Hip Nautilus is well worth the trip, 20,000 leagues under sea
So I went a few days later and am happy to report: believe the hype. This nautically themed eatery has what it takes to offer some competition to its down-the-street rival Restauracja 99.
Mme. Chloe and I invited friends Harold and Maude, local scenesters who'd also mistakenly been left off Nautilus' launch party guest list. All we knew going in on a recent Wednesday night was what we'd heard: that the place is hip hip hip.
And empty empty empty. Both the outdoor beer garden and the cool, urbane street level bar were guestless at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday might be a slow one anywhere, but the Insider's report said the place was just as vacant on a recent Saturday night. And this was no ordinary Wednesday night either: It was June 9th, the unholy eve of a citywide alcohol ban. I thought bars and restaurants would be packed with revelers pounding back their last (for four days anyway, nothing to sneeze at!) tipple.
We descended the wide, curving staircase to the basement dining room. We'd traveled 20,000 leagues under the sea, to judge by the modern, stylized submarine-ish decor. One side of the large, rectangular room is taken up by a long bar and open kitchen, staffed by white-hatted chefs and smartly dressed waiters wearing trendy, burnt-orange neckties. Across the room is a large, illuminated aquarium - which was, like the dining room, empty. The walls are decorated with polished steel, wave-like trimmings punctuated with portholes, which look out into an eerily glowing green netherworld.
"It's like being in a boat," Chloe said, impressed, "but there's no fish." When the aquarium is full of big, colorful fish gliding about, the room's effect should be improved dramatically.
For now it's the chairs that stand out, thin, tall-backed and cushioned, upholstered in crushed-red velvet. Matching red curtains hung down the walls on either side of the aquarium.
Even though the room, which could probably seat about 60-70, was empty save for our foursome, a fun, even lively atmosphere was created anyway by the superb choice of background music: uptempo Latin jazz and swing, which delighted us throughout the evening, even when they flipped the tape and we started hearing things twice.
"It's really got a beat to it!" Harold enthused.
Harold, Chloe and I ordered beers from the English-speaking, perfectly trained young waiter, while Maude took a mineral water and an orange juice. "Mmmm! Fresh orange juice," she said, very pleased upon taking the first sip.
Going over the menu is like reading a spine-tingling adventure tale full of spills, chills and amazing feats of imagination. Two such plot twists immediately caught my attention: the Nautilus Fantasia (zl. 42), a starter which combines frog legs, which I'd never eaten, with coquilles Saint Jaques, which I can't eat enough of. As soon as I saw that I didn't consider anything else. I wouldn't order it again, though, as the novelty of frog legs (like boney, scrawny chicken wings) couldn't mask the fact that there was only one mussel on my plate - I'll have to keep looking for someplace to get coquilles St. Jacques here. I chose the farfalle (zl. 35), bowtie pasta with bacon, ham and marjoram-flavored dressing for my main, and that was superb, especially the dark, wine-flavored dressing.
My friends took much longer to decide as everything sounded tempting. Harold chose a tuna salad starter (zl. 24), which came in a big, fresh lettuce leaf, and Saltim Bocca á la Romano (zl. 38), a veal dish. It comes covered in prosciutto ham and bathed in a Marsala-wine sauce. On the side he had a tomato stuffed with a paste of crushed peanuts spiced with ginger and coffee.
Maude followed up with her choices, the Nautilus Soup, a frutti di mare number that the waiter warned her would be spicy (zl. 17), but aside from some pepper it didn't seem to be blazing. Her main was halibut roulade (zl. 35), but rolled in what, the menu didn't say. It turned out to be good, lean bacon, which, while tasty, far overpowered the fish inside.
Chloe, always the last to make up her mind about anything, finally went with a Jules Verne combo, "Arabian tunnel," an eggplant dish, to start and "prawns á la Vigo Bay" for her main. Both names figure in "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," a nice thematic touch I thought. It finally dawned on me: long before "Nautilus" was the name of some fancy gym equipment, it was the name of the vessel in Verne's novel. Chloe's stuffed eggplant covered in melted mozzerella looked like the hit of the evening to me.
From the wine list I chose a Bourgogne Aligote '95 (zl. 99), at the low end of the price scale, after checking with Harold that he wouldn't mind a white wine with his veal. The Aligote is the only white burgundy not made from Chardonnay grapes. Ours was a sharp, earthy white, lightly golden in color. Our waiter impressed us with a flawless presentation and unobtrusively kept our glasses full throughout the meal. Of course, we were his only customers.
Harold had to run before dessert, but the rest of us shared a rather average slice of szarlotka, jazzed up with the addition of a chestnut paste and saffron sauce, (zl. 18) and pineapple carpaccio marinated in champagne with lemon ginger sauce (zl. 17), along with excellent cups of joe.
Our bill came to zl. 356 ($91.28). Take out the wine and divide by four, and that's not at all extravagant for the level of cuisine and service dished out at Nautilus. On departing around 9:30 p.m., there were still no guests in the restaurant but the upstairs bar and beer garden were full of people enjoying their last full-strength beers and cocktails before prohibition started. Thank god that nightmare is over. To celebrate, I recommend Nautilus to anyone looking for an adventurous kitchen and a cool atmosphere. As the dog days of summer start to stifle, the aquatic theme could start to look more and more refreshing.
