Robin Garr's LOUISVILLE Restaurant Reviews

(CLOSED, June 2002. However, the same management still operates Kentucky Cove in the Kentucky Center for the Arts.)

But extreme dining . . . now, that's another matter entirely!

So when Zephyr Cove, an eclectic Frankfort Avenue bistro with a penchant for finding creative ways to prepare game and exotic meats, announced its new "Extreme Dining" concept this spring, I could hardly wait to give it a try.

The idea is simple: Small groups, by reservation, enjoy a quiet evening in a private room at Zephyr Cove, where owner/chef John Richards and executive chef Chris Howerton work in an open kitchen to prepare an eight-course, three-hour feast with running commentary. For serious "foodies" like me, it's a memorable opportunity to visit a restaurant kitchen and learn how intriguing dishes are prepared.

Our team of four "extremists" from Louisville Magazine took on the challenge recently. Howerton was off for the night, but Richards put together a feast that left us stuffed and happy. Here's a quick tour through the courses:

We began with an "amuse gueule" (French for a pre-appetizer "amusement") of pan-seared rare tuna and a sushi-style tuna roll stuffed with Dungeness crab. Like all of Zephyr Cove's dishes, it was attractively "plated," in a food-as-art treatment, with the tuna tidbits arranged in a circle on a pool of thick, tangy tamarind sauce dotted with three colors of flavored oils and finely shredded orange peel.

Next up was an appetizer, a quickly seared large "diver" scallop (hand-harvested by divers rather than netted, Richards told us), sweet as seafood candy, topped with a sweet-tart red-onion marmalade and served on a bed of four-lentil salad and a circlet of tiny, paper-thin slices of Japanese cucumber.

The appetizer was followed by a robust terrine of sautéed fois gras and crispy sweetbreads. ("What's a sweetbread?" asked a slightly nervous member of our group. We waited until after dinner to tell her it's the calf's thymus gland.) It was served on an apple puree with Sauternes wine and balsamic vinegar, accompanied by garnishes of radicchio and crisp-fried parsnip slivers.

A cool salad offered a clean break from the richness of the appetizers. A "microgreens" salad of 15 to 20 tiny, hydroponically grown field greens topped a log-cabin square of pencil-thin white and green asparagus (blanched and then quick-cooled), garnished with toasted hazelnuts and Maytag blue cheese and dressed with a rice-wine vinegar and hazelnut-oil vinaigrette. This was followed by an "intermission" palate cleanser of mango-mandarin sorbet in a cold kiwi soup.

A walk-around-and-stretch break was scheduled at this point, offering patrons the opportunity to take a restroom or smoke break (the tiny Extreme dining room, thankfully, is non-smoking) or to chat with the chefs.

Back at the table, the extreme beat went on, with a seafood course followed by a game course: First, a perfect fillet of herb-crusted, pan-roasted salmon and a meaty lobster claw were served over purplish Peruvian potatoes mashed with lobster and country ham bits in a pear-apple sauce scented with fennel. Then came fork-tender roast venison loin, served in its natural jus over braised collard greens and quinoa (a Peruvian grain), topped with a trio of earthy fresh morel mushrooms. It was perfectly matched by the top wine of the evening, a Ridge 1997 Lytton Springs Zinfandel.

Richards, a certified pastry chef, outdid himself with not one but three dessert choices: a rich, sticky-sweet chocolate peanut mousse Napoleon; pear pastries laced with Sauternes in a cream-cheese pastry on a pear compote with aromatic touches of cinnamon and star anise; and the winner of the evening for me, an unlikely but outstanding cheesecake made from mild goat cheese flavored with key lime and chipotle peppers -- a dangerous but delicate balance between sweet, hot and fragrant flavors.

We left dangerously stuffed, of course, but reasonable portion sizes and careful pacing over a three-hour dinner kept us -- barely -- just below the red line marked "SIN" on the gluttony meter.

With excellent food and flawless service, Zephyr Cove clearly seeks to show its best in this special dinner, and at its best, it's up there with the finest dining rooms in town. At $70 per person (not counting alcoholic beverages, which may be chosen from the list or by ordering selected "flights" of wines chosen for each course for $25 or $50), "Extreme Dining" is pricey but fair, and definitely an experience worth repeating.

Zephyr Cove, 2330 Frankfort Ave., (502) 897-1030.