Wright's Tavern is Clayton's neighborhood upscale seafood and steakhouse: a small dining room, an…read moreintimate bar, good luck trying to get a reservation before 10pm. For those of us who eat at 5 and are in bed by 8, that's a non-starter. So for a birthday dinner we did the thing you're not supposed to do, showed up on a whim at 5 p.m. on a Thursday with no reservation, fully prepared to be turned away. All four bar seats were open. We took two. Sometimes the shot goes in. The room is modern chic with an old-school soul, green-and-white striped plates, the footprint is small, the kitchen is open, and the staff are polished and professional without being stiff.
Jose, the bartender, has been behind that bar for most of the time the restaurant's been open, and he was the best kind of host, warm, unhurried, and honest. Yes, walk-ins are possible. No, don't count on it; some nights there's a line out the door of people hoping to squeeze in. Get there early and pray, or plan on a late supper.
The Old Fashioned was solid, served over a mound of crushed ice with a fat orange wedge, which is not how I usually take one, but it went down easy. The crab cake, though, won the night, among the best I've ever had, on par with our favorite Chicago steakhouse...Bavette's. Thick, honest pieces of crab (not filler pretending to be crab), a perfectly crisp golden crust, a scatter of chives, sitting in a buttery sauce you'll want to chase with bread. Order it. Share it only if you must, even though I'm about to tell you to share everything else.
Confession, I don't like spending money on pricey salads. Moreover, I don't like blue cheese. And yet the wedge, which they graciously split into two plates for us, turned me into a living contradiction. I'd order it with enthusiasm. Don't look for me to bring that spirit to any other restaurant, this is an exception, not a new rule for me. Crisp iceberg, blue cheese crumbles, a crunchy crumb topping, and a pool of herby vinaigrette underneath. Then there's the bacon: not bits, a full thick-cut slab draped over the top like a trophy. Bacon GOLD. It deserves its own line on the menu...Wright's Tavern, follow Bavette's lead and put the bacon on the menu, we'll all thank you for it.
Now the steak. We went with the 22 oz. New York strip, and for what you're paying at a place like this, I expected the main event to be the main event. It arrives pre-sliced, showered in chives, sitting in its own jus. Beautiful plate. The flavor was spot on, no complaints there. The problem was the cutting. I don't know whether it was the cut itself, whether it got pre-sliced with the grain instead of against it, whether it didn't rest long enough, or whether the steak knife just wasn't up to the job, but I was sawing our medium-rare steak. More pressure than I'm used to, the knife catching on the fat, and by the end I'd left a small graveyard of partial segments and rubbery fat on the plate. Maybe it was just a bad cut on a good night. It happens. But at a steakhouse, the steak is the franchise player, and the franchise player had an off game.
The side, though, quietly stole some of the steak's minutes. I'd never had dauphinoise potatoes, so I had to try them: paper-thin sliced potatoes baked au gratin until the top goes golden and the middle turns creamy. Excellent. And here's my free consulting for the kitchen: crumble some of that wedge-salad bacon over the top as bits and you've got a stellar side. You already have the bacon. Just walk it across the kitchen.
Dessert brought it back. The apple cinnamon cheesecake is really light, none of that giant, dense brick that's the calling card of many cheesecakes, topped with soft spiced apple slices and a streusel crumble, and it was excellent.
The scorecard: crab cake and cheesecake were the spotlight, the salad and the potatoes were the surprise, and the entrée was, oddly, the letdown.
If Wright's Tavern were a TV character: it's Don Draper. Stay with me. Handsome, clearly talented, a real man's man and a ladies' man, magnetic in a small dark room with a drink in hand and flawed in a few key places. Everything Don touches at the office is brilliant; it's the thing that should matter most in his life (being a father, husband, good business partner) that he can't quite get right. That was our steak.
I'm giving Wright's Tavern some grace here, because everything else was so well delivered and this little nook of a restaurant has "future regular" written all over it. I'm coming back for another steak, and I'm expecting redemption. Until then: 4.5 out of 5. The only thing keeping this from a perfect score is the one dish that's supposed to carry the team.