Mme. Chloe and I invited friends Harold and Maude, local scenesters who'd also mistakenly been left off Nautilus' launch party guest list. All we knew going in on a recent Wednesday night was what we'd heard: that the place is hip hip hip.
And empty empty empty. Both the outdoor beer garden and the cool, urbane street level bar were guestless at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday might be a slow one anywhere, but the Insider's report said the place was just as vacant on a recent Saturday night. And this was no ordinary Wednesday night either: It was June 9th, the unholy eve of a citywide alcohol ban. I thought bars and restaurants would be packed with revelers pounding back their last (for four days anyway, nothing to sneeze at!) tipple.
We descended the wide, curving staircase to the basement dining room. We'd traveled 20,000 leagues under the sea, to judge by the modern, stylized submarine-ish decor. One side of the large, rectangular room is taken up by a long bar and open kitchen, staffed by white-hatted chefs and smartly dressed waiters wearing trendy, burnt-orange neckties. Across the room is a large, illuminated aquarium - which was, like the dining room, empty. The walls are decorated with polished steel, wave-like trimmings punctuated with portholes, which look out into an eerily glowing green netherworld.
"It's like being in a boat," Chloe said, impressed, "but there's no fish." When the aquarium is full of big, colorful fish gliding about, the room's effect should be improved dramatically.
For now it's the chairs that stand out, thin, tall-backed and cushioned, upholstered in crushed-red velvet. Matching red curtains hung down the walls on either side of the aquarium.
Even though the room, which could probably seat about 60-70, was empty save for our foursome, a fun, even lively atmosphere was created anyway by the superb choice of background music: uptempo Latin jazz and swing, which delighted us throughout the evening, even when they flipped the tape and we started hearing things twice.
"It's really got a beat to it!" Harold enthused.
Harold, Chloe and I ordered beers from the English-speaking, perfectly trained young waiter, while Maude took a mineral water and an orange juice. "Mmmm! Fresh orange juice," she said, very pleased upon taking the first sip.
Going over the menu is like reading a spine-tingling adventure tale full of spills, chills and amazing feats of imagination. Two such plot twists immediately caught my attention: the Nautilus Fantasia (zl. 42), a starter which combines frog legs, which I'd never eaten, with coquilles Saint Jaques, which I can't eat enough of. As soon as I saw that I didn't consider anything else. I wouldn't order it again, though, as the novelty of frog legs (like boney, scrawny chicken wings) couldn't mask the fact that there was only one mussel on my plate - I'll have to keep looking for someplace to get coquilles St. Jacques here. I chose the farfalle (zl. 35), bowtie pasta with bacon, ham and marjoram-flavored dressing for my main, and that was superb, especially the dark, wine-flavored dressing.
My friends took much longer to decide as everything sounded tempting. Harold chose a tuna salad starter (zl. 24), which came in a big, fresh lettuce leaf, and Saltim Bocca á la Romano (zl. 38), a veal dish. It comes covered in prosciutto ham and bathed in a Marsala-wine sauce. On the side he had a tomato stuffed with a paste of crushed peanuts spiced with ginger and coffee.
Maude followed up with her choices, the Nautilus Soup, a frutti di mare number that the waiter warned her would be spicy (zl. 17), but aside from some pepper it didn't seem to be blazing. Her main was halibut roulade (zl. 35), but rolled in what, the menu didn't say. It turned out to be good, lean bacon, which, while tasty, far overpowered the fish inside.
Chloe, always the last to make up her mind about anything, finally went with a Jules Verne combo, "Arabian tunnel," an eggplant dish, to start and "prawns á la Vigo Bay" for her main. Both names figure in "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," a nice thematic touch I thought. It finally dawned on me: long before "Nautilus" was the name of some fancy gym equipment, it was the name of the vessel in Verne's novel. Chloe's stuffed eggplant covered in melted mozzerella looked like the hit of the evening to me.
From the wine list I chose a Bourgogne Aligote '95 (zl. 99), at the low end of the price scale, after checking with Harold that he wouldn't mind a white wine with his veal. The Aligote is the only white burgundy not made from Chardonnay grapes. Ours was a sharp, earthy white, lightly golden in color. Our waiter impressed us with a flawless presentation and unobtrusively kept our glasses full throughout the meal. Of course, we were his only customers.
Harold had to run before dessert, but the rest of us shared a rather average slice of szarlotka, jazzed up with the addition of a chestnut paste and saffron sauce, (zl. 18) and pineapple carpaccio marinated in champagne with lemon ginger sauce (zl. 17), along with excellent cups of joe.
Our bill came to zl. 356 ($91.28). Take out the wine and divide by four, and that's not at all extravagant for the level of cuisine and service dished out at Nautilus. On departing around 9:30 p.m., there were still no guests in the restaurant but the upstairs bar and beer garden were full of people enjoying their last full-strength beers and cocktails before prohibition started. Thank god that nightmare is over. To celebrate, I recommend Nautilus to anyone looking for an adventurous kitchen and a cool atmosphere. As the dog days of summer start to stifle, the aquatic theme could start to look more and more refreshing.
