Dusty's Cellar

Cindy and I like good restaurants. We go to Philadelphia every year for reasons other than the food, but the great Philly restaurants are always the high point, from the pork sandwich stand in Reading Terminal Market to the great little arty 8-table holes in the wall down by South St. So when we go to a local restaurant that is presenting itself as "fine dining" in the class of real (expensive) restaurants, we tend to view it through more critical eyes (and mouths) than we do the local red sauce joint.

Dusty's Cellar, the next restaurant on Grand River, poses as a fine restaurant. Entrees run in the mid-20s to upper-30s. So let's rate it as such.

And what's the short answer? Pretty bad, for a gourmet restaurant. As Cindy put it, it tastes like good banquet food. (She doesn't mean that as much of a compliment.) As if there's a competent cook in the kitchen but not a chef.

My pork loins crusted with macadamia yadayada and maple glaze: Banquet food all the way. Dry, gristly, relatively tasteless (let's face it) pork chops. The stir-fry veggies were even cold. Cindy's something-or-other crusted white fish? Same deal. Eh. Not bad. But we were paying mid-20s for this banquet food, so I think we have a right to be a little critical.

But here's the real clincher: The rolls, always a good first test, had been brushed with water and reheated (we all know that trick). They were rock hard (but crispy) to start with, becoming just rock hard as they cooled. Almost impossible to eat. How hard is it to serve decent bread or rolls? Too hard, apparently. I didn't bother giving Dusty's my final test: How's the coffee? (It's amazing how often fancy restaurants have mediocre or bad coffee.) So I can't report on that.

Final tally:
Will we go back? Probably, when we need to take a job applicant out to dinner. Certainly never when it's on our dime.
Rating on a scale of 1-10 = 5.