Denver: Let's talk Beatrice & Woodsley

[Megiac]

I know some of you have been because I first read about it in the small plates post. For those that have made it, what are your initial thoughts?

We made our first trip on Friday, and were impressed. There were some misfires, but overall the place has a ton of potential. And what a stunning space! I'm one of those people that keeps a mental Rolodex of places to take our visiting East Coast friends who think Denver is a culinary backwater. B&W will definitely be on that list.

The food was generally good, with a few amazing dishes and one complete misfire. The highlight of the meal was the sweetbreads. They were on a small piece of cake soaked in honey. It was absolutely decadent, but also didn't have that heaviness that sweetbreads can sometimes get. Our second favorite dish was the herb raviolis. The pasta was perfect and it had a nice, delicate flavor and texture. This was a fallback order when we were still full after our initial order of 5 dishes (the waiter told us to order 2 per person--don't listen to them! We ate 7 between the two of us) and we were so glad we had extra room for this one. Other dishes were good to very good (lamb, duck--I took the husband's word for this one; try as I might, I just don't like duck, cauliflower au gratin, cheese plate). The only dish that was a problem were the sweet pea cakes. It is a sweet pea blini with mushrooms, "yogurt cheese," and pea shoots. The yogurt cheese was the problem. I like salty food, but the salt flavor was overwhelming--like a mouthful of Morton's. It unfortunately completely buried the rest of the flavors. I am assuming that it was just this batch of cheese because I cannot imagine intentionally doing that to a dish. I'm willing to try the cakes again because I like the idea of them.

Three quibbles I am willing to overlook now since it's a new restaurant, but that they should address:

1. Start carrying sparkling water
2. The plates need to be bigger. I understand that it is a small plates concept, but they give you glorified bread plates to eat off of. If you are served more than one dish at once, this just isn't practical. And if something is saucy like the cauliflower au gratin, you have no clear spot on the plate for the next dish. I understand that a full dinner sized plate is too large, but they need something bigger. Salad plate sized would be perfect.
3. The bathroom sinks are cool and all (although they must waste a ton of water since half the people cannot figure out how to turn them off), but if they are going to put white tile on the floor and wall in the bathrooms, they need to do a MUCH better job of cleaning them. At 9 pm on Friday, the women's room was college bar bathroom levels of dirty. It was affirmatively gross, and if I had seen the manager on my way out, I would have said something.

[ovelhinha]

beatrice and woodsely is breathtaking.
the common table (where i sat with my companion) is a brilliant idea, the gentlemen that we sat with were lovely. conversation flowed well with all of us. i am in the service industry, my companion a teacher, the gentlemen whom we sat with: a government official and a food related business owner - a variety of incomes and social status. we all agreed that the one problem was the portion size vs. price. i do understand that this is a small plate service but to me it felt like nyc pricing in dtown.

i also have had my ear to the ground about this restaurant (which i describe as a cocktail bar with pricey hor'dourves) and the reaction that i have not read but heard is this:
• beautiful place
• servers a charming
• food delicious
• left hungry
• left poor
• desire's to try out the brunch but fears of small plate brunch
• not going to return

hopefully this experimental restaurant brought by the two fisted/ double daughter will get past it's growing pains and be a mainstay of denver.

[rlm]

Yes, the interior is captivating (as if the publishers of Dwell had an orgy involving John Fielder photos to come up with the concept), but shouldn’t the food and service be just as memorable? My overall opinion does suffer from the fact that we popped in after visiting Delite’s happy hour next door and paid more money for two small plates and drinks at B&W than we did at Delite for eight flavor-packed apps and drinks.

When we first arrived at B&W, there were no seats (except for a few empty ones together at the bar that we were told were reserved). I asked the hostess if we could order a drink from the bar while we waited for a slot and she indicated we would need to be seated first. So we left momentarily, but decided to go back and wait along one of the wooden benches in the entryway. Another host was busy helping a new arrival with the wine list when we strolled back in and gave our name to the hostess. This surprised me since my query about ordering a drink had been shot down, although perhaps the hostess assumed my question meant I wanted to stand behind one of the occupied chairs at the bar and breathe down another patron’s neck while slurping a G&T rather than waiting in the entryway like a civilized imbiber.

At any rate, even after our second entrance, we were not offered a wine/drink list while waiting, so I requested one from the host. I initially ordered a red from Alto-Adige from him, which another gent in a suit (Sommelier? Manager? Undertaker?) later informed me they were out of. I was offered a Super Tuscan as a replacement, which sounded perfect given the nippy weather. In these situations, normally you are offered a comparable wine for the same price of the wine you ordered (and have been waiting on) that they are actually out of, even if it normally is a buck or two more. That would be excellent service—the kind which makes you a regular and causes you to shout the name of the restaurant from a mountaintop and bring them way more money than they lost by giving you a tiny discount for a tiny inconvenience. Alternatively, they could have handed me the list of wines by the glass and indicated up front which ones were not available--something that could be covered in the pre-service meeting with staff. This way, I could have that information and all of the other prices at my disposal when making a decision. I’m not one to quibble over a couple of bucks, but the truly customer-savvy places won’t either in the interests of developing recurring revenue that includes a solid base of profitable wine sluts like yours truly.

