Back to the Grill Portland's Godfather of fine dining stays the courses with new faces BY ANDY KING
	The Back Bay Grill The Back Bay Grill 65 Portland St., Portland, (207) 772-8833. Open for dinner, Wed. through Sun. Reservations recommended. Full bar and bar menu.

The Back Bay Grill is a Portland institution that, strangely, many tend to gloss over when recommending a restaurant in the city. There’s no real reason to forget about it. The food has always been well respected, the service is as good as anywhere else in Portland, it has a nice lounge area, et cetera, et cetera. I have a sneaking suspicion it’s about physical placement. Back Bay Grill isn’t located in the Old Port or the water-view Downtown area (or the "Arts District" — Does that make lower India Street our "Meatpacking District?"). It’s like five blocks from Monument Square, and to some, that’s just not hip enough. Within a cobblestone’s throw of Commercial Street are far worse restaurants with food that evokes steady streams of superlatives despite glaring shortcomings.

On the other hand, the Back Bay Grill has a fiercely loyal following who tend to fill seats even on the most snow-blinded January evenings. The crowd is slightly older — perhaps they enjoy forgoing the parking nightmare further shoreward — and quieter, and more willing to pay the prices that any established fine-dining establishment in Portland can seemingly command at will. The expansive mural depicting the early days of the restaurant still hangs above the plush leather wall benches, documenting its history and characters as a tapestry might in a polished European foyer. On the other side of the restaurant, a year-old "lounge" — a revamped bar area with bar menu — is slowly seeing a younger crowd warm up to it, and recently there has been a bit of a shake-up in the kitchen.

Last month, Chef/Owner Larry Mathews Jr. took his ownership of the restaurant a step further by taking over the management of the front of the house, while still overseeing what goes on behind the line; he has been the Executive Chef there for going on seven years. To that end, he has promoted two-year Back Bay Grill veteran and Maine native Robert Hartman to the position of Chef de Cuisine, and hired on Harding Lee Smith — another Mainer and most recently Executive Chef of Mims Brasserie — as the kitchen’s Sous Chef. So if you’re wondering why someone in a cook’s whites is taking your coat or wine order, that’s Chef Matthews. One coat, many hats.

The wine list contains very much what you would expect from a restaurant bedecked with respected recommendations. For those who don’t want to gamble on a bottle, there’s an attractive selection of wines by the glass, as well as equally priced flights of three; for diners who know their stuff, there’s a world of labels (literally) to choose from. If you’re not sure how something will pair with your meal, be sure to ask; the Burgundy I chose with my Braised Beef Short Rib Ravioli did nothing to cut through the otherwise delicious richness of the beef and sage brown butter sauce (the radicchio slaw didn’t help, unfortunately, it was just bitter). I would have been much better off with a crisp Sauvignon Blanc for balance.

The ingredients in the parsnip soup, however, were in complete entrainment with each other. In fact, both times I have recently dined at this restaurant, the soups have been almost perfect; the first was a roasted garlic and Yukon potato, this one contained truffle oil and cubes of fried pancetