Every time it looks as if the West Park neighborhood is growing fit for foodies, another few chains and sports bars come in to spoil the momentum. The latest volley in the ongoing battle has been lobbed by Cory Rowland and his partners, who this past March opened Red Lantern Kitchen and Bar. We should more accurately say “reopen,” because the restaurant revived a long-standing neighborhood institution that closed two years prior after more than 30 years in business.
“The Red Lantern had so much value in the neighborhood that we decided to keep the name,” Rowland explains.
Wisely, the name is all that the team preserved. Gone is the dark, dated and chopped-up space with drop ceilings. In its place is one massive, open room the size of an airplane hangar. It’s so big, in fact, that the furnishings are dwarfed by the sheer volume of the space. The fixtures are clean and contemporary but also a bit cold and sterile.
“Our inspiration is Ohio City and Tremont,” adds Rowland. “You go down there and you have that sexy atmosphere. There wasn’t anything like that in this neighborhood.”
The menu, too, seems inspired by those food-flush ‘hoods, where upscale pub grub merges with bistro fare in a formula that’s almost cliché elsewhere but still completely unique in West Park. In true “gastropub” fashion, the roster of chow hops from mussels and flatbreads to tacos and Po’ Boys to ribs and grilled chops. The treatments are trendy, the presentations stylish, and the execution largely commendable.
“We have these two great chefs, and we wanted to unleash their culinary creativity,” Rowland says, referring to in-house chef Chris McCarthy and corporate chef Brian McNeff, who spends most of his time managing the fare at the partners’ other growing concern, Two Bucks.
Too bad for us that neither chef managed to make it to work during one of our visits, making for what can best be described as night-and-day experiences. The B Team on that night thought it was a fine idea to send out a bowl of mussels ($10) with an alarming percentage of tightly closed specimens. That’s not a mussel problem; that’s a chef problem. A platter of calamari ($10) that same night managed to be at once undercooked and overcooked, with rings that were pale and pasty but chewy as hell.
The good news is that when the kitchen is properly staffed, the food does indeed call to mind that found in far hipper neighborhoods. A warm and cheesy spinach and artichoke dip ($9) is made with goat cheese, fresh greens and actual, recognizable pieces of artichoke hearts. We particularly enjoyed the marbled rye toast for dipping, which had so much more personality than bland crostini. Thick-cut, rosemary scented fries ($6) — served in a sculptural tower with a pair of dipping sauces — are golden brown outside, pillowy within.
Steak tacos ($10/2) contain strips of grilled Certified Angus Beef strip steak — a prefect medium rare at that. The flour shells are grilled and filled with ripe avocado, chive cream sauce and fresh herbs. Vegetarian tacos ($9/2) contain grilled and sliced portobellos, roasted red peppers, raw onion and fresh greens.
Had the kitchen taken the time to brown the top of the crawfish mac and cheese ($12), it would have ranked as one the tastiest versions of the comfort classic we’ve enjoyed all year. The pasta is firm, the creamy sauce aggressively spiced, and there are tender pieces of crawfish meat in almost every bite. For tavern ribs, Red Lantern’s version ($15/half slab) are very good. While not smoked or even smoky, the meaty St. Louis style ribs aren’t steamed into submission like many kitchen ribs. We could do without the bed of mashed potatoes though, which stick to the ribs like paste.
For decades, the Red Lantern was the place to go for Friday fish fries. Red Lantern II tries to honor but update that tradition with its fried fish dinner ($13), but misses the point. This healthier version is breaded not battered, lacking the fatty golden brown shell that makes fish fries so much fun to eat.
Craft beer snobs won’t drive across town to drink at the Red Lantern, but if they find themselves here for dinner, they won’t die of thirst either. There are enough Founders, Lagunitas and Rogues to keep things rolling. A respectable wine-on-tap program offers three whites and three reds by the glass — all but one of which are priced at $6 or $7.
With service this good, they’ll continue to make new friends and hopefully take a run at the longevity of its namesake. Not only were those mussels and calamari removed from our tab without so much as a request, our server offered up a gift card along with her sincere apologies. That gesture sure does make it easy to give a place like Red Lantern a second chance, and we’re sure glad we did.
red lantern kitchen & bar
17446 Lorain Ave., 216-331-1458, redlantern.us.
This article appears in Jun 11-17, 2014.
