We have been conversing with Crystal Vessels of Restaurant Orsay for a few weeks and she sent us a plethora of information on the new eatery. Heres the skinny....... We want/will be the kind of restaurant where you can come in and have a drink with your friends on the patio and grab a quick delicious bite, or you can come in and swank it up for a special occasion evening. We want to do both, and believe that with our new space, we have the ability to do both. The original dining room will still maintain its intimate feel, while the new addition will have a more casual atmosphere. It will be the place to come after work & host many a Staff Meeting ;) Guests - We FULLY recognize how lucky we are to be here, and have every intent to make sure that each guest that walks through our doors knows how thankful we are that they chose to spend their evening with us. Food - We want to be a restaurant serving sophisticated, yet approachable cuisine drawing influence from both France & America, without being stuffy or overpriced. Wine - A wine list of about 200 selections, with a focus on winemakers that respect their land, their fruit and their craft, at price points that tend to be below the industry standard. We really want to encourage people to branch out and try something new...if you don't like it, let us know, don't drink it -we promise we will find something you love. Cocktails - A return to classic & distinctive cocktails, made with fresh juices & house made syrups. If all continues on schedule...as of today, we are looking at starting our soft opening invites towards the latter part of July. We will open Orsay with the 60 seat original dining room, while we complete the finishing touches in the lounge, so I imagine that will be in November or so. We are still deciding the structure of our soft opening evenings, but most likely we will offer a discount on the food purchases, along with some special treats for joining us while we work through all of our kinks. The Soft Opening Evenings will be invite only, but there are a multitude of ways to join us...so we definitely encourage Jacksonville Confidential Readers to Raw Bar - East Coast & West Coast Oysters, Clams, etc... Charcuterie - Daily house-made pates, mousse, pork rillettes (basically pork cooked slowly in bacon fat & salted, until it is spreadable and can be shredded, served with toast points - indulgent and perfect for bacon whores, which we all tend to be ;). Great Appetizers - Just to name a few: The best house-made Fries (we found the Crush recipe buried in a time capsule underneath the demolished building ;), Calamari, Crab Beignets Entrees $ Range - Just to name a few...A perfect omelet, The best mussels with white wine, butter, garlic, and plenty of French Baguettes, The best burger, seriously....we are using local, hormone free, grass fed beef from Rosas Farms in Ocala, and Ashlen Farms here on the outskirts of Jacksonville. So good. Steak Frites - Hanger steak, red wine jus, house made pommes frites. Entrees $$ Range - Just to name a few...Lobster Pot Pie (This is SO good) - Poached lobster, lobster broth, English Chances are that when you come in for the first time, the menu will look something like this. But it will be on paper, with much cooler formatting than I can manage here Questions, suggestions, and other various forms of feedback are encouraged. Sea Scallop Tartare - Key lime, cucumber, fleur de sel Plateaux (Petite et Grand) - Oysters, clams, mussels, lobster, shrimp, seasonal selections Charcuterie Pate du Jour - Dijon mustard, cornichons Trois Foie Mousse - Chicken liver, duck liver, foie gras, Vidalia onion marmalade Duck Rillettes - Pommery mustard, cornichons Hors d'Oeuvres Prince Edward Island Mussels - White wine, garlic, butter, thyme Littleneck Clams - Andouille, lager, extra virgin olive oil Roasted Oysters - Spinach, house made bacon, Parmigiano Reggiano Sea Scallops - Roasted beets, truffled goat cheese, citrus vinaigrette Calamari - Sauteed or fried, tomato, basil, nicoise olives Crab Beignets - Roasted corn, potato, spicy aioli Escargots - Lemon, herbs, garlic butter fondue Hudson Valley Foie Gras - Georgia peaches, buttered French Pantry brioche, sweet tea gastrique Steak Tartare - Capers, red onion, mustard oil Soups / Salads Onion Soup - Crispy baguette, broiled Gruyere Soup du Jour - Soup of the day Haricots Verts Salad - French green beans, roasted hazelnuts, crème fraiche vinaigrette Orsay Salad - Organic greens, house pickled baby vegetables, champagne vinaigrette Spinach Salad - Buttermilk bleu cheese, spiced pecans, granny smith apples, bacon vinaigrette Shrimp Salad - Organic greens, poached wild local shrimp, avocado, crispy shallots, creamy shrimp nage Sandwiches -with house made pommes frites or petite salad Hamburger - Grass fed Rosas Farms beef, garlic aioli, traditional garniture Croque