Chapel Hill, NC: The Weathervane -- disappointing fusion

Hello LTH,

I posted this brief review yesterday on Chowhound South and thought I'd repeat it here, primarily of course to add to the ever-growing LTH database. Also, it's the only way to get Antonius to read it. ("I don't read Chowhound!")

There is one reply (so far) on Chowhound by someone who dislikes the restaurant in question even more than I did:
http://www.chowhound.com/topics/show/313844

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On a recent visit to Chapel Hill I suggested to my mom that we have dinner at the Weathervane, the restaurant inside Southern Season’s store. I hadn’t been there in years but remembered it as a place with relatively simple and good food. I was a little surprised when I saw the current menu, though, which was heavy on fusion-y dishes. For example, the appetizer of “shrimp hushpuppies ... served with Texas Pete basil pesto aioli.” I love Texas Pete on barbecue etc. but this strikes me as just silly.

Okay, I didn’t order that. And though I probably could have found something on the menu that would have made me happier I took a chance on their shrimp and grits, since I don’t get back to the South often enough. This dish at the Weathervane is served with chorizo and a chipotle sauce. The good news is that the shrimp were nice and fresh and the grits were delicious. But the chorizo was very strange. It was neither Mexican chorizo nor Spanish chorizo. Instead it was the size and tightness of Italian sausage, with a definite taste of fennel – as if someone had taken a basic Italian sausage, worked a little chile ancho powder into the mix, and declared it chorizo. I wanted to grab the chef and send him or her down to Don José or another area tienda for a little sausage re-education. Moreover, though the sauce on the dish was the right color and consistency for a chipotle-based sauce, there was almost no piquancy or smokiness to the flavor. How can a sauce made with chipotle be bland? It was a little bizarre.

Chorizo or chipotle could theoretically be a good addition to shrimp and grits (maybe especially Spanish chorizo rather than Mexican – think paella). I mean, unlike Texas-Pete-pesto-aioli the combination is not inherently absurd. But the rendition at the Weathervane made me fear that the chef doesn’t know much about the cuisines he/she is borrowing from (here, Mexican) and is just putting novel combinations together for the sake of trendiness. Fusional cooking is one of those things hard to do well* and all too easy to do mediocre-ly.

Next time at the Weathervane I think I’ll stick to something simple like roast chicken.

Amata

* In contrast to my disappointment at Weathervane, I think the fusional dishes I sampled at Jujube were much more successful, and I will say more about that in a separate post as soon as I figure out how to include a picture with it.

The Weathervane
A Southern Season
University Mall
Hwy 15-501 @ Estes Drive
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
919.929.9466

Don José Taquería, Panadería, y Tortillería
708 Rosemary St
Carrboro, NC 27510
(919) 969-8568

Jujube
1201 Raleigh Rd
Chapel Hill, NC 27517
(919) 960-0555
www.jujuberestaurant.com

Amata,

So sorry to hear you're not too keen on the idea of "Texas Pete basil pesto aioli" because, in fact, I was planning on making a special dinner tonight, to celebrate my new found passion for con-fusion:

• Spätzle alla napoletana ('dita di Giada'): hand-made and -cut Spätzle with the chef's special 12 herb, fresh heirloom tomato sauce, with toasted elephant garlic chips and dice of smoked buffalo mozzarella.
• Rouladen à la Manila Galleon: thin slices of bison filet stuffed with Schwarzwälder Schinken, Mexican chorizo, ginger and crevettes, pan seared and served with a Texas Pete basil pesto aioli.
• Chicon 'de Bisschop viel flauw' (Imam Bayildi): Belgian endive filled with olives, raisins, garlic, onion, tomato and minced eggplant, simmered in our special sweet and sour Calabaut-Duvel cream sauce.

I guess you and Lucantonius will have to get take-out.

Antonius
Confounding All Tradition!

Antonius -- it's perfect. (Though I do think you might consider adding some bok choy in there somewhere.)

Cynthia wrote:Antonius -- it's perfect. (Though I do think you might consider adding some bok choy in their somewhere.)

How 'bout instead of the Spätzle I serve pierogi stuffed with fermented bok choy ('Sauerbockzäu' sagten wir einst in Ostpreußen) with a lavender-hazelnut pesto, garlic chives, minced guanciale and Nicaraguan crema?





Antonius

Bravo!