I am a West Park resident and have been to the new Red Lantern 4 times so far. It’s far superior to the throwback circa greasy walled 1980s dump it was in a previous life. The service and every meal has been great. The buffalo chicken sandwich is fantastic. The rosemary fries are definately worth the calories, and the fish tacos (despite what the article says) are delicious. Just don’t expect the deep-fried-heart-attack-in-a-tortilla shell that you’d get most other places. If I recall correctly, the menu does say they are on the healthier side. I’ve also had the artichoke dip, which is fantastic. I can’t speak to the mussels or calamari. I love the modern atmosphere as well. I think it it a perfect additition in a neighborhood overrun with Irish Catholic Sports bars. They’re nice, too, it’s just great to have something a little more upscale with a menu that will most likely change every now and again. Keep up the great work. Lester Welling
Well maybe it’s overun with Irish sports bars, but how do you know they’re Catholic, and why even make such an absurd statement? Are you required to be Catholic to gain entrance to these bars? The fact that there has long been a large Irish Catholic percentage of residents in West Park is fact. But being one myself and an over thirty year residident of the neighborhood, I can plainly state that no bar in West Park has ever required being either Irish or Catholic a requirement for serving or welcoming one into their establishments. The Irish themed bars are just that, they were opened using that concept with the intent of attracting the large Irish population into their establishments. Many current and former neighborhood residents of Irish descent do in fact frequent these bars and shockingly to no one, they know each other as many grew up, live in, and attended school and the Catholic churches in the neighborhood. But there are also plenty of other nationalities and religious affiliations well represented as they also grew up in the neighborhood and attended school and church in the neighborhood they lived in, just like any metropolitan area in the World. I was born at Fairview Hospital, not a Catholic hospital by the way, lived over forty years of my life in the neighborhood, and surprisingly never saw a single bar attend Catholic church on a Sunday, so I guess they must be Protestant?
isn’t that where that locked the bar door and cops beat the heck out of someone
just because he was black with a white women
Some people in West Park like things as they are…oops…make that were. The “dark, dated, drop-ceiling” atmosphere, for one. Real comfort food in an old-school setting…with generous portions for human beings…not cats. The “foodie” meals in all the new yupscale joints around the city and suburbs are way overpriced and would barely fill a kitty’s food dish.
And what’s with this “sexy” atmosphere that the new owners seem to feel a need for? Did they really say that? Hope their culinary skills are better than their wordsmithing skills…”sexy” is not what most folks look for in an eatery…oops…BISTRO…GASTROPUB…whatever the hell the new word of the week is.
I go to a restaurant…food and drink place…whatever…to fill my stomach…not to blow my load. Sexy (what a stupid adjective for an eatery) is the last thing on my mind when I’m hungry and looking for a good meal…er…food experience…er…pub grub (Cheezus).
So this place has “food that calls to mind that found in far hipper neighborhoods”…gee, Doug, thanks for the snark. Why didn’t you just call the corner “Little Dublin” or “The Green Mile” and be done with it?
Some of us here like the peace and quiet of this hood, thank you very much. It is what it is…it also is what hipper, trendy, overcrowded Ohio City and Tremont are not. And we like it that way.
Sports bars and chains have brought in people and money to Lorain Ave….even if they’re the youngsters who grew up here. Did you ever bother to come out here 10-15 years ago? I doubt it. You had nothing here but the Gene’s and the Red Lantern I. And a couple of bars–the Public House and Smedley’s…and they were dives. That whole stretch was a blighted desert of empty storefronts back then. It’s not that way anymore.
So there’s nothing wrong with what’s here. Thanks for the condescending sneers, Doug.
They gutted a classic Cleveland bar/restaurant (albeit one in a strip mall) and put up yet another hipster joint with high prices and mediocre food…and took away one of the best fish fries in town and replaced it with a pricey “fish dinner”…thanks for nothing guys.
If this is such an unhip neighborhood, how do you expect to survive? West Park is not going to gentrify any time soon. But the Red Lantern II will be long gone by then. I give it a year or two. At most.
p.s. The bar where the cops beat that guy up is long gone…it’s under new ownership and has a new name…and has had it for a LONG time.
Chuckles the Clown
“So this place has “food that calls to mind that found in far hipper neighborhoods”…gee, Doug, thanks for the snark. Why didn’t you just call the corner “Little Dublin” or “The Green Mile” and be done with it?”
This. Precisely this. I love my neighborhood, and it has much more to offer than chain restaurants, thanks. Cuisine du Cambodge? Der Braumeister? Thai Elephant? Phat Daddy’s Kitchen? No, guess it’s just too easy to knock on our “uncoolness” because we have a nice stretch of Irish bars along with the other businesses on one of Cleveland’s busiest traffic corridors.
As someone who is in the demographic of people they are looking to attract at the Red Lantern I would have to pass on it. Was in there once and that was enough. The food is mediocre at best, and the prices are insane for what you get. The space itself has a lot of potential but they really need to add some charachter to it. Instead of trying to be like Tremont or Ohio city maybe they should try to be more like the extremely successful Melt? Trendy bars and restaurants do not last and the novelty wears off fast. There are so many other places in the area that have good food and will not leave you hungry afterwards. As it is now, you have to walk over to Gyro World afterwards to get full. Just take your money over to the other places nearby like Thai Elephant. MMMMM I think I will get that after work today.