Quarter Kitchen

Review

location > 600 F Street, downtown
phone > 619-814-2000
chef > Damon Gordon

AT SOME POINT between the caviar tacos and the “coffee and cigarettes” dessert served at Quarter Kitchen, the thought arises that investment banker Michael Kelly consulted Samuel Taylor Coleridge when planning his $90 million Ivy Hotel. After all, in the “vision in a dream” titled “Kubla Khan,” Coleridge informs us:

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

Sixth and Seventh Avenues bound the Ivy, and would run to sunny San Diego Bay if the convention center weren’t in the way. Whether “stately” aptly describes a pleasure dome devoted to free-spending youth may be quite the question, but Ivy Hotel certainly promotes pleasure, and is an astonishing place unique among local luxury hotels. Behind the façade of the 1914-vintage Maryland Hotel, whose innards were emptied to the brick walls, Kelly decreed the creation of an urban playground with a stated policy of “indulgence served graciously.” And the $90 million investment shows. Between them, the four-story Envy nightclub and rooftop-spanning Eden bar accommodate 1,000 or more, but even so, lines stretch down the sidewalks on weekends. For the moment, this F Street Xanadu is San Diego’s unchallenged party central.

You can eat there, too, in a luxurious restaurant in which the party vibe starts percolating the moment the morning cooks put on the coffee. The curious name Quarter Kitchen coyly implies a location in the Gaslamp Quarter, which in fact is across Sixth Avenue. (A map on a hotel brochure naughtily expands Gaslamp boundaries to Seventh Avenue, placing Ivy inside what it calls “San Diego’s emerging epicenter.” No wonder the nightclub is named Envy!)

Like every space at Ivy Hotel, Quarter Kitchen reflects Michael Kelly’s spare-no-expenses approach: custom-designed, hip, black uniforms on the army of young staffers, exquisite stemware, woven-glass sculptures by Polish artist Anna Skibska that drop from the far-off ceiling like golden shooting stars. Thick veneers of costly zebrawood wrap many surfaces, including the stacks of different-size rectangles that cleverly hide massive support pillars. A few comfortable banquettes offer privacy to guests who dislike the limelight, but most tables are out in the spotlight so diners can headline a nonstop show. Fine woven mats and napkins are the rule even at the dining counter alongside the open kitchen, where executive chef Damon Gordon directs his 11 cooks (not so many as to spoil the broth) under an immense oval hood of polished steel.

QUARTER KITCHEN is not for the faint-of-wallet, and the prices allow Gordon to build breakfast, lunch and dinner menus on the choicest ingredients possible. Dramatic presentations provide the flourishes that in other days would have been provided by tricky soufflés and astounding sauces. Some food is frankly flashy, like the caviar tacos that Gordon says are the best-selling appetizer (these cost $26 with good-quality American paddlefish roe, $99 when rockstar wanna-bes order the Iranian osetra version). Arranged on a black iron stand, the “tacos” of crisp, folded potato chips stuffed with crème fraîche, chopped red onion and parsley resemble exotic fruit on a tree. The caviar pearls tend to slip off when a taco is plucked from the stand, and given an overabundance of cream, this dish was the sole disappointment encountered in four meals.

Some presentations make diners work, like the Kitchen Sink salad ($16), a jumble of choice ingredients (lettuce hearts, marinated shrimp, crisp pancetta and Brie) served in a bowl so deep it requires digging to snare prizes like baby striped beets and plush artichoke hearts. The Caesar and Caprese salads ($13 and $14) are the sort of familiar offerings contemporary menus exclude at peril, but there also is The Raw and the Cooked ($12), an engaging pairing of raw and gently cooked vegetables with assorted greens.

Gordon dishes soups in deep, domed bowls that retain heat perfectly, and adds tasty garnishes on the side, like pencil-thin crab spring rolls alongside a foamy, intense crab soup exquisitely heated with chile oil ($16). The roasted tomato soup ($10) suggests Mom’s kitchen more than Quarter Kitchen, since the tart, lightly creamy soup pairs off with toasty, open-faced, irresistible mini-sandwiches of bacon and Gruyère.

THE ENTRÉE LIST STARTS extravagantly with sliced Kobe sirloin, cooked on a hot stone and priced at $18 an ounce (4 ounces minimum). The Kobe tataki is virtually raw, barely cooked at the edges and served with ginger-bud ponzu sauce and Japanese mountain plums ($26). Baked in a deep iron cocotte under a covering of pastry, the savory lobster pie ($36) is notable for its escort of perfect baby vegetables and tarragon-perfumed sauce. Lovely vegetables also lurk, along with somewhat crunchy rice, in the creamy, teasingly curried sauce beneath four ultra-tender, seared Pacific shrimp ($30). The blackened hamachi with wok-fried vegetables and spicy miso sauce ($32) is no surprise on this menu, unlike the “chicken and chocolate,” a traditional chicken mole garnished with Gordon’s very own squash cream ($28). Meat choices continue with honeyglazed duck ($30), spiced braised lamb shank ($29) and luxurious steaks and chops.

Even at 9 a.m., the music sometimes pulses with an international disco beat, but it’s a good time to enjoy just-baked breakfast pastries or vanilla-scented French toast stuffed with cream cheese and walnuts and served with an apple compote, spiced-apple syrup and crystallized ginger ($16——and might it cure hangovers?). Eggs Benedict ($17) are the gold standard of fancy breakfast lists, and the fact that every component (sizzling fried potato cubes, perfectly poached eggs with runny yolks, a pretty asparagus garnish) is cooked at the last moment impresses. However, the eggs were stinted on hollandaise, the fattening sauce that makes the dish such a forbidden pleasure.

At lunch, try the market-price pasta of the day (recently, handmade orecchiete with sorrel, pancetta and Dungeness crab) or the triple-decker lobster club ($17). Stuffed with nothing but the finest, such as lobster claws, buttery crescents of avocado, fat slices of heirloom tomatoes dripping with juice and lots of crisp, smoky bacon, it’s a sizable pleasure.

Quarter Kitchen serves breakfast and dinner daily, lunch Monday through Saturday and Sunday brunch at 600 F Street; call 814-2000.

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