And here we find ourselves at yet another John Currence restaurant. We’ve visited Big Bad Breakfast, Boure, and Snack Bar, and as we’ve made our way through Currence’s Oxford offerings, we’ve noticed one unmistakable pattern: There is a stark imbalance between the accolades and celebrity Currence enjoys, and the quality of dining experience his restaurants deliver. We’ve held out the possibility that the kitchens just had off nights, or that we’ve had the misfortune of ordering the one clunker on the menu, but after our visit to City Grocery, we’re left with little choice but to conclude that Currence is either phoning it in, or he just doesn’t have what it takes to deliver a superior dining experience. Nothing else explains the insistent mediocrity we’ve seen over four of his operations spanning the course of three years.
LOCATION: 9.3
City Grocery has been in its present location on the Oxford Square for what seems like forever, but we remember it as the former location of Syd & Harry’s, where we enjoyed many great memories back in the day. On weeknights and when school is out, parking can be very convenient and just steps away on the square. On weekends when the students are in town, especially home football games, count on parking off the square and walking a few blocks.
ATMOSPHERE: 7.8
Exposed brick walls, beaded-board ceiling, dark wood accents, and the comfortable, arrested-decay aesthetic of the square is on full display here.
SERVICE: 7.2
Sufficiently attentive, friendly but not intrusive.
FOOD: 5.8
Let’s dispense with the Caesar Salad first. Copious amounts of lettuce, nice little thin-toasted croutons, but a serious shortage of dressing, and… black olives? Why? Edible but hardly memorable, except for the oddity of the olives. That may actually stick in our memory for a while.
We’ve talked before — in fact, in our review of Boure, another of Currence’s restaurants — about how shrimp and grits is one of those dishes we use to gauge the talent and skill of the kitchen staff, and as a baseline of what we can probably expect with other dishes on the menu.
Here’s the “science,” or at least the rationale, behind that theory and approach: Shrimp and grits is not a dish with a narrow recipe spectrum like, say, Beef Wellington. That dish is a beef tenderloin, coated in mustard, wrapped in ham or prosciutto, mushroom duxelle, and pastry. Pâté is optional (and preferable) but not required. Veer outside of those parameters, though, and you quickly depart from what the world understands Beef Wellington to be.
We’re well aware that shrimp and grits has a long tradition in two culinary strongholds: Carolina low-country, and Louisiana, where both Cajun and Creole preparations have long histories. We know that there are significant variations between those traditions. However, their similarities are much stronger than their differences, and thus the dish is hardly a blank canvas on which the chef is free to paint his loopiest culinary visions.
You have to make a smart choice on the grits: Instant or “quick” grits are a non-starter. Virtually no brand found on major supermarket shelves is suitable. That said, there are a number of brands that are easily available at stores like Whole Foods and Fresh Market, and online at the usual foodie sites, that work great in the dish.
Preparing grits is, admittedly, trickier than most people realize, even those who eat them frequently. The corn-to-liquid ratio is key. Too little liquid, and the grits are crunchy and caky. Too much, and they get soupy and lack the structure to serve as a base for the shrimp, veggies, and sauce. But they’re not so difficult to prepare that a kitchen supposedly working at the top of Oxford’s food scene should have any problem with them. Why, then, could the edges of our grits be lifted off the plate like a slice of pizza? Was it because they were poorly warmed up? Because they were plated and sat there so long they cooled down and congealed before making it to our table?
Vegetable choices are flexible but not limitless. Onion, celery, bell pepper, and garlic are the classic, but at home we’ll occasionally throw in outliers like diced zucchini, or a little brunoise of carrots for a touch of sweetness and texture. We think mushrooms are on the extreme outside edge of what should be included in any shrimp and grits preparation, but if you’re a creative chef, then let’s see how you incorporate them. We’re open to pushing that envelope, especially from a chef as hyped as Currence. Why, though, are mushrooms the “featured” vegetable, to the point they’re listed on the menu in the dish’s description – and as far as we can see, the ONLY vegetable – especially when they taste as though nothing special has been done to them other than sautéed in some oil or butter?
The sauce is another component that allows for some flexibility and creativity. We prefer a classic combination of reduced seafood stock, white wine, Worcestershire, and butter, enough to provide another layer of flavor as well as moisture to the dish. We don’t care for sauces that include cream, but we won’t go so far as to say they’re out of bounds, provided they don’t dominate the dish or turn what should be slightly stiff grits into a cream-of-corn-meal soup. Why, then, is there nothing that we can see or taste in the way of a sauce?
