“Caramelized pork belly is really just caramelized bacon.
Who doesn’t love bacon?”
The young chef prepared to whip the ends of the plastic wrap around his rabbit roulade to create a tight cylinder before poaching the mixture in water. He rolled his wrists forward and, in that instant, realized that television studios don’t stock commercial plastic wrap. The centrifugal force of the spin propelled the rabbit straight up in the air, and like some misguided magic trick, he made a rabbit explode on live television.
“I was just glad I didn’t curse,” chef James Landis says, “but I finished the segment.”
That was probably the moment that the chef at Blue Grotto knew he wasn’t destined for a career in television.
Still, that doesn’t stop him from entertaining diners every night from the open kitchen of the Brookside restaurant where he has worked for the past 14 months. But it’s not patter or showmanship that Landis uses to lure in an audience; it’s a straightforward approach to cooking that has subtly expanded the menu beyond pizza at Blue Grotto. Well, that and his use of bacon.
“Caramelized pork belly is really just caramelized bacon. Who doesn’t love bacon?” Landis jokes about one of the restaurant’s popular starters.
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The Blue Grotto has a less indulgent but still reasonable alcohol special: Bloody Marys, mimosas and screwdrivers for $3 each. I just wanted a steady flow of hot coffee on the nippy Sunday morning that I brunched with Martha, when we were seated at my least favorite table in this restaurant. It’s the one adjacent to the door leading to the patio. This inconvenience didn’t ruin our brunch, but it’s smart to request one of the second-floor tables.
Wherever you sit, you’ll find a brunch menu in flux. Since I was last there, chef James Landis has replaced the tomato-prosciutto-and-spinach strata with a frittata baked with bacon and spinach. More changes are ahead, our waitress told us, but the best-selling items, such as biscuits and gravy (there’s nothing Italian about the Blue Grotto’s countrified version of the brunch staple) and the vanilla-scented French toast (griddled with a center of fluffy ricotta and doused with honey-pecan syrup), seem destined to survive the cut.
I loved the “Pizza Benedict,” a multicultural fusing of prosciutto, poached egg and soothing Hollandaise sauce perched on fresh-tasting flatbread. A Mediterranean-style omelet, folded around artichoke hearts, peperonata and a dusting of Asiago cheese, was a shade salty but satisfying. The roasted potatoes that came with the dish were worth protecting from the forks of curious tablemates. I should have known better than to reach for Martha’s. It doesn’t take a churchgoing bruncher to remember the eighth commandment: Thou shalt not steal roasted potatoes.
Blue Grotto on the Pitch.com
People are hungry for an authentic experience. The Blue Grotto restaurant in Kansas City’s Brookside neighborhood offers just that.
Embedded in an area highly regarded for its eclectic collection of locally owned, non-franchised bars, boutiques and restaurants, Blue Grotto specializes in Neapolitan-style, wood-fired pizza. On any given night you’ll find families, office colleagues and groups of friends enjoying, say, a Quattro Formaggio with a glass of wine or beer. Since its opening in July 2008, Blue Grotto has fit right in with the neighborhood.
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Best Outdoor Dining
…The Blue Grotto, relatively new on the “scene,” demonstrates with Silver finesse that a back space (not an alley, certainly) can be turned into a metro respite with both the charm of Brookside and the pizazz of pizza…
A better Bloody Mary
It’s easy to screw up America’s favorite brunch cocktail — too much pepper, too much Worcestershire sauce, too much Tabasco, too much vodka, any V8 — the list of possible transgressions is long. But a good Bloody Mary is a beautiful thing indeed, as comforting as a BLT in a glass, as rousing as a burst of sunshine breaking through a wall of thick fog. Such a one is Blue Grotto’s San Marzano Bloody Mary, which uses the juices of imported canned San Marzano tomatoes from Italy. Blue Grotto owner John Grier has been making his version of America’s favorite pick-me-up for 20 years, and his lips are sealed as to the precise recipe. The garnishes, of course, are plain to see: lime and three olives. Three cheers for banishing the celery stalk, which too often injects jarring crunching and munching into what should be a genteel sipping experience. The astonishing price, $3 on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., is the final imperative to get thee to 6324 Brookside Plaza.
CHRIS OBERHOLTZ/The Kansas City
There’s nothing blue or cave like about this chic pizzeria, which turned a long-neglected Brookside retail space into a soaring two-story restaurant. With an exhibition kitchen on the first floor, it’s a sleek, stunning series of dining areas in tones of charcoal, slate and ebony. All of those hard surfaces make it noisy on busy weekend nights, but that’s part of this restaurant’s appeal, perhaps. Chef Chris Graham bakes his pies in a fragrant, wood-burning oven so that the crust is light and just slightly crackly, and covers them with a limited number of appealing combinations such as the bubbling quattro formaggio with ricotta, asiago, aged Gouda and goat cheese; and the Four Seasons, with black olives, roasted red peppers, marinated artichoke hearts and roasted crimini mushrooms. The signature dishes are beautiful, but the desserts lack style.
Best of Award Recipient
* 2008 Best Pizza – 2008
