After it pushed back its original opening scheduled for late (very) summer, the hotel hosted media and influencers at its rooftop bar and restaurant, Stellar Jay, on October 15. Your social media feed is probably already flooded with videos of the views from the open-air deck, which are impressive, but the food...not so much. At least not yet.
Granted, it's tough to really judge a place on night one. There are still a lot of kinks to work out, so any criticism should be taken with a grain of salt — which the kitchen might be low on?
Under-seasoned dishes were a theme throughout the meal — a surprise, considering the caliber of names behind this project. Executive chef Ian Wortham and director of food and beverage Curtis Landrum formerly worked together at the Frasca Hospitality Group's Tavernetta, one of the best Italian restaurants in the area.
The Populus is home to two restaurants, plus a Little Owl coffee counter in the lobby. Pasque is located on the first floor and serves "seasonally driven, nature-based cuisine," according to a press release. Located on the thirteenth floor, Stellar Jay's fare is centered on live-fire cooking; guests see the flames burning in the open kitchen and smell the campfire-like aroma while dining.
The space includes a fairly large indoor area and a smaller outdoor patio outfitted with furniture that gives the place a decorated-by-Ikea vibe that doesn't seem to match the upscale atmosphere the hotel is going for.
What's on the menu
The meal started well enough. The cocktails — and the sole spirit-free mocktail on the menu, an Early Grey spritz ($12) — are well-balanced with some fun flavor notes. Highlights include the bright-green melon margarita ($18) and my favorite of the night, the Jaybird Negroni ($21), made with the classic components of the drink (gin, Campari and sweet vermouth) plus pineapple rum.The first dish from the small-plates section, fall squash katsu ($13) was a winner, too. Slices of delicata squash are coated in panko breadcrumbs and served with a thick smoked-apple mustard for dipping. Like a more vegetal take on onion rings, it's not a particularly interesting dish, but it was a crowd-pleaser at my table.
Things quickly took a turn, though, when the medai (Pacific barrelfish) crudo ($23) arrived. Most upscale restaurants seem to have a take on crudo these days, and it's usually a bright and satisfying bite. But at Stellar Jay, the fish and the charred cucumber vinaigrette in which it was swimming were oddly flavorless...except for the bitter leek ash that overwhelmed the dish. It was so off-putting that one of my tablemates gave the staff a heads-up, and we were told that there was indeed too much ash used. But toning that down wouldn't amp up the flavors of the other bland elements.
Next was the beef tartare ($26), one of the more attractive dishes, with delicate toasted flour crackers poking out from the pile of grass-fed beef. The fire element on this was smoked egg yolk in the creamy sauce underneath, though that was nearly impossible to taste thanks to the shower of minced black olives that overwhelmed everything else.
The spelt rasciatelli ($31), a cavatelli-like pasta shape, arrived in an awkward pile on half a plate with bits of what was supposed to be charred broccoli, though ours had mostly still-firm pieces of broccoli stems that showed no signs of having seen flames. If you're wondering why pretty plain pasta with broccoli came with a $31 price tag, it's because there were also shelled mussels hiding in that pile, though only a few.
By the time large plates and sides arrived, my expectations had sunk back to ground level — and there they stayed. The thin filet of ruby trout with spruce gremolata ($29) was cooked well, but the shingles of thin-sliced pickled fingerling potatoes underneath made for a strange pairing. The Berkshire pork collar ($42), which was dry and under-seasoned (no surprise there), was also peculiarly paired with one chunk of red cabbage and two large chunks of peeled and roasted apples that everyone thought were potatoes until taking a bite. "It tastes like a candle," one person remarked.
The big moment came when the server brought the priciest item on the menu, a bison shank with a massive bone sticking out of it ($169). The meat was topped with pickled scapes; bits of (more) broccoli studded the juices below. It certainly looked impressive, but after a first bite, a diner on the other side of the table quickly pronounced: "It's under-seasoned."
And I agreed — even after swiping a big bite of fork-tender bison through the flavorful-looking jus. "It tastes like pot roast that you make in a crock pot," another diner remarked, which is not really the flavor profile you expect from a high-end meal with a high-end price tag.
The idea of a zero-waste rooftop haven fueled by live fire looks pretty great on paper, but based on this experience, Stellar Jay needs more time to settle in and make some adjustments if it's going to compete with the many exceptional fine-dining options the city has these days.
