I’ve been hearing good things about Reserve for awhile now. Since I love wine and keep reading about charcuterie in the foodie world, the husband and I decided to try it out for an impromptu date night.
We were seated promptly, and were handed the huge menu along with the menu of wines available by the bottle. I immediately felt way over my head. The wine list was huge. The prices seemed high, but that’s probably because I knew how much the Michigan wines cost at the store and the markup was a little hard to swallow. This is not limited to Reserve, though-all restaurants seem to charge a large markup. After skimming the wine list, we decided to first decide what we were going to eat so we at least knew if we wanted red or white. All we knew for sure is that we wouldn’t be getting the $2600 bottle.
“What do the dots on the menu mean?” asked the husband. I looked more closely and assumed that it was signifying apps, small plates, and entrees. Then at the bottom was a large list of meats and cheeses where you could pick 3 or more. I saw other tables had gorgeous looking platters, but I had absolutely no clue about what meats and cheeses went together. I really wish they had a combo of the night or something to help newbies out.
The entrees all sounded delicious, and it was fun seeing familiar farms on the menu (like Trillium Haven, where I had just picked up my CSA share!) We couldn’t make up our minds, but the table next door was eating the cheeseburgers and they looked so good that we decided to go with those.
Artisan Cheeseburger13 (limited availability) Benton’s bacon, Kobe & grassfed beef ground daily, pickled red onion, arugula, garlic mayo, choice of cheese, pork fat fries.
The bun had a bit of sweetness to it, and the bacon was ground into the beef; brilliant, as grassfed beef is usually very lean.
As a starter we ordered the
Smoked Fish Trio15 lake superior whitefish, lake michigan trout, wild alaskan salmon with kohlrabi & german butterball potato salad.
It was cold smoked, and my favorite was the whitefish. The potato salad wasn’t bad either-I liked how the potatoes were diced quite small.
We decided to get Dragon’s Milk (beer) instead of choosing a wine. It’s one of our favorites so that was a no-brainer.
It was an enjoyable evening, and I hope to learn more about charcuterie so that one day I can return and actually order intelligently from that section of the menu.
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