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PrintTake One: Black Rock Kitchen & Bar
kc kratt
You can dither about the dolmades, or wonder whether there’s just too much bread wedged onto every plate, but it’s hard not to like what the Black Rock Kitchen & Bar is trying to do. It’s loud inside, and some of its menu flourishes don’t quite pan out, but man, is this new joint a bold stroke in a neighborhood that could use some fresh color. It is, simply, hard to keep your inner gourmand partitioned from your goodwill—a pretty common Buffalo conundrum.
Black Rock is, as many media outlets have noted, up and coming, with galleries opening, neighborhood institutions renovating, and newcomers bringing some seriously boutique offerings into the area just north of Scajaquada Creek. Black Rock Kitchen is the kind of new neighbor you hope for in such a developing neighborhood. There’s off-street parking, but leased and carved out from existing nearby lots. Somebody from the restaurant is usually outside or near the door, keeping a casually watchful eye on the street nearby. And the signage and window frontage have a restored dignity without seeming like they’re trying too hard.
So let’s assume that owners Mark and Charlie Goldman (of Allen Street Hardware and the former Calumet) and their staff are planning to build out their space and find their niche, and that nothing written here about a slight overreliance on goat cheese and mushrooms is going to take wontons out of the mouths of children. Moving on.
The space inside 491 Amherst Street is warm in color and atmosphere. The bar and tables are a rich red wood, the walls purple and decorated with excellent local artwork, and on a dark night the street lights just beyond the nearly all-glass front bring in a light-orange hue that is nicely reflected by all the little copper details and rustic touches. It is, to be certain, loud in this place—loud in a way familiar to Allen Street Hardware regulars—when more than a few people have a few drinks and start talking, so save the first dates and planning dinners for Sunday through Wednesday nights.
On a first visit to Black Rock Kitchen seats for two weren’t available for about thirty minutes, so my wife and I ordered and ate at the bar. The bar is absolutely up to snuff for a place this size: five or six craft beers on tap, give or take a Guinness, a much larger selection of bottled beer, and a short wine list that seems chosen and priced to match the small-plate menu. It also looks like it could turn out a few different breeds of Manhattan. Our bartender provided the best food service I’ve ever had while seated on a stool: questions answered calmly, drinks refreshed on par with the standing crowd, and a quick wrap-up of the bill.
There are no entrees here, even if a few small plates and sandwiches offer a bit of extra heft. So you pick out two things each person can enjoy, maybe three for the extra-hungry, or you do that thing where you pretend you’re sharing everything, but you secretly pick out one item you plan to keep close. For my wife, it was the lamb and currant dolmades with dill yogurt sauce, while I went to the fried mushroom and goat cheese wontons. I thought the little grape-leaf-wrapped packages lacked real spice or sharp flavor, because all I could really taste was the slightly oily leaf, familiar from hundreds of catered events and wedding appetizer trays. My wife thought the wontons, served with a ramekin of truffle-scented mayo, were just the opposite: So forthright in their gamey fried appeal, they left nothing to the imagination.
Maybe the punchy wontons just went better with the Troegs DreamWeaver Wheat, and the dolmades mellowed out with the Wolavers Organic Oatmeal Stout. But neither of us thought the ditalini with sweet peas and prosciutto was particularly special. Its broth wasn’t too salty or thin, and the ingredients weren’t overcooked, but it was, well, ditalini. Quite a bit of bread came with it, and might have come with at least one other dish, and more had arrived before anything else: Black Rock Kitchen, like its Hardware cousin, likes to give out bread. And because the restaurant doesn’t mention the origin of all this pane, it does two things: stretches a very hungry dollar as far as it can go, which can be nice, but also leaves you wondering why they’re giving you so much food that you didn’t really order.
Case in point: On my second visit, the “toast points” that were to arrive with roasted marrow bones were actually four rounded slices of bread in training to be Texas Toast. For $12, I got more than enough marrow to spread on way too much toast. The marrow itself was smoky and meaty, but could have been warmer given that texture is so very fundamental to the enjoyment of it. That same giant-sized toast arrived with roasted baby artichokes, but just one slice of it, and the simple, direct flavor of those little gems, in their well-balanced lemon aioli, deserved a thorough mopping-up.
I’m happy to report that bread did not arrive with the savory bread pudding. When that arrived—made with goat cheese and mushrooms—I was really pleased with the results, especially as accompanied by an Ommegang Rare Vos. The pudding was excellent in its execution: just the right give to the fork, just enough penetration of the essences and oils through the chopped bread, and lots of spices to provide little side trips for your tongue.
I stopped by a third time, just to grab a sandwich for dinner. The duck inside the Duck Leg Confit BLT was all kinds of succulent, and when paired with the fairly ripe tomato wedge in the middle, it offered a really powerful one-two punch of umami. The mayonnaise, architecturally sound lettuce, and toasted white bread played their parts too, but you already know how they work together. It’s the duck, smoky bacon, and good tomato that carry the tune.
Desserts are handled in a very no-frills style, with nothing mentioned on the menu, and one or two offerings of standards each night. On the first visit, we’d both had too many carbs to consider anything sweet. The second time around, a companion and I split a lemon-frosted cupcake. It was, entirely, a cupcake from a restaurant. The waiter wasn’t too excited when we ordered it, either.
Black Rock Kitchen & Bar has a great starting point for a menu and an inviting space that will improve as the neighborhood around it steps up. I found their guilty pleasures more interesting than their more subtle showings, but restaurants tend to need both kinds to build their appeal. So, too, I’d imagine, does a community.
491 Amherst Street, Buffalo; (716) 551-0261
Kevin Purdy is a freelance writer who lives and works in the Elmwood Village.
