN

In college, I started a food blog. It eventually got me a job as the food critic for Idaho's largest newspaper. Here are a few of my reviews.

A Café’s simplicity is both pleasant and a drawback, but it’s a great space for a quick bite

There are simple restaurants, and then there is A Café. The new eatery, which opened on 10th and Main last month, ushers minimalist eating to unprecedented heights.

Even its name, which will inspire all sorts of good-natured confusion, is charmingly unambitious.

At the cafe, whose name is stylized as ā café, you will encounter many hallmarks of the beleaguered “millennial culture.” The daily specials are scribbled onto a roll of butcher paper above the counter. The wooden benches, white tile walls and decorative plants exemplify the “California style” that’s invading America’s restaurants. And, most importantly, A Café demonstrates striking reverence for the avocado. A handsome portrait of an avocado winks at you while you eat.

A café is an order-at-the-counter affair, but you won’t linger too long looking over the menu. The breakfast menu lists a mere six items.

You can choose from three varieties of toast made from local Acme Bakeshop bread. The comforting Ol’ Fashion Toast slathers sourdough in butter, sea salt and a seasonal fruit compote. The Tomato Toast ups the ante with a big slice of heirloom tomato, cream cheese and “everything seasoning” — the same mix of seeds and seasoning that you’d find on the outside of an everything bagel.

And then there’s that mighty avocado toast. Initially, the cafe offered avocado toast with microgreens, lemon oil and sea salt. But it later introduced a variation topped with sliced cherry tomatoes, alfalfa sprouts and “everything seasoning.” That version has been awarded a permanent spot on the menu due to popular demand.

The toast isn’t very toasted, but the avocado is mashed to an almost guac-like smoothness, and the everything seasoning provides plenty of poppy texture.

With a heavy emphasis on toast, A Café is poised for an epic battle with the new restaurant Toasted, which is right across the street. Decades from now, we’ll regale our grandkids with tales of the Great Toast Battle of 10th and Main.

The homespun meals are certainly refreshing, but some dishes are so simple that they feel unfinished.

For instance, the petite Simple Scram — two eggs, fontina cheese and green onions topped with sliced avocado — is accompanied by just two slices of dry toast. I love a humble breakfast, but that’s dangerously close to something I would cook at home.

The lunch offerings improve on the breakfast menu. The Turkey Situation, a simple turkey sandwich with avocado, sprouts, tomato and lettuce on sourdough, hits the spot. The Veghead tucks fresh mozzarella into garlicky pesto and sweet roasted peppers. The arugula salad served with the sandwiches is sometimes refreshing and sometimes overwhelmingly salty.

I quite enjoyed the Buttermilk Scenario, a vibrant salad bursting with cucumber, tomato, bell pepper, edamame, sunflower seeds and white cheddar.

But as enjoyable as this food is, somewhere in the middle of your meal you remember that your Housemade ’Nola is just a bowl of granola served with cold milk, and you wonder, “Is this the lunch I packed myself before work?”

Maybe A Café will find success by serving you the lunch you never have time to pack. But I suspect it will have to spice up the menu a little to keep up with other restaurants downtown. Tasso and Lemon Tree Co. make bigger and better sandwiches in a similar price range.

But a restaurant is also a physical space. And when the rollup door opens and welcomes a gentle breeze into the dining room, A Café is truly an excellent place to be. If you’re hoping to celebrate a beautiful fall morning in Boise, you’d be wise to stop by for a cup of tea and a slice of toast.

We ate 20 mac ‘n’ cheese dishes at Boise restaurants. Here are the best.

Whether it’s because noodles and cheese were made for each other, or because we need an emotional outlet in an age of anxiety, mac and cheese is everywhere.

The abundance is tremendously exciting, but it’s also daunting, because it’s hard to know when and where to take the mac and cheese plunge. After all, I suspect that for many the truest form of macaroni and cheese will always emerge from a box and our own saucepans, loosened up with a pat of butter and a splash of milk.

Anyway, I spent 12 days sampling 20 carefully selected macaroni and cheeses at Boise-area restaurants. Here are my favorites:

THE KING AT LUCKY FINS
Lucky Fins, 801 W. Main St., Baked Lobster Mac & Cheese, $19.99

When I sat down to eat my 16th mac and cheese in 11 days, I didn’t imagine I could be impressed by the dish for the rest of my life. Then I took a bite of Lucky Fins’ cheesy lobster magic and fell in love all over again. This dish works on two levels: A thin cream sauce coating the cavatappi noodles is dramatically enhanced by a tangle of gooey, zesty cheese in the center. And just when you think things can’t possibly get richer – huge chunks of luxurious lobster! This mac and cheese is worth the $7 premium.

THE RUNNER-UP AT BITTERCREEK ALEHOUSE
Bittercreek Alehouse, 246 N. 8th St., $9.75 (add chicken for $3.25)

Bittercreek’s mac and cheese is a miracle of modern physics. The noodles are coated in a smooth, glossy sauce, but pull on the sauce with a fork and it stretches like melted cheese. How does the cheese simultaneously inhabit two states of matter? I have no idea. But I do know that Bittercreek’s blend of gruyere, mozzarella and sharp white cheddar is unrivaled in texture and flavor.

THE TRENDSETTER AT MAD MAC
Mad Mac, 7709 W. Overland Road, $6.50 to $9.50

Mad Mac approaches the mac and cheese experience with striking reverence. The beloved food truck-turned-restaurant provides an array of hot sauces, breadcrumbs and crispy jalapeno bits to enhance your macaroni, much like the homemade sauces and salts Boise Fry Company provides for your spuds. The classic Mad Mac ($6.50) is fairly unremarkable, but the specialty toppings really kick things up a notch. I loved the Calavera Mac ($8.50), which adds pico de gallo and fajita-seasoned chicken thighs to a creamy cheddar jalapeño sauce.

THE CELEBRITY AT BACON
Bacon, 121 N. 9th St., $13

Bacon’s The Mac — packed with mushrooms, herbs and, you guessed it, a gigantic quantity of sweet bacon — has been recognized as one of the best macs in America. But the most innovative touch might be the four slices of tomato baked into the cheese on top, which break up the melty crust in just the right way. Due to the immense amount of bacon, the bottom layer of noodles is more fatty than creamy, but when you walk into a restaurant named Bacon, I doubt you’ll complain about such matters.

THE INNER CHILD AT 10 BARREL BREWING CO
10 Barrel Brewing Co., 826 W. Bannock St., $12

10 Barrel serves its bacon and jalapeno dish with a massive pile of potato chips. (That sound you just heard was the delighted screams of every 8-year-old in Idaho.) 10 Barrel’s zesty smoked gouda and cheddar sauce is part béchamel, part queso dip. They’ve cornered the market on extra-saucy mac and cheese, which will delight lovers of low-viscosity macaroni dishes, but I wish they could achieve this radical sauciness while keeping the pasta a little closer to al dente.

THE VEGGIE LOVERS DELIGHT AT CLOUD 9 BREWERY
Cloud 9 Brewery, 1750 W. State St., $11 (add $3 for grilled vegetables)

If you want to add some flavor to your mac and cheese without getting the meat sweats, consider Cloud 9’s meal with grilled vegetables. The mac and cheese itself won’t make your socks go up and down, but it shines beneath best-in-class breadcrumbs and tender grilled zucchini, pepper and onion.

THE LUXURY SEDAN AT TRILLIUM RESTAURANT
Trillium Restaurant, 243 S. Capitol Blvd., $28

If you were an early investor in Bitcoin, you’ll love Trillium’s Cajun Shrimp Mac & Cheese. This beastly portion of seafood and pasta is topped with spicy asiago cream, cheese curds, peppers, onions and wild mushrooms. The Cajun mac delivered satisfying spice and tremendous flavor, but the shrimp was a little overcooked, and if you’re spending $28 on an entree, it might be time to think about steak.

