Veritable Quandary

Veritable Quandary website

Location: West side of the river, downtown

Price to fill up two people (minus booze): $80-$90

Once again–what is it with European restaurants and priciness?–this is NOT budget fare, but I have to mention this place. I was driving a colleague from work back to her hotel one stormy evening. Unwisely, she depended on my sense of navigation to find the place, but I can get lost circling my own block. After 30 or 40 minutes of fruitless hunting, frustrated, soggy and hungry, we saw a warm glow from a distant restaurant, Veritable Quandary. We decided to slosh on inside for a fortifying burger.

Surprise–if there’s a burger in this joint somebody smothered it in truffles and served it with a nice mid-century French cognac. In fact, Veritable Quandary is a topflight continental restaurant with an imaginative (and tasty) menu and pupil-dilating prices. So much for the burger, but the food was delicious.

What I liked best, though, was the service–quiet, graceful and above all friendly to underdressed, soaking wet plebes like us. The restaurant itself wasn’t your usual overprecious ain’t-we-so-classy expensive restaurant decor, but more Portland-meets-Monmartre and settles in for a beignet. We’d stumbled onto serious cuisine that didn’t take itself seriously, and that was probably the most delicious dish of all.

Since writing this, I’ve been told that VQ actually DOES have a burger. It’s not smothered in truffles, but apparently it does offer aoli instead of mayo…I’ll bet it’s pretty tasty.

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