Restaurant review: York Street

By BILL ADDISON / Restaurant Critic

In restaurant jargon, "local" and "seasonal" have now been bandied about so vigorously that they've lost much of their, well, flavor. When asparagus is available year-round and Kobe beef can be easily shipped from Japan, who's really following that credo closely?

Sharon Hage is obviously doing her darnedest. It takes only one bite of one dish from her daily changing menu at York Street to understand her dedication.

Ms. Hage's duck salad tastes exactly like the current time of year: one foot in winter and the other splashing its toes into spring. Warm, subtle pieces of duck confit and tongue are tossed with mustard seeds in a bramble of lacy frisée. The yolk of a poached duck egg nestled in the salad's center slowly oozes and enriches the other ingredients. Where did the egg come from? A man Ms. Hage knows only as Michael brings farm-sourced goodies to the restaurant's back door.

Such are the enchantments at York Street, which is housed in a building so lithely modern and discreet that you might mistake its exterior for a small graphic design firm. Ms. Hage purchased the 42-seat East Dallas restaurant in 2001, allowing her the freedom to cook in a perpetually evolving and personal style. Her food isn't Texan, and, though intensely fresh, it isn't Californian, either. Yet its soulful individuality registers as distinctly American.

Ms. Hage's culinary personality has a way of putting the diner at ease, right down to the choice of china. The night we try it, the duck salad is served in a shallow plate painted with homey orange lattice. A beet salad looks even more casual heaped into a small metal mixing bowl.

But don't let the nonchalant presentation fool you: The mix of ingredients is deliberate and masterful. Ripe chunks of avocado mingle with the colorful beets, while feta and gently peppery arugula add a feisty presence. Black olive vinaigrette ties all the flavors together without clobbering the taste buds with vinegar.

The restaurant's easygoing allure can even lure picky eaters into trying new things. Braised veal heart? Not for the skittish. Yet two typically reticent tablemates, encouraged by how much they're enjoying everything else, allow themselves to be adventuresome.

"Cool, veal heart tastes like liver," one of them responds.

Besides, these meat eaters have plenty to keep themselves happy in the entree department. Texas elk is paired simply with a chunky potato sauce and a touch of blue cheese, allowing the brawny slices of meat to command center stage. Dry-aged rib eye doesn't have the gutsy crust often favored at steakhouses, but its sanguine, mineral characteristics shine through nonetheless. And our whole table would have helped themselves to seconds of the caramelized turnip mash served underneath the steak.

Side dishes receive pampered attention here: Be sure to peruse Ms. Hage's nightly selection. We giddily polish off a combination of nicely seasoned red beans and crumbly corn bread prepared with both down-home soul and uptown precision.

The lone, minor disappointment of the evening comes from a free-form sunchoke slaw that acts as a bed for moist, whole roasted barramundi (a firm Australian fish). Also known as Jerusalem artichokes, the thin slices of tuber come off, in this context, like undercooked potatoes. A tad more cooking time would have transformed them from crunchily raw to pleasantly toothy.

End of winter can be a challenging time for seasonal desserts, but Ms. Hage triumphs with sweet indulgences that teeter between rustic and refined. Pineapple upside-down cake tastes as if it has been flipped right out of a well-seasoned cast-iron skillet, complete with dripping caramel and toasty yellow cake. Chocolate-raspberry panna cotta comes in a baking dish and has more in common with ganache than custard. It's like spooning chocolate frosting straight into your mouth. Lemon pudding cake harmonizes in all the right ways: Its soothing sponginess conceals a puckering punch.

All this intuitive, well-executed food deserves an equally astute wine program, and sommelier Brandan Kelley has Ms. Hage's back. Mr. Kelley also waits tables. One minute he's guiding you through the menu and the next he's offering unusually perceptive advice on wine pairings.

It's obvious that invested, passionate people run this restaurant. From the warm hand towels and complimentary shot glasses of sherry brought at the beginning of the meal to the unobtrusive rapport the staff builds with you through the evening, York Street seduces with its orchestration of personable details.

When this Dallas newcomer wants to impress out-of-town guests with his new city's dining savvy, this will be the first place we sup.

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