THE INSTAGRAM MODEL AT FLATBREAD NEAPOLITAN PIZZERIA
Flatbread Neapolitan Pizzeria, 800 W. Main St. or 3139 S. Bown Way, $11

When it appeared on the table, Flatbread’s sizzling, parsley-flecked penne looked as beautiful as a sunset over Sicily. I enjoyed a honeymoon phase with the top layer of golden melted cheese and perfectly cooked pasta. But when I pushed deeper into the dish, I found a lot of butter and very little flavor. My advice: Don’t eat the cheese on top right away. Instead, incorporate some of the flavorful top layer into every bite.

THE CHEESE-LESS WONDER AT BBQ4LIFE
BBQ4LIFE, 930 S. Vista Ave., $3 side of Mac n’ Cheese, $4 for Vegan

BBQ4LIFE imagines a utopian future where carnivores and vegans eat in harmony. The mac and cheese here couldn’t be more classic – gooey, mild and storybook yellow. The vegan and gluten-free offering relies on rice noodles and seasoned vegetable puree to bring forth those warm feelings of safety and comfort.

THE WEEKDAY LUNCH AT WHOLE FOODS
Whole Foods Mac & Cheese Bar, 401 S. Boradway St., $8.99/lb

Whole Foods is at a clear disadvantage. While other restaurants can pull steaming mac and cheese directly from the oven, Whole Foods has to shovel its mac unceremoniously into a big silver pan, where it risks becoming soggy from its own steam as the day goes on. But Whole Foods performs impressively well despite those limitations. The Buffalo Chicken Macaroni & Cheese, doused in spicy wing sauce, revealed new dimensions in a béchamel.

At Petite 4, the team behind Bleubird bets big on its culinary game and strikes it rich

When Bleubird closed in January, Boise went into mourning. The sudden evaporation of the city’s finest sandwich shop felt like a nightmare.

But help was on the way for fans of its food.

In April, Sarah and David Kelly, the power couple behind Bleubird’s massive success, opened Petite 4. Named after its diminutive size and location at 4 N. Latah St., the new restaurant aimed to bring “French bistro-inspired dishes to the Boise Bench.”

Petite 4 has inherited much of its stylistic vision from Bleubird. A striking kitchen forms the heart of the restaurant, and every member of the staff looks dapper in a pinstriped apron.

The restaurant has also inherited Bluebird’s fervent fan base; the dining room was packed at 9 p.m. on a Tuesday in October. It’s no secret that reservations are highly recommended unless you plan on fighting for space at the bar.

And I understand why the Kellys decided to close Bleubird and open Petite 4. Bleubird was popular because it was the best possible version of a sandwich shop, but the type of food and the hours of operation created inherent limitations.

Petite 4 does not suffer from those limitations. It can grow and change endlessly in service of Sarah Kelly’s unique culinary vision. It can bask in the classy-yet-casual atmosphere that David Kelly seems to conjure by simply existing — his energy, charm and encyclopedic memory make you want to visit again and again.

The menu itself is pleasantly simple, with starters, vegetables, seafood and meat on one side, cheese and charcuterie on the other, and a separate card for daily specials.

Menus are updated seasonally and when inspiration strikes. Regular visitors will be excited to find a new fall menu, which retains popular items while introducing impressive new dishes.

The restaurant may be petite, but the portions are not. The starters are generous and the meatier entrees are approximately the size of a family sedan. And when you consider the vastness of some of these meals, the prices are closer to a brewery than a steakhouse.

You’d be wise to start your meal with a cheese plate ($15), which features a rotating assortment and seasonal accompaniments.

The French onion soup ($12) is crowded with golden tendrils of onion and is so gloriously rich that I considered asking for a smoothie straw. The first few bites of melted gruyère were magic, but the quantity of cheese began to feel a bit overwhelming as I worked deeper into the bowl.

The root vegetable and potato latke ($9), topped with house-made applesauce, sour cream and chives, is outrageous. Adding cured salmon ($4) will take things from “outrageous” to “somebody hold me.”

Roasted baby beets ($12) with horseradish creme fraiche are lovely to look at, and the horseradish provides charming zip.

