ECCO

She says:
I’m mulling over the meal Downtown Boy and I had last week at Ecco during Midtown Restaurant Week, trying to capture the essence of our uninspiring dining experience. “Ecco… Ecco…” I repeat to myself. And then it strikes me: Ecco is perfectly named (albeit misspelled). It is a restaurant repeating something good, something strong and original, but is merely a reverberation, an act of mimicry, an echo, if you will, of better restaurants.

The interior has a classical touch of old Europe, which is appropriate for the “seasonally-inspired European cuisine” they serve (according to our waiter), but it mostly aims for the modern sophistication of newer restaurants with its open kitchen, long bar, and dim lighting. It’s a ubiquitous look, and if you’ve eaten at any upscale New American restaurant in the past year, then you’ve been here before.

He says:
The perpetual sense of déjà vu continues straight into the menu. The oak-grilled asparagus, drizzled in olive oil, has a nice smokiness but otherwise tastes exactly like the asparagus you cooked last night in your own kitchen.

The roasted organic chicken tastes, like, well, chicken. The breasts are well roasted and moist, but the salsa verde blanketing the chicken doesn’t add enough oomph to make this dish stand out.

Fortunately the steelhead is more interesting. This Atlantic trout is highly reminiscent of salmon due to its similar river/ocean life cycle. It is beautifully grilled, and the braised celery provides an earthy contrast to the dish’s overall butteriness.

She says: For me, the most original item was the fried goat cheese. The small balls of fried cheese have a salty outer shell, and are dipped in honey and sprinkled with black pepper. It provides a full symphony of flavors.

The chocolate terrine is like many other decadently rich flourless chocolate cakes, but I wasn’t complaining. Some things don’t need inspiration. It comes with large chunks of nut brittle that give the dish an interesting textural contrast, if not a break from the sweetness. For better or worse, I polished it off, while poor Downtown Boy reveled in his own skewed sense of dessert heaven, raving about the mushy bread pudding thing he was spooning up.

He says:
Oh dear. According to Uptown Girl, if it ain’t chocolate, it ain’t dessert. I liked my sour cherry bread pudding just fine. Like the chocolate terrine, it was a serviceable if unremarkable dessert.

We say:
Most people will like Ecco. The food is solid, and it’s a perfectly nice restaurant that won’t leave a hole in your wallet. But whenever we go we can’t help but get the feeling we’ve eaten these unoriginal dishes – in better incarnations – before.




Ecco 40 7th Street NE, Atlanta, GA 30308
http://www.ecco-atlanta.com/index.htm