However, even this wasn’t as annoying as the cold glass the Super Tuscan arrived in. Not a merely cool glass, mind you, but one which felt like it had been in a cooler recently and was awaiting a nice sangria. We were seated at the bar shortly after my wine arrived, and I cupped my hands around the bowl to raise the temperature until I could get a staffer’s attention. The friendly bartender did pour my wine into an alternative vessel, thankfully, so I could properly enjoy it with the bites of forbidden “rabbit back in the saddle” and foie gras that I split with Mr. rlm. The food was solid, although I have to say it couldn’t hold a candle to the masa oyster shooters and tuna tartare next door at Delite.

Anyone have deets on B&W’s brunch?

[ClaireWalter]

B&W has been praised to the skies (by our own Tatamagouche and others), and your experience there echoes mine/ours at Osteria Marco, the topic of another thread. When expectations are high, then dashed, the disappointment is magnified. Yet another thread (Frasca Hype) addressed whether Frasca is worth the $$$s and/or lives up to its reputation. IM(veyr)HO, it does, with reliably impeccable food and service. Ditto Boulder's lofty Flagstaff House, which has doing things so very right for so very many years that it deserves a special spot in the Colorado foodie pantheon.

[rlm]

I actually couldn't remember anything about B&W going in other than the fact that everyone has been going ga-ga over the decor, so I can't say I had sky-high expectations that were "dashed" regarding the food and service...Only that the food didn't stand up to the bold flavors we had just experienced at Delite (so it suffered by comparison) and the wine service left much to be desired (but that's true of many places in the metro area). My point is that what sticks in your mind from the reviews are all the descriptions of the decor (not the food and service), so I'm not sure I had any expectations at all other than I'd get to see some bitchin' aspens in the dining room.

I am not sure how my saying the food is "solid" means that my expectations were dashed or that it can be compared to your experience at Osteria Marco. I like most of the places my bud tatamagouche likes, but even she has written in another venue that she's wondering if B&W may have "jumped the shark." I would definitely go back, which is why I asked about their brunch.

I am known to give places more tries due to The Kitchen Corollary (as in the Boulder restaurant), which states that even if your first two trips are uneven, sometimes you just have to wait 'til a place finds its groove and learn what they do the best.

Have you been to Beatrice and Woodsley yet, Claire?

[ClaireWalter]

Re "I am not sure how my saying the food is "solid" means that my expectations were dashed." I guess I inferred that your expectations were higher than they were. I haven't been there yet, and certainly, my expectations BTW, are lofty, based on all the praise heaped up the place. I suppose I just imposed what I think mine would be to what yors were. Sorry.

Tucker Shaw reviwed B&W in today's Denver Post . See http://www.denverpost.com/food/ci_112...

[tatamagouche]

I wrote about it on CH a day or two after it opened, and did a long post about it on my blog. Those sweetbreads are terrific. Too bad about the pea cakes, which I haven't tried yet. I didn't have a problem with plate sizes.

My main concern is that the place has gotten so much buzz so quickly that it's already awful. What was the crowd like? Was it already as yuppified as I fear?

[Megiac]

We went at 8:30 and got a seat right away. It was at the communal table, but we had it to ourselves for the night. Because of the way you are screened off, I didn't notice the crowd being obnoxious. We've also finally stopped denying that we are about as yuppified as they come (seriously, most of the entries on stuffwhitepeoplelike.com are like an embarassing mirror into my soul), so maybe I'm immune to noticing it. But I do get easily annoyed by the crowds at different restaurants, and the crowd didn't bother me at all.

[ColoradoFun]

No offense but if you fear young urban professionals probably a place called "Beatrice and Woodsley" in a fairly trendy part of an uran area is not for you. To avoid this fear of yuppification I suggest you try establishments that are not in an urban area and are geared towards older non-professionals. Alas, that is not Central Denver.

I look foward to trying B&W. I am also curious about Delite the new place from Deluxe.

[tatamagouche]

None taken. A couple of the posts that Megiac and I traded that qualified/explained my statement were removed by the mods. Megiac and I agreed we're just not down with capital S Scenes. I'll brave them sometimes when the food's good, though, and I thought B&W was pretty darn impressive.

I went to delite the same night I went to B&W, and posted about it...my feeling was I'd just as soon go to Deluxe. delite is indeed the lite version of Deluxe. It's good, but it's not special the way the restaurant is.

But again, I went there the same night I happened into B&W just after it opened, knowing nothing about it, so it paled by somewhat unfair comparison. I'll give it another chance at some point.

[Megiac]

I should also add that Delite is getting much more in the way of crowds right now. B&W doesn't take reservations for groups smaller than 4 and as we were walking up there was a crowd of people on the sidewalk. Luckily, they were waiting for Delite (or else it was just the smoking crowd--I need to get used to that now that it's warmer), not B&W.

[tatamagouche]

Happy to say that I returned last night and Megiac is absolutely right...I have a feeling that, for all its jaw-dropping beauty, the place may be just a bit too challenging / pricey for its dive-bar surroundings (much of which I'm a huge fan of, to be sure).

We were there early, by 6, but I expected more than only a few tables to be occupied—and those almost entirely by people in their 50s and 60s! That surprised me a bit given the edginess of the decor, but also made me happy. (I'm in my 30s but tend to feel old before my time.)

Better yet, the food was every bit as good as the first time...not flawless, but very, very promising with respect to the level of ambition versus its execution.

And there's a bartender named, of all things, Amy Fisher who's a real charmer.