Madame - Spiced pork shoulder, broiled Gruyere, baguette, roasted garlic cream, fried egg Tartine du Jour - Tartine of the day Entrees Omelet - Goat cheese, fine herbs, petite salad Prince Edward Island Mussels Frites - White wine, garlic, butter, thyme, house made pommes frites Carolina Trout - Glazed haricots verts, toasted Marcona almonds, lemon brown butter vinaigrette Whole Roasted Fish - Fennel, tomato, artichokes, Nicoise olives, fingerling potatoes Alaskan Halibut - Clams, mussels, Arborio rice, saffron shellfish broth Lobster Pot Pie - Poached lobster, lobster broth, English peas, baby carrots, biscuit crust Coq au Vin - Pan roasted breast, red wine braised thigh, house made bacon, mushrooms, organic pasta Duck Breast - Lentils du Puy, cippolini onions, roasted duck jus Pork Chop - Braised cabbage, roasted fingerling potatoes, Pommery mustard cream Steak Frites - Hanger steak, red wine jus, house made pommes frites Filet Mignon - Truffled mashed potatoes, wild mushrooms, house made bacon, asparagus Grove Farms Lamb - Seared rib chop, ragout of braised leg, Israeli couscous, summer vegetables WOW! That was a mouthful, but Crystal totally provided every detail. Great job! She also sent over a few pics of the work-in-progress (click the thumbnails for full size).Brian Siebenschuh (My husband) was the original Sous Chef at Crush when it opened. I wooed him away about 3 years ago to come work with me in the wine business, and when Crush closed back in August, we set out on our way to try and get it back open. We were put in contact with Jonathon Insetta & discovered we all wanted to do the same thing: take all of the great things about Crush and make them better, but make it more approachable, affordable, etc... So we partnered up last December, and have been working away ever since.
Our Crew:
become MySpace Friends or FaceBook Fans. We plan to send out special invites via those sites.
peas, baby carrots, biscuit crust. Whole Roasted Fish (This dish is Gorgeous) - Fennel, tomato, artichokes, Nicoise olives, fingerling potatoes. Grove Farms Lamb (It’s a take on "Lamb Two Ways) - Seared rib chop, ragout of braised leg, Israeli couscous, summer vegetables.
Raw Bar
Oysters
• West Coast
• East Coast
• Gulf Coast
Shrimp Cocktail - Poached wild local shrimp, house made cocktail sauce, fresh horseradish.
8 comments:
THANK YOU FOR BRINGING BACK MUSSELES AND FRITES! THE BEST THING ON THE ORIGINAL CRUSH MENU!
Quoted from the article: "Guests - We FULLY recognize how lucky we are to be here, and have every intent to make sure that each guest that walks through our doors knows how thankful we are that they chose to spend their evening with us."
This is critical. Just before moving away to Chicago for a couple years I had the pleasure of eating the food at Crush and the simultaneous misfortune of dealing with a rather snobby and rude floor staff. We spent well over $1,000 in the restaurant that evening but ultimately were not made to feel as though we were welcome, and consequently, I'm not aware that any of us ever returned or brought others there. This was a group of young professionals - lawyers, junior executives, realtors, some of the senior Super Bowl Host Committee staff, not the junior prom.
Hopefully the new management will recognize that the most important thing about a great meal is accommodating guests' ability to enjoy it with friends.
Why does Jacksonville insist on dinner AND A SHOW? Would you have felt more welcome if the servers were dressed in clown costumes and sang to you? Seems that "young" and "junior" whatevers always require some kind of entertainment. Learn to make your own and leave the restaurant staff alone.
My biggest problem with Crush was the heat inside, the long waits (mostly due to the patronage), parking and most importantly, they pared their menu down and got rid of some of my favorites including the raw bar and the spaghetti lamb ragout. The prices on top of that didn't help either. We never left there for under $100. After awhile we only went there for special ocassions mostly for the tender loin (the only item left I liked) which you could cut like butter... mmmm it was so good. As far as the staff while I never felt personally slighted, I will say just a simple smile on someones face goes a long way to making people feel welcome and comfortable. I'm looking forward to checking out Orsay.
I went to Crush twice, and the waitstaff was exemplary. This can be a tough town for a server for a few different reasons.
I deal with alot of "young professionals, junior executives, etc." and find myself sleeping through board (bored) meetings quite often. As tacky as it may be to lump certain individuals into one category, I think we can all agree that the aforementioned demographic's reputation as stuffy and slightly difficult to please is at least somewhat well deserved.
