Robin Garr's LOUISVILLE Restaurant Reviews

CLOSED: To the dismay of his many fans and followers, owner Bobby Johnson retired from the restaurant business and closed Steam - Fire & Ice in July 2004.

87	Steam - Fire & Ice 2427 Bardstown Road (502) 454-9944

"Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice," the poet Robert Frost wrote in 1920. But you'll find no Armageddon at Steam - Fire & Ice. This hot new eatery's unusual name is simply a creative spin on the more familiar "bar and grill," with Fire representing the grill and Ice the frosty drinks.

The latest venture of Louisville restaurateur Paul Robert "Bobby J" Johnson, Steam opened shortly before Derby in the spacious Bardstown Road quarters formerly occupied by Whiskey Bob's Motorsports Saloon, raising the intriguing mental image of someone dropping by for a cold one without realizing that the management and mood have undergone a significant transformation.

Johnson and co-owner Thom Stinson consciously sought an atmosphere akin to the cafe in Bogart's classic "Casablanca" (plus a startling Egyptian statue and torches from the old local nightspot Pharaoh's as an unexpected footnote). The scene doesn't clone the movie set, but the mood comes close: cool, not frenzied; stylish and discreet ... and the food, I'm pleased to report, is every bit as good as the mood.

An oversize rectangular bar dominates the space, with dining areas set on either side and a bandstand for frequent live music performances. The decor is discreet, with black cafe curtains, mustard-color walls and an abstract mural of sand dunes and palm trees over mirrors along one end of the room.

Tables are furnished with white tablecloths and large off-white cloth napkins and set with heavy water tumblers and less impressive wine glasses, sturdy and not over-large. Cut-glass votive-candle holders add a colorful and attractive note. Art deco sconces and industrial-style hanging lamps provide ample light while maintaining a reasonably romantic dimness as evening falls, and soft background music carries out the upscale lounge theme.

Chef Charlie Owen's menu is billed as "Spanish Mediterranean," a specificity that seems a bit puzzling; it seems to me to draw inspiration from all around the Med, without any particular emphasis on Spain. No problem there ... it's loaded with eclectic and interesting dishes that make me want to come back and try more.

Six appetizers range from $6 (for salmon carpaccio or a grilled portabello mushroom) to $11 (for seared diver scallops on garlic potatoes with demiglace and truffle oil). Four salade are $5 (for the Steam house salad) to $8 (for an intriguing option, sweet potato gnochhi).

The entree list is on the short side, with just four pastas (from $12 for spaghettini with cherry tomatoes) to $17 (for my choice, farfalle topped with wild mushrooms in herb tomato sauce with fresh Maine diver scallops) and six entrees (from $14 for roast chicken rubbed with sweet and hot chiles to $27 for an Angus New York strip steak with sweet corn risotto).

The wine list is serviceable but short, and mass-market standards outnumber the more interesting choices. My compliments to the management, though, for taking a less predatory markup on bottle prices than the current local standard. Our choice, the Rex Hill 2000 Willamette Valley Oregon Pinot Gris, for example, was $23 - less than 1 1/2 times the $16 retail at Liquor Barn - making a bottle a better buy than a single glass at $6.75. There's no beer on draft, but the short beer-by-the-bottle list includes the estimable Sierra Nevada.

Our meal began with complimentary bread, a light-crusted white country loaf served with a dish of olive oil, roast garlic and cracked black pepper.

We shared an appetizer and a salad, both of very high quality. Salmon carpaccio ($6) consisted of a good ration of thin-sliced smoked salmon arranged in a circle on a beautiful art deco glass plate around a bed of tender, fresh baby spinach leaves, paper-thin white onion slices and plenty of tangy capers. For the record, there wasn't much evidence of the advertised Stilton or herbs in the dressing, but that's hardly a complaint, as the dish was fine, well balanced and delicate.

"House-made" mozzarella and tomatoes ($6) was just as fine. A shish-kebab of creamy, sweet fresh mozzarella balls and tart-sweet cherry tomatoes were speared with a thin bread stick and served with a pile of earthy argula leaves and crunchy pine nuts in a light vinaigrette on an oversize plate artfully striped with a thick, sweet balsamic reduction.

A daily special, softshell crab ($25), proved spectacular. Two oversize crustaceans, crisply battered and fried to crunchy perfection, were perched on a bed of arugula tossed with a light vinaigrette, and a mound of mashed yams, white and exotic purple Yokahama potatoes.

My choice, the wild-mushroom farfalle with diver scallops ($17) was very good, too, but it displayed one of the kitchen's few stumbles in a generally well-prepared meal: The butterfly pasta cooked a bit too long, so the knots fell out of the "bowties," unfolding them into flabby squares. But that was the only flaw in an otherwise excellent dish that featured a delicate but flavorful fresh-tomato sauce with a breath, not a blast, of herbs, plenty of tender and meaty shiitake mushrooms, and a half-dozen tender and sweet diver scallops perfectly cooked with the edges seared just right and the centers left just past the sushi stage. I could have easily been persuaded to go for a second round.

The Oregon Pinot Gris, by the way, made a super match with both seafood dishes, its pleasant melony and citric notes adding a snappy quality that complimented the fish like a squirt of fresh lemon.

The half-dozen dessert selections, mostly made in-house, are decadent. We chose a sampler of two homemade ice creams ($4) - small scoops of chocolate and banana - and were rewarded with silken delights, creamy but delicate with flavors fresh and true, as good as licking the dasher after your mother made homemade ice cream on a hot summer day.

Espresso ($2.75) turned out to be strong dark-roast coffee, not true vacuum-pulled espresso; but to its credit, it was delicious coffee, a perfect balance of bitter and naturally sweet.

You won't dine cheaply here, but well. Dinner for two, with a modest bottle of wine, came to $89.25, and friendly, professional service earned a $17.75 tip. $$$$

(May 2002)