This week, Chart Wescott reviews Sambuca, an upscale restaurant with live jazz nightly.
Imagine this; you have just picked up your date for the night. The pair of you whisk yourselves away to a darkly lit restaurant with high ceilings and a talented jazz band. The d?©cor is exotic and so is the mood. The food comes, you taste it, and it is pretty much your typical trendy restaurant food. You are still excited to be where you are but you sure wish your food were better.
This place is Sambuca. Sambuca is located in the Gulch next to the Watermark Restaurant, which also suffers from food quality problems. Maybe there is something in the water in those kitchens. What Sambuca lacks in food quality, however, it more than makes up for in atmosphere.
Sambuca has live jazz seven days a week and being Nashville, the quality of the acts is very high. The music is lively andsensual, and the band takes requests free of charge, though tips are encouraged. I went to Sambuca on a Monday and after a couple beers and a few minutes of jazz. I was sure it was a Saturday. The service is friendly but inattentive. My waiter was very insistent that my girlfriend and I hang around for as much of the jazz show as possible yet he could not seem to remember to bring me another beer within 10 minutes of me asking for it. Still, it was nice to know that I was welcome to take my time and draw out my meal. The exotic flowing red curtains and mysterious nature of the main room sell you on the atmosphere from moment you walk in the door. Unfortunately it is from that same gorgeous room that you stumble out full of food that you wish had been better tasting.
I began my meal with "dual tuna" appetizer, which is a dish that puts seared ahi tuna and tuna tartare on the same plate. The tartare was excellent and seemed to have been prepared with an excellent marinade. It had a lemon lime flavor with the texture of an olive oil marinade but it still managed to retain the trademark tuna flavor that accompanies a tuna tartare. By contrast, the seared ahi fell short. The seared tuna did not melt in my mouth the way it is supposed to, it was almost chewy and the spice around the edges burned my taste buds.
For my entr?©e, I chose "hickory smoked double pork chop with Lyonnaise potatoes and a charred tomato sauce". The chop itself was excellent but the sauce was too sweet and was so thick that it should be called a demi-glaze. Since the chop was in the sauce, the sauce inundated it with its inappropriately sweet jellyness. Luckily, the potatoes made up for the shortcomings of the chop and allowed me some pleasure in my meal.
The biggest disappoint of my whole feast my side serving of "chevre macaroni and cheese with proscuitto". This dish sounds much better than it actually is. My first complaint is that I found no proscuitto anywhere. If the macaroni had been good, I would have been willing to overlook the misleading nature of the menu. Unfortunately, it was not. The cheese was not of high quality and the noodles were regular penne covered with parmesan.
In summation, Sambuca has the type of atmosphere that most restaurants would kill to have. It feels legitimately exotic without seeming cheesy and it is impossible to have a better attraction than live jazz. Instead of dining at Sambuca, I would advise going there for after dinner drinks and late night snacks. However, if you choose to ignore my advice and eat there for dinner, I beg of you, do not order the macaroni.
The verdict: 3/5 stars
Price: $$$ (moderately expensive)
Sambuca is located at 601 12th Street S. in Nashville.Call 615-248-2888 for reservations and more information.