At Crush, I did have the good fortune of meeting Ms. Vessels, and found her to be charming, personable, and very sexy in a "Riverside NPR" sort of way. Siebenschuh's talents are the stuff of legend around the Riverside community, and I plan on putting his rep to the test. Orsay sounds like exactly the kind of place I can fight off sleep while meeting with my staff, or bring a sexy Russian ballerina for dinner with the new D.A. and an old friend. I'm a busy man, but I will make some time to check out Restaurant Orsay.
As long as the staff is friendly and they don't price themselves out of the market, I think Orsay will do quite well!
Ahhh...come on people, you have to call a spade a spade.
Crush definitely got s-n-o-t-t-y...no wait...that's not accurate...S-N-O-T-T-Y is more like it, especially towards the end of their run. It really seemed like the more their business dried up, the worse they would treat the few unfortunate souls who hadn't been warned about them yet and tried to eat there.
On two different nights, I saw other tables get into arguments with snotty servers and snotty management, and I was pretty well disgusted with how the situations were handled. The first time, they brought out the guy's entree at the table next to ours a good 15-20 minutes after his wife got her meal, and then something or another wasn't right when he finally did get it.
He started off pretty polite about it, but the server kept trying to give him the blow-off and it kept escalating. He finally asked that it be taken off his bill, and the snot server kept arguing with him about it, telling him it was what he had ordered (when it wasn't, or the guy wouldn't be bitching in the first place), and that still didn't explain the delay in bringing it.
It wasn't until he actually yelled "You can either take it off the bill now, or I'm going to do a chargeback with my credit card as soon as I get home, the choice is yours" that they actually took it off the bill. They never apologized, and never offered a replacement entree. That couple wound up walking out.
The other 'incident' I saw was a party of somewhere around 10-12 people. They had nothing but issues, and at least from what I could tell they weren't looking for things to complain about, like some people on this page were saying above. The service really did suck azz. They were already seated when we came in, and by the time our table had already eaten through our appetizers and were halfway through our entrees, the group table still hadn't even received their apps! Their water glasses were constantly empty, and the server finally brought two pitchers and slammed them down on their table, and walked off without pouring it for them. I think it was a pharmaceutical dinner or something.
Anyway, the guy who looked like the host had to get up from the table 2 or 3 times to go find the server, who was avoiding him at all costs. He finally snagged the server, and the two of them walked in the back by the bathrooms, and you could hear them yelling at each other, though I couldn't hear clearly what they were saying. I can't imagine there was anything to fight about, the only thing the server should have had to say was "I'm sorry".
I probably ate there 20+ times during their run, and almost every time there was some incident happening to someone that was just plain ridiculous, be it attitude, servers who would hide from people, or at the beginning people would come in with reservations and they wouldn't honor them. I was also continually amazed at how they would leave people standing at the door for 10 minutes before seating them, when half the tables in the place were empty.
I never had any issues with them personally, other than the whole "We're going to ignore you for 10 minutes while you stand by the door waiting to be seated, even though all the tables are empty" thing, but I really think that my lack of conflict with them was just pure luck. Ugh. They were so bad towards the end!
Not to mention the prices! I went to their soft opening, with my friend Jeremiah who knew some of the employees, and it was great. They had that hanger steak I liked, and everything was good. Then a year or so after they opened, all the prices doubled, the service started sucking, and overblown egos and attitudes were sprouting like mushrooms after a rainstorm. When I first started going, they would have wine dinners, and they had a fantastic wine selection of unusual stuff that was pretty reasonably priced. Then, same as the food, the prices all doubled or tripled, and the quality of the wine selections went down, if anything. That, combined with watching a couple of blowups between the staff and other people, made me quit going.
Hopefully Orsay doesn't go down the same path, or they'll be dead in the water soon enough. I really hope they learn from their mistakes, as Crush was great for its first year or so, and it just went downhill after that. It was sad.
Wow.... its pretty suprising for me to see everyone badmouthing Crush's staff. I think it would be good to get a perspective from someone who worked there.
I wasn't a Server, but I was a server assistant and had about just as much interaction with the costumers as the servers. Now I can admit most of the servers were lazy (having me do just about everything except take the order), but I never saw them intentionally pick a fight with people. Most of the servers worked lunch shifts at other restaurants 7 days a week. While that isn't an excuse for acting rude to a table, you have to admit dealing with Riverside/Avondale people can be quite a burden.
Also, its not like any of the service staff could have been more pissy the closer we came to closing because we didn't even know until the night before. Sure we had an idea something was up in our last week, but its not like we knew months in advance.
I'm planning on going up to Orsay in the next couple of weeks. I loved working at and with the people at crush, and can't wait to get some of Crush's old dishes !
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