The halibut cheeks ($19) combine the meaty density of a scallop with the weightless flake of a halibut fillet. The cheeks are pan seared until crisp and served with slices of citrus and olives in a rosemary butter sauce. Seafood enthusiasts will delight in this inspired creation.

The Petite mousse ($5) is the appropriate chocolatey conclusion to a luxurious meal.

The dishes at Petite 4 are rich, sometimes spectacularly so. Ordering family style is the best way to maximize your eating experience and avoid a war of attrition against a lake of bordelaise.

Dave Kelly’s herbaceous sodas are drinkable artwork; sampling one — whether it’s his famous pomegranate sage or an inventive blast of turmeric, ginger and apple cider vinegar — is almost mandatory. A handsome wine list, draft beer and innovative cocktails should ensure every diner a quality libation.

Petite 4 is a restaurant with real personality. It echoes Boise’s offer to the outside world: big-city quality alongside small-town comfort. If our burgeoning city, and Petite 4’s crowded tables, are any indication, that is a most enticing combination.

State & Lemp underwent changes, but inventive tasting menu is alive and well

State & Lemp has entertained Boise for the past five years, captivating diners with its innovative menus and intimate, high-end atmosphere.

It changed ownership, and executive chefs, over the summer, but the menu still has a similar feel under Christian Phernetton, who quickly made a name for himself in Boise as the chef creating tasting meals at Camel’s Crossing in Hyde Park. Diners at S&L can choose between three eating experiences: “Hunt” offers a meaty five courses for $70 per person; “gather” is a vegetarian alternative at the same price; and the 10-course, $135 “Chef’s Menu” is updated daily.

State & Lemp is a restaurant that will make you feel cared for. The service is attentive and kind, even if it lacks the swaggering efficiency of the previous regime. Under the previous owners, the whole restaurant would be seated at the same time at one long table. Now the dining area has been broken up into smaller tables, seated at different times. Some people will enjoy the increased privacy, no doubt, but the sense of community State & Lemp used to create – the feeling that you had just stumbled into an epic dinner party – has been lost.

Food began to arrive at my table minutes after I settled into my chair. First a pickled onion ring, then bread and a smear of smoked butter. It was an early reminder that this is a meal built upon unconventional twists – even onion rings and butter receive bold modifications.

Then the real courses started to appear.

The citrus, thoughtfully displayed with fennel and endive, was surprisingly improved by bits of anchovy.

The polenta was fried into silky cubes and nestled in a wonderfully offbeat squash bolognese. It is made from a local variety of corn that was recently saved from extinction; thank goodness for that, because it was the best part of the meal.

The beef, rubbed with big flakes of finishing salt, was downright scrumptious, but the supporting cast – leeks and an unimpressive potato – was fairly conventional. There was an artful splash of bordelaise on the plate, but it did not make me feel better about having only seven bites of beef.

The octopus, served with chorizo, a gentle basil sauce and radicchio, was both fun to eat and a tad underseasoned.

Presentation is a priority here, and some courses creep toward abstract art. The beetroot with broccolini, “beet blood” and cashew was equal parts entree and homage to Wassily Kandinsky.

At times, it felt like the concepts were outpacing the food. I happily ate everything that was set in front of me, but I wouldn’t say I encountered a game-changing flavor combination.

It might be unfair to expect a restaurant to elevate its food from really good to outstanding, but isn’t that the whole premise of State & Lemp? We visit it because we want to experience excellence, and when each course is just a few bites and dinner for two can easily eclipse $200, the margin for error is thin. Every morsel must deliver at the highest level.

Of course, the beauty of a tasting menu is that it will constantly change and improve. The best entree you’ve ever had might appear on the menu next week, and tweaks are being made frequently by Phernetton.

State & Lemp is, and has always been, an audacious venture. It has successfully wedged a fine-dining establishment between a Pizza Hut and a car wash in a city that’s often reluctant to remove its baseball cap. It’s a valuable institution that pushes the culinary landscape forward, reminding Boise eaters that inventive food, passionately made, can be worth the investment.

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