For handicapped persons, the front entrance has about four steps, but employees will give assistance and open another door where there is only one step to negociate. In a weathered, brown cedar shingled house that was once a paper store on lower Thames street, Austrian chef Volker Frick has been creating an individual style of European cooking. His menu, which changes weekly, features dishes like lamb ragout Tyrolian, medallions of pork Normande, filet of sole Eszterhazy, and monkfish “New Orleans.”
Considering the quality and variety of the fare in the small restaurant – two dining rooms and 36 seats in one of the city’s older residential section – prices were quite reasonable on the night I visited. Eight appetizers, including gravlax, Russian egg and herring in mustard ranged from $3 to $4.75. Soups (Hungarian gulyas, potage fermiere) were $2; an oyster stew was $3.75. Entrees were $11 to $13.
A chilled cucumber soup ($2) would have been a perfect hot- weather beginning to a meal – it was nevertheless a simple light starter even on a night with a chill in the air. It contained thinly sliced cucumbers in a cool, thinned sour cream base, flavored with highly complimentary minced dill and other gentle seasonings judiciously incorporated.
Profiterole de maison ($3.75) was an ordinary cream puff made extraordinary simply because of the excellence of the pate a chou pastry itself. It was filled with an uncommon savory – a chocolate- brown mixture of minced veal, sweet bell pepper and onion. It had the appearance of a dark Cantonese lobster sauce and a rich, dry flavor sweetened a bit by the onion and made complex by the pepper. A remarkably good and different appetizer, much more elegant than the description might suggest.
Ordering veal ragout “Budapest” was probably overdoing the veal theme a bit, but the description sounded appetizing and I wasn’t in the mood for the sweetbreads, beef or fish that made up the remaining half-dozen entrees. It was a proper ragout with chunks of juicy, well-trimmed veal, onion and sweet red pepper, but not so highly seasoned as the name would lead one to believe. The name and color of the dish suggested that paprika was used; if it was it was a mild variety. The meaty stew was accompanied by nockerln or spatzle, soft noodle-like dumplings that are a mainstay of Austrian and German cooking. Pale, fresh, crisp string beans of marvelous flavor added contrasting crunch, color and completeness to the dish ($11).
A light and fluffy Bavarian cream ($2.50) avoided two faults common to less expert kitchens: It was neither overly sweet nor glossy stiff with too much gelatin.
I would have liked to try the palatschinken, an Austrian specialty of crepes enclosing a filling of apricot jam and served hot ($2) or crepes Joseph that appeared to be covered with a rich chocolate sauce.
The bread basket at Frick’s is a simple one, thin slices of homemade bread with some substance to it and large crisp, wheat- flavored Swedish crackers served with curls of sweet butter.
The wine list offers good selections though with no great breadth or depth and is reasonably priced. The presence of a l981 Beaujolais- Villages indicates that the house stays on top of it and keeps offerings up to date. While understandably weighted toward German offerings, it could be improved with the addition of half bottles of one of the relatively inexpensive Austrian dessert trockenbeerenauslesen.
Frick’s does something many restaurants that do not serve liquor do and I wish more restaurants of all kinds did more often. It provides a variety of aperitifs – sherries, Dubonnet, Lilet, vermouths and two after-dinner vintage ports by the glass. The Sandeman 1962 was a perfect finish to a meal. For those who do not want to mix grape and grain, such aperitifs and after dinner drinks – by the glass – are an excellent answer. Even for parties as large as four, a full bottle of after-dinner wine is more than most want.
I only saw one of the dining rooms at Frick’s. It was a nicely transformed original parlor or entry, down a few steps from the main entrance. Foot-square black and white floor tiles, banquettes that wound about the room, subdued colors and subdued background music, the simple appointments, gave the oddly shaped room an unpretentious elegance where the food not the decor worked the magic.*POTPOURRI
Shoppers in the Copley Square area looking for a quiet elegant lunch should be happy with a new room that will open in about two weeks at the Cafe Budapest in the Copley Square Hotel. The street- floor room is scheduled to offer luncheon strudels, pastries and coffees from noon to 5 p.m. and will have its own pastry cook.