Finally there’s the shrimp. In Mississippi, there are four distinct tiers of latitude that have a huge effect on the freshness and flavor one can expect of Gulf shrimp. There’s the I-10 coastal latitude itself, where discerning diners expect the shrimp to be perfectly fresh from the boat, having been swimming only hours earlier. There’s the Highway 98, Hattiesburg/Natchez latitude, where one can still enjoy shrimp that have never been frozen, but they will have travelled on ice for, at best, an hour or two before reaching the restaurant (and at least another hour or two before reaching your plate). There’s the I-20, Meridian/Jackson/Vicksburg latitude, where it’s still possible to receive never-frozen shrimp, but with a significantly higher degree of difficulty in getting them prepped and into a dish.
Then there’s everything north of there, which includes Oxford. This is not to say that a fanatical chef can’t get never-frozen shrimp fresh from the Gulf, but the cold reality of time and space make it a very expensive proposition: Oxford is a six-hour drive from the coast, which means that shrimp that comes off the boat shortly after dawn can’t be there until it’s too late to prep them for lunch. It’s possible to put them in front of diners for the evening service, but it requires rigid attention to proper holding and handling. For these reasons, it’s usually easier and less expensive for restaurants to deal with a frozen product.
This may sound like we’re preparing you for excuses as to why restaurants as far north as Oxford can be excused for putting lackluster shrimp in front of customers, but we’re not. Freezing shrimp doesn’t automatically mean a degraded product, or at least a product so degraded that it has no hope of resembling what comes straight off the dock. As Paul Prudhomme noted 40 years ago, freezing can actually help shrimp. What matters, though, is how they’re handled and prepped after they’re thawed. We won’t go into the details of how that’s done, but suffice it to say it’s not particularly expensive either in labor or equipment. It simply takes some attention to details like thawing, handling, and temperature.
Now, we’re well aware that deveining shrimp is labor-intensive, and puts pressure on the crucial requirements involved in holding the prepped shrimp at proper temperature before cooking, but again we’re constantly being told that Currence’s operations are top-notch, and this is a task that should be well within their capabilities. Why, then, are we given overcooked, un-deveined shrimp, lacking in any color from grilling, broiling, sautéing, or even seasoning?
It would be one thing if, for example, we had had stellar shrimp and grits from another of Currence’s restaurants, say Boure. At least then we could have said, ‘Currence obviously knows how to do the dish well, he just missed the target with this version of it.’ But as you can see from our review of it, the dish was a disaster there as well, just of a different kind.
What we got at Boure was a massive, cream-heavy, soupy mess dominated by andouille sausage. What we got at City Grocery was a tiny, bland, dry, and altogether unremarkable mess. For which, it must be noted, we paid $36.
And if you think we’re pontificating about things about which we know nothing, have a look at what we put on our home table whenever we make shrimp and grits.
Our companions were very generous with their entrees, and because of their generosity we got a taste of three entrees in addition to the shrimp and grits.
The beef kebabs were good, but if we’re being honest, they were only marginally better than what you can get at Keifer’s in Jackson or any of the dozen Keifer’s clones around town.. The halibut was good, but again, nothing remarkable. It was probably a slightly better choice than the kebabs — the roast cauliflower mash on which the halibut was served was a good match.
But now we came to the pork chop. Honestly, the less said about this dish, the better. Flintstone-scale proportions, downright weird flavors, dry and overcooked. Our companion struggled to come up with anything positive to say about it. The best she could muster was: “It’s… weird.” When the server took it away, over half of it was uneaten.
Sigh.
Between Boure and City Grocery, Currence occupies two of the square’s three prime pieces of real estate (the other being Square Books), so it’s a shame that the products coming out of them are, frankly, thoroughly mediocre and undeserving of their locations. And look at the scoring: It’s not the service, it’s not the location, it’s not the atmosphere. It’s the food. Always the food. Questionable choices in recipes, lackluster ingredients, preparation and technique that rarely rise above the merely competent, and often slip below acceptable for a professional kitchen.
We’ve said in previous reviews that we’re still waiting to be blown away by a John Currence restaurant. At this point, though, we’ve abandoned such hope. The good news for Currence is, our expectations are now so low as to be almost impossible not to exceed.