Now if they could just create a kitchen staff.
Finding cooks who are as passionate about food as they are, who are as committed to their vision of quality, affordable dishes (and can execute those dishes) has been a nightmare, Vanessa says. This is the age-old dilemma of restaurant ownership: No one is ever as serious about the business as the people whose shirts can be lost on it. And with the over-abundance of restaurants and under-abundance of good chefs in Denver right now, the problem is growing.
Which isn't helping the Helfriches at all. They're both former restaurant managers--he at Old Chicago, she at Washington Park Grille--but they're not chefs, and they've seen a steady stream of cooks come and go from The Cork's kitchen since they opened the place in November. Six people have either been fired or quit, and one cook even walked out during my first visit to the restaurant.
That night, the rest of the kitchen staff had to scramble to get the job done. We knew this because both the waitress and the manager, who we guessed was Jason Helfrich, told us what had happened, then apologized about eighty times to us and the other tables. Although the only major snag we suffered was that it took three hours to eat, there were several minor flaws that clearly derived from kitchen errors and production snafus.
Still, some of the food came out downright delicious. The appetizer artichoke dip ($6.95) was a fine version of a common starter, a chunky concoction that relied on artichokes, not cheese, to provide the flavor. And it's hard to ruin baked brie ($6.95), which had been wrapped in pastry, heated until golden on the outside and a melty mess inside, and served with water crackers and what the menu called "table grapes," which consisted of exactly six red grapes. The smoked salmon quesadilla ($7.95) was as wonderful as the waitress had promised: fresh tortillas folded over hot-smoked salmon enhanced with red onion and sour cream.
The soup-and-salad course also excelled, starting with the creamy potato soup ($2.50 a cup). This was no vishee-swahz; it was more country-style, lightly touched by leeks, with pieces of potato skin and a thick, hefty texture. The soup du jour ($2.50 a cup) was even more impressive, a not-too-thick clam chowder sparked by the tiniest bit of chile heat and studded with large, soft clam chunks. The Caesar ($2.50 for a half) was also solid, with fresh romaine, lots of freshly grated parmesan and a garlic-heavy dressing that could have used more anchovy.
The herb-crusted rainbow trout ($14.95) definitely needed more herbs before it could qualify for "herb-crusted" status. Menu description be damned, though, this really was a nice, well-seared fish sprinkled with herbs and accompanied by a good citrus butter sauce. The menu also erred in listing "grilled asparagus" as a major part of the dish, since our trout was draped with just three pathetic, limp asparagus tips the width of twine. And for some unknown reason, the sweet-potato gratin--which had rated another rave from our waitress--contained jalapenos, which seemed incongruous with the gratin's sweet creaminess. When we pointed out the odd pairing, our waitress said the gratin she'd tried was pepper-free.
The same can't be said for the Southwest tequila pasta ($10.95), which tasted as though a bucket of habaneros had been dumped into an alleged cream sauce filled with pieces of tender chicken (but who could taste them?). The friend who ordered it started out by saying, "Wow, this is hot but good"; fifteen minutes later, sweat and tears were still pouring down his face. Someone in the kitchen must have goofed; only the most ardent masochist would purposely make a dish that hot.
It's hard to complain too much about free desserts, which were offered as an apology for the blunders and the long wait. (Even so, I have to point out that it shouldn't be called raspberry cheesecake when the only fruity part is the same pool of raspberry coulis that comes with just about every dessert in town.) The Cork also comped our espressos and one of the appetizers, going above and beyond what was required, I'd say. But the restaurant went even further to accommodate a few other tables. One got a bottle of wine, and the manager picked up the entire meal at another.
Remembering that long wait, when I returned for lunch I told the waiter that we'd like to be out by 1:30 p.m.--about an hour after we were seated. He quickly brought the bread--heavenly wheat rolls and spongy-centered hard rolls, with honey butter--and our appetizer of calamari ($6.95). The squid was excellent: breadcrumb-coated and deep-fried to a perfectly chewy-tender. But the dipping salsa that came with it, which was supposed to be a mixture of smoked tomatoes and chipotles, smacked of too much liquid smoke.
The salad arrived just as we were munching the last of the calamari. But this Caesar featured brown-edged romaine, and the dressing tasted old. We pushed the salad aside about 1:10 p.m., then sat there for 25 minutes. I kept trying to find our waiter--irritating the large-haired ladies lunching next to us by calling out "Yoo-hoo"--but he didn't appear again until he brought the entrees. We told him we'd have to take them to go, a request with which he cheerfully complied, telling us he would have moved things along if he'd known we were in a hurry. It could have been miscommunication, but I suspect he was covering for a problem in the kitchen.
Back at the office, I dug into the grilled-shrimp salad ($8.50). The shrimp had a rubbery chewiness that came from being cooked earlier and reheated, not from the lag time between restaurant and fork. But the dressing, a lemon-and-black-pepper vinaigrette, was lively, and the mixed greens, tomatoes and cucumbers were fresh. The best part of the dish, however, was the big mound of chilled couscous that had soaked up the vinaigrette.
More liquid smoke marred the smoked fish cake sandwich ($7.95), two dusky-tasting patties encased in tortillas and drizzled with lime-cilantro mayonnaise. The black-bean relish on the side was top-notch, though, sporting well-cooked beans flecked with green, yellow and red pepper bits, red onion and lots of cilantro. And while the steak on the so-called tender steak sandwich ($8.95) had been cooked to our specification of medium-rare, the steak was far from tender; it was, in fact, fatty and chewy. But the sauteed mushrooms added a good flavor, as did the "caramelized" onions, which were actually sauteed.
The Cork gets most of its desserts from Bluepoint, and the carrot cake ($3.50) was as superb as most of the desserts from that bakery. But the careless kitchen struck again with the berry Napoleon ($4.50). The kiwi hadn't been peeled--extra fiber, perhaps?--and the thin slices of unripe cantaloupe added a jarring crunch between the two fruit mousses and a thin layer of pastry.
When I returned to The Cork a third time, everything from the stingy portion of the otherwise excellent beef carpaccio ($6.95) to the watery shallot cream sauce in the shrimp fettuccine ($11.95) to the prosciutto missing in action from the fettuccine Alfredo ($9.95) made it painfully obvious that the kitchen was still in chaos. We got another round of free desserts--carrot cake and cheesecake again--as an apology for the meal.
"We know we're having a problem with consistency," Vanessa says. "We're having a meeting this week to talk with everyone about it, and we plan to make up all the dishes and go over the recipes, and we're going to take pictures of everything so they'll know what it's supposed to look like. All we can ask is that people hang in there with us, and we'll keep working at it until we get it right. And when we don't get it right, we'll make up for it."
And that's really all anybody can ask.
But in the meantime, you might want to stick to appetizers at The Cork--and feast your eyes on the atmosphere instead.
JV's The Cork, 410 East Seventh Avenue, 861-7088. Hours: 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Monday-Saturday; 10 a.m.-11 p.m. Sunday.
