Review: Artis Cranks the Creativity and Flavors to 11

Artis in Lakewood Credit: Photo by Doug Trattner

If you’ve dined at Artis in Lakewood, you now know just how loud a restaurant can be. The din within is so thunderous that diners can’t hear servers, servers can’t hear managers, and the nocturnal creatures in the area have banded together to lodge a formal complaint. Nobody is more hip to the situation than chef-owner Andrew Mansour, who instead of making the rounds of the dining room to recommend dishes, spends much of his time discussing the finer points of acoustics.

In short, he is aware and is exploring solutions.

You know what’s worse than a loud restaurant? A dead one, and since opening this summer, Artis has been very much alive. The former Side Quest space has been utterly transformed into a model of modernity. As such, the space features clean lines, yards of glass, unbroken ceilings and an open floor plan – that is, an acoustician’s anguish.

Before long, a diner’s attention shifts from the sense of sound to the sense of taste. I’ve never had a colder dry gin martini ($11) in my life – and the Autumn in Jalisco ($14), a bracing blend of mezcal, tequila, ginger and grapefruit, managed to put the clatter in the rear-view mirror for good. The house take on a margarita ($14), starring Japanese sudachi juice, had us looking ahead to dinner.

When Mansour first described his restaurant, he said his aim was to open “a steakhouse that’s not a steakhouse.” While that might sound positively sphinxian, that’s precisely what he’s accomplished. Our foursome spent a good 20 minutes discussing, dissecting and digesting the menu before any one of us even noticed the section, positioned lower-left, titled “Charbroiled.” It’s not that the chops were buried; it’s that the rest of the page was so full of compelling options.

In unskilled hands, a menu that veers from Sichuan-style cucumbers and Korean-style fried rice to Moroccan-spiced hummus and Nashville hot chicken – and, oh yeah, steak! – would cause the culinary equivalent of whiplash. But a meal at Artis is more akin to a killer road trip, filled with spontaneity, adventure and surprise.

If you think Shanghai-style soup dumplings are irresistible, imagine the standard broth and pork filling replaced with lobster bisque ($19). Served in a steamer basket, the delicate bisque bombs get a quick dip in a sherry gastrique before going in the gob. In advance of opening Zhug with Doug Katz, Mansour traveled to Tel Aviv to delve into the city’s incomparable cuisine. An edible memory of that journey appears in the form of silky, lemon-kissed hummus ($17) topped with warmly-spiced shredded lamb.

Kimchi is making the jump from Korean restaurants to plates everywhere – and for good reason: the fermented condiment enlivens everything it touches. Mansour serves a savory fried rice dish ($12) loaded with housemade kimchi, egg and broken-rice cakes. Artistic and unique, the chef’s take on octopus ($24) will leave its mark. Sliced into wee coins, the adobo-flavored octopus is arranged atop a stripe of olive paste and set against pools of chili and lemon sauce. Thin, crisp tostones are arranged on top.

As is in vogue, Artis champions shareable plates, be they small, medium or large. Orders placed upfront will be dispatched at a rhythm that the kitchen deems appropriate. In between those pert, peppery cucumbers ($6) and the octopus, our server delivered a fall salad ($16) with ripe fig, pear, greens and creamy blue cheese and an eat-with-your-hands Korean short rib ($26), grilled to chewy perfection and served on the bone.

Artis offers a half-dozen steaks, from filet to dry-aged porterhouse. Grilled, sliced and served with a simple green salad, the Ohio ribeye ($69) made two rounds of the table before vanishing.

After we politely begged off dessert, one very persuasive server managed to cajole a couple orders out of us. We unlocked our dessert stomachs and savored bites of warm and gooey sticky toffee date cake ($11) topped with vanilla ice cream and orange-scented panna cotta ($10) capped with a nest of crispy phyllo threads. These are the kinds of desserts for which there is always room.

They say that humans are the most adaptable species on Earth. After a couple bottles of wine and sips of port and sherry, the topic of noise was as forgotten as yesterday’s breakfast. In the blink of an eye, three full hours had passed since we took our seats, a testament to the company, sure, but also the setting. Artis boasts an energy and vitality that matches the chef’s meticulous attention to detail.

Artis
17900 Detroit Ave., Lakewood
216-785-9785
artislakewood.com

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