Review: Pomme in Clayton

A is for Apple, in a tart or a pie
A is a grade that's deservedly high. . . .

The doggerel may be barely of C-minus quality, but Pomme, a small, cozy French bistro in the heart of Clayton, is worthy of high marks as Bryan Carr, after a number of stops around St. Louis, seems to have settled into a kitchen and a style at which he not only excels, but in which he also seems to feel extremely comfortable.

Though the Medicis brought their cooks from Italy, and conquered France in both bedroom and kitchen, what they left behind remains most memorable.

The Guru feels that nothing beats top French cuisine, and he also sees similarities between meals prepared in a French bistro and an Italian trattoria.

Both are big on comfort food. Both use cheese as an asset and a complement.

Italian pasta and French potatoes, both simply or with a variety of sauces, add charming, filling touches. Both use garlic and butter and, because of economic restraints, both work wonders with organ meats like liver or sweetbreads or tripe, and know how to prepare sumptuous dishes from lesser, often-tougher cuts.
Several recent visits to Pomme were top-notch in every respect.

The restaurant seats only a couple of dozen, and one of its most warming features is that a call for reservations and a question about how late they serve receives an answer, "We serve as late as anyone wants to eat."

Even if that's only mostly true, a restaurant can hardly be more welcoming than that.

The Pomme menu, which changes often, offered seven entrees on our last visit, two chicken, two beef and one each based on salmon, duck and lamb.

And the chicken and beef each offered widely divergent styles and flavors – the chicken were a roasted breast with spaetzle and a boneless thigh with prosciutto and wild mushrooms, the beef offered braised short ribs and a filet mignon. Specials of the evening were a roast pheasant wrapped in Swiss chard, striped bass and halibut.

A special appetizer was sea scallops in citrus sauce, and the other first courses were mussel soup, linguini with chanterelles and trumpet mushrooms, shrimp and leek ravioli, a potato cake with apples, onions arugula and goat cheese and a smoked salmon and crab salad. There were other salads, too, like hearts of romaine lettuce with herb dressing, green beans with Roquefort dressing and "Diane's salad," which the menu describes as "an ever-changing collection of the best from the garden."

What Pomme does best, however, and it's a tribute to Carr, is to pair the main ingredient of each dish with an imaginative and delicious side. The short ribs, for example, came with a corn pudding that was simply glorious – well-roasted corn in what was somewhere between a souffle and a polenta, with corn kernels here and there for some color and crunch. Even something as simple as an accompanying starch was well designed. That corn pudding joined the short ribs, potato gratin was served with the salmon, wild rice pilaf with duck and halibut and saffon potatoes with sea bass. Given the German heritage of St. Louis, spaetzle should show up more often.

Chard, with lovely red touches setting off its green, brings to my palate a flavor about halfway between spinach and beet greens, and it was an ideal contrast as a wrap for chunks of perfectly cooked pheasant. The citrus sauce brought a slightly acidic and excellent flavor to the scallops, and the mussel soup benefitted from an excellent stock and a nice addition of herbs and vegetables to the juicy mussels.

Two types of mushrooms – chanterelle and trumpet – were just right atop pasta that was lightly sauced.

The short ribs were meaty and tender, slowly braised until the meat fell off the bone, and a red wine sauce was a delightful accompaniment.

On another visit, a lobster special proved a rewarding splurge. The glorious crustacean may be the superior delicacy of all time. It's a lot of fun to gnaw on the claws and to suck on the various feelers and chunks of shell, but it's neater and easier when the chef removes the meat and adds the shells to the stock. The lobster had been steamed, then quickly sauteed in butter for maximum flavor. It was tender and just right, and the stock brought something special to vegetables, potatoes and other goodies sauteed alongside.

Service is superior at Pomme, and the warmth of the room adds to the dining experience.

So does its history, which includes time as Oliver's, an ice cream parlor operated by Bud Starr, and a period as Eddie Neill's first Clayton restaurant, the original Café Provencal. The wine list is pleasant, and there are some very good values. A few more wines by the glass might be a nice expansion.

An all-pear, as differentiated from an au-pair, dessert, brought thoughts of a standing ovation. The pear tart actually tasted like a tart pear (word plays, even bad ones are sometimes impossible to resist), not just an undistinguished fruit, and it came with a homemade pear sorbet that was absolutely delicious. The crust was a bit soggy, but the dish was exceptional.

With Clayton restaurants offering a wide variety of styles of cuisine, and it's a pleasure to be able to say that most of it is outstanding, Bryan Carr and Pomme seem to have found a niche that belongs high on any recommendation list.