One Eleven is culinary heaven

A recent $16 chef’s choice lunch at One Eleven at the Capital (from front left) included a salmon tartare “starter,” a small cup of gazpacho (soup of the day), a quartered quail on a bed of lentils in onion broth, a roll, a brie wedge (not visible) and raspberry cremeux for dessert.
A recent $16 chef’s choice lunch at One Eleven at the Capital (from front left) included a salmon tartare “starter,” a small cup of gazpacho (soup of the day), a quartered quail on a bed of lentils in onion broth, a roll, a brie wedge (not visible) and raspberry cremeux for dessert.

Once upon a time -- well, up until a couple of months ago, actually -- the Capital Hotel had a formal restaurant called Ashley's. It has always been at or near the top of local gastronomic excellence, but the advent three years ago of globe-trotting, award-winning chef Joel Antunes promised something even more extraordinary.

It has taken him those three years. But the result is the world-class restaurant that the Stephens family, which owns the hotel, wanted when they hired him. And it's a big upgrade for Little Rock diners and travelers from the far corners of the earth.

One Eleven at the Capital

Address: 111 W. Markham St., Little Rock

Hours: 6:30-10 a.m. Monday-Friday, 6:30-11 a.m. Saturday-Sunday; 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday-Friday; 5:30-9 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 5:30-10 p.m. Friday-Saturday; starting Sunday, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Sunday for brunch

Cuisine: Convivial Continental

Credit cards: V, MC, AE, D

Alcoholic beverages: Full bar and then some

Reservations: Yes, advised

Wheelchair accessible: Yes

Carryout: Yes

(501) 370-7011

oneelevenatthecapit…

The restaurant has a new name to go with its new status: One Eleven at the Capital reflects not only the street address of the hotel (111 W. Markham St.) but the Stephens family's first business address, which was 111 Main St.

A recent major remodeling and expansion of the kitchen has made all sorts of things possible for the menu that Antunes couldn't do before (like three high-end steaks, a whole grilled lobster and prime Beef Rossini with seared foie gras).

And the dining room has had a major face-lift, fulfilling hotel officials' vows back in May when it stated it would make the place more "convivial" but still classy.

It's much more open and much less constricting and restrictive. The massive structure that divided -- and sort of ghetto-ized -- the dining room is gone, and the mirror-bearing pillars don't obstruct the view. There's now a lot of glass and stone and plenty of external light; seating is at tables and gray-fuzzed banquettes topped at dinner with white tablecloths and at lunch by custom-made placemats. A series of eight tasteful abstract collages and hand-screened prints, studies for sculptures by internationally prominent New York artist Joel Shapiro, add considerable class.

Diners enter through a pair of long folding doors into what was originally billed as a lobby bar, and now goes by name of "The Zinc Bar," because it's topped with a single sheet of zinc. Behind the bar, in addition to the usual spread of liquors and liqueurs, is a vast area of wine storage and a fancy, temperature-controlled wine server that allows the bar to pour, by the glass, some fairly expensive vintages it would otherwise be selling for several hundred dollars a bottle.

The two dozen or so menu additions come at the higher and lower ends of the scale so it's possible, with a little care and choosing, and avoiding the wine list (which is so extensive it has a table of contents), you can get out for slightly less than you used to pay for a meal at Ashley's.

We had one of the most phenomenal feeding experiences in more than three decades of keeping track of area restaurants with One Eleven's $16 Chef's Daily Selection Express Lunch, a combo du jour consisting of small portions of soup, appetizer, main course, cheese, bread and dessert. It's worth the slight wait -- we thought it would come out a course at a time, but all six arrived on a crenelated tray-plate specially designed so that each of the small dishes would fit exactly into a bay and not slide around as it traveled. And it was worth every penny we paid.

We started on the upper left of the plate with the soup of the day, a wee cup of slightly vinegary and whipped smooth but excellent gazpacho (we discovered later that if you order a whole portion you get the standard chopped or cubed vegetables and croutons to dump into it), then proceeded to the "starter," chopped salmon tartare in a citric, almost aiolilike dressing. Mmmm.

It was the entree that won us, heart and soul: a perfectly prepared quail, served in quarters, practically fat free and quite possibly the most succulent fowl we have ever consumed. It came on a bed of lentils in an onion broth that we shoveled down as fast as we could; indeed, the only drawback to the entire meal was trying to get a spoon into the confines of the crenelated dish to get the remainders.

We cracked open one of Antunes' signature small rolls and inserted the small wedge of brie to create a tiny brie sandwich, and finished off with a smooth and delicious raspberry cremeux dessert.

We couldn't wait to get back there for dinner -- and a couple of attempts were foiled by not having made a reservation. (There's full service at the bar and a sort of overflow outdoor dining balcony over the hotel entrance, but the experience certainly wouldn't have been the same.)

We got a surprise when we revisited the French onion soup with Gruyere cheese ($10): Under the thick crust of toasted Gruyere that slightly slopped over the edge of the porcelain crock was, not the brown onion consomme-style broth we'd expected, but a just-as-tasty cream of spring onion. Turns out Antunes will be changing the soup seasonally; you can expect the brown-broth version to come back later this fall.

The Yellowfin Tuna Tartare ($16), one of nearly a dozen cold appetizers, was prepared the same way as our salmon tartare lunch "starter," in the same citrus dressing, but, of course, in a much larger glass dish.

With the Organic Beetroot Salad With Burrata Cheese ($13), which we sampled at an invitation-only soft opening, Antunes has managed something we never thought was possible: He got us to eat beets. Willingly. It's also one of the components of another Antunes lunch concoction: the "Three Cocottes" quick lunch (with a tangy asparagus soup and diver scallops, $14).

The grilled Maine lobster ($34) looked kind of menacing on the plate -- halved and grilled until the legs were slightly blackened. And, of course, it's always a lot of work (and some waste) any time you're picking bits of lobster out of the shell. But it was superb and the accompanying ginger-spring onion butter, served in a little pitcher, actually accented the lobster meat.

With great regret and a touch of financial responsibility, we passed up the three new steaks (Wagyu skirt steak, $32; 14-ounce grilled prime New York steak, $44; and the 24-ounce prime cowboy steak, $59) and the Prime Beef Rossini with seared foie gras ($37).

Instead, we tried and enjoyed an entree that had intrigued us on the former Ashley's menu: the Venison Ravioli with wild mushrooms and basil ($27), an iron crock containing firm, semi-luna meat ravioli plus two large, lean, tender venison collops on top, plenty of fresh basil and chunks of wild mushrooms, in a tangy gravy-broth. (We may have left a shred or two of basil at the bottom of the crock.)

Absolutely save room for dessert, because you do not want to pass up the chocolate souffle ($13), which we now put among the area's most outstanding confections -- more cake-y than egg-y, made with dark chocolate and just sweet enough, served with a little dish of vanilla Chantilly cream (you're responsible for breaking the top open and spooning in your own).

We can also certainly recommend the parfaitlike Caramel Semifreddo ($9), house-made ice cream layered with caramel, chocolate streusel and, at the bottom, chocolate-dipped roasted coffee beans.

Service, which has gotten friendlier since Antunes took charge, is just still formal enough to make you feel like a prized customer. Which is another reason to go back early and often. For the foreseeable future, though, we strongly recommend you make that dinner reservation if you expect to get in before 8:30 or 9 p.m.

Weekend on 09/11/2014

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