Audio By Carbonatix
The new kid on the block is a blockbuster.
The people who brought us Mizuna are far from newbies, however. Owners Frank Bonanno and Doug Fleischmann have been around the Denver dining block a few times, usually in conjunction with restaurants owned by Mel and Janie Master, such as Mel’s Bar and Grill and the now-defunct Starfish. The gifted Bonanno, who also cooked at Bruno’s Italian Bistro, was part of the cooking team headed by chef Tyler Wiard that helped raise Mel’s menu to its current lofty status; Fleischmann has always been such a convivial, proficient front-of-the-house guy that eateries across town have tried to lure him away. But Fleischmann’s true calling clearly was to serve as the maître d’ extraordinaire of his own place, and Bonanno was never really free to wow diners with his passion for over-the-top ingredient combinations and rich, sensual flavors until he ran his own kitchen.
Together the duo took over the space previously occupied by the dear, departed Aubergine Cafe, and after just three months, Mizuna feels like it’s always been part of the scene. Bonanno and Fleischmann mellowed Aubergine’s color scheme a bit, so the small, intimate dining room now has a classy, buttery glow to it, more Napa chic than Provençal auberge. The low lights and a more spacious table setup allow the place to hum without buzzing. And if there’s a more efficient, skilled, knowledgeable and charming set of servers working a room in this town — Aubergine’s entire staff stayed on when Mizuna moved in — I have yet to find them. And what food they serve!
The restaurant’s name refers to a Japanese green, a jagged-edged leaf with a delicate mustard taste. It’s an appropriate image for Mizuna, since Bonanno’s menu is about the international made domestic, the exotic brought to its knees — at comfort level. The food comes on white plates and in white bowls — all the better to see you, smell you and eat you, my dear — and is presented with just enough visual artistry to dazzle without seeming excessively fussed over. As he did at Mel’s, this cream-loving, sweet-toothed, butter-obsessed chef loves to show off the abundance of richness in his ingredients arsenal, and if the first dish you try at Mizuna doesn’t blow you away with its luxurious magnificence, don’t worry — the next one will.
The menu is short but right on target in terms of diversity and universal appeal; the owners promise to change the roster every month or so, with some items, such as the sumptuous “liver & onions” repeating because of its overwhelming popularity. When Bonanno was at Mel’s, his foie gras was my all-time favorite, and my loyalties transferred easily to Mizuna’s version. This guy knows what to do with duck liver: sear it until caramelized on the paper-thin edges, leaving the center pinkish and melt-in-your-mouth velvety. A faintly tangy balsamic reduction — sweetened, thickened — was the ideal enhancement, and Bonanno’s addition of a spring onion tart was nothing short of inspired. The flaky, sugary pastry, slightly smaller in circumference than a compact disc, came filled with caramelized onions so young and fresh they tasted wild. Each bite was sigh-inducing.
In fact, there was a lot of sighing going on during our meals at Mizuna, and not just at our table. The red-curry bisque was swoon-inducing, a creamy concoction with a shellfish-stock base, enough curry to keep the tongue awake even in the face of so much palate-soothing smoothness, and the added inducements of succulent lobster, perfectly ripe diced avocado and sprigs of fresh mint. The crème-fraîche-filled mashed potatoes — now why didn’t I think of that? — elicited another moan the second I tasted the faint tanginess imparted by the matured cream. The spuds were sitting beneath an impeccably grilled filet of Sterling salmon. Although some purists decry the increasing use of aquaculture, Sterling salmon, a product of Stolt Sea Farm (which also produced the first domestic sturgeon caviar), has the advantage of being consistently oily, rich in flavor, deep-orange in color, firm-fleshed and silk-textured; the treatment it received at Mizuna only served to boost those qualities. And the accompanying lemon beurre fondue, really Bonanno’s excuse to use more butter than should be allowed on one plate, was so rich and creamy, with just a light touch of lemon, that I wanted to ask for a bowl full of the stuff. Ditto for the oyster mushroom béchamel that came layered with deep-red, sugary-sweet tomatoes and basil-flecked lasagna noodles. The oyster mushroom, noted for its full-bodied, faintly peppery taste, has a tendency to mellow and deepen in earthiness when it’s cooked, and here it did just that in a classic French white sauce. The sauce was so textbook smooth, I thought for a moment that Escoffier had come back from the dead.
The fact that I’d already consumed so much sweet, rich food didn’t deter me from dessert. Bonanno, a Culinary Institute of Arts graduate, has done a fair share of pastry-chefing throughout his career, and he lavishes Mizuna’s finales with the same enthusiasm for in-your-face flavors that the other courses receive. And so the chocolate mousse starts with El Rey milk chocolate, arguably one of the finest chocolates available, made from Venezuelan cacao beans (also arguably the best in the world) with a high percentage of cacao butter (41 percent), about the same amount of sugar, and just enough milk (19 percent) to give the chocolate that creamy quality. Bonanno turned the chocolate into a soft mousse with such a tempting texture that we wanted to run it over our tongues again and again. The other dessert offered that night was less serious and far more unusual: griddle cakes, made from carrots and golden raisins, topped with rum ice cream and thickly drizzled with Vermont maple syrup. Heavy, very heavy. But seriously delicious.
It’s rare that I so look forward to a second visit to a restaurant, but I was nearly beside myself wanting to get at Mizuna’s menu again. This time we grazed through the first-course offerings, an ideal way to sample as much of Bonanno’s mastery as possible. A bowl of vichyssoise (it’s pronounced vishy-swahz, not vishy-swah) was liquid velvet, a flawless balance of Yukon gold potatoes and Vidalia onions, with enough cream to make the concoction white and rich and a delectable little blob of chive mousse to keep it lively. The hearts-of-romaine salad, ostensibly a Caesar, featured ice-cold center leaves thinly coated with a dressing made from roasted (read: mellowed) garlic, thin tiles of grana cheese and silvery slips of white anchovy.
A shellfish sampler brought one adorable little crabcake, almost all crab and jazzed up with a tart homemade ketchup; a super-soft green mussel sitting in a chile-fired, chunky tomato sauce; and a beautifully seared scallop in a truffle-blackened vinaigrette. An order of phyllo-wrapped asparagus brought two bundles containing white and green variations of the vegetable, cooked until just soft but definitively so, with slivers of Parma prosciutto providing salt and a sauce gribiche, a classic French mayonnaise made from hard-boiled egg yolks rather than raw, responsible for the pleasantly spongy texture. The best of the appetizers, however, had to be the macaroni & cheese, elbow pasta cooked al dente and then tossed in a beurre-blanc-based, mascarpone-enriched sauce, augmented with whole lobster-claw meat that alternately soaked up the sauce and imparted its own sweetness to the dish. Heart, don’t fail me now.
Especially since there were still more desserts to try. We were bowled over by the ice cream made from brown sugar and cream cheese that came atop a toothsome rhubarb-and-strawberry crisp. And then there was a lemon-scented pound cake — perhaps more flavored than scented — that had been saturated with a white-chocolate sauce and topped by a sweet-tart sun-dried-cherry compote. Alongside, I sipped from a cup of cappuccino made from the esteemed local Luna beans and boasting a perfect crest of foamy milk, and contemplated how two people could get things so right so fast.
The new kid has already grown into one of Denver’s best restaurants.
