If the term “museum restaurant” conjures up images of cafeteria trays and tired salad bars, let go of what you know. From The Modern—Danny Meyer’s Bauhaus restaurant inside the Museum of Modern Art—to restaurateur Ralph Brennan’s quick bites bistro Café NOMA inside the New Orleans Museum of Art, a new day is dawning at cultural institutions across the country. With the opening of Encantada, set inside the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM), restaurateur Robbin Haas is hoping to make his mark.
Like the visionary artists whose works are displayed in the museum, Haas, who also owns Birroteca and The Nickel Taphouse, has a unique vision, a veggie-themed fantasy that taps into the trend of vegetables as the new meat. (Close your eyes and you’ll find that the fried cauliflower dabbed in house-made buffalo sauce is as satisfying as any piece of protein.) And while the theme of Encantada, which means “enchanted” in Spanish, highlights locally sourced, plant-centric plates, the menu, designed by former Birroteca executive chef Melanie Molinaro, is not strictly vegetarian or vegan. Also, know before you go that dishes come and go with the seasons.
On our first visit, a gorgeous September evening, my companions and I were seated on the terrace with its spectacular views of Federal Hill and Vollis Simpson’s gargantuan whirligig seemingly within arm’s reach. The entire space, which includes a 64-seat dining room with church-pew seating evokes a Tim Burton set piece with its fanciful Suzani fabrics and works by visionary artists such as Deepak Chowdhury and Mary Proctor on the walls. The space is the artful expression of Haas and AVAM founder Rebecca Hoffberger,
who closely collaborated on the design. And while the interior is extraordinary, the kitchen still has some kinks.
The entire space evokes a Tim Burton set piece with church-pew seating and fanciful fabrics.
As we moved into our meal, we sampled an array of small plates, including fried chickpeas seasoned with house-made barbecue sauce (a crispy and light play on barbecued chips), house-made honey wheat bread with fig jam (sadly not much better than what comes out of my own bread machine), and a dish of “deviled” turnips with puréed chickpeas and tofu as a stand-in for eggs.
While I appreciated that this dish dared to be different, and the stuffed turnip successfully mimicked a deviled egg in looks and taste, the texture was a bit crunchy, and I found myself craving the real deal. Still, vegans will likely find this non-dairy option an appealing alternative. More noteworthy noshes included a creamy house-made burrata paired with grilled peaches and English peas and an heirloom tomato salad brightened by black garlic purée and a sprinkle of sea salt. The tomatoes were flecked with olive-oil powder—olive oil mixed with maltodextrin—which is meant to deliver a concentrated flavor as it melts in the mouth. I found it more distracting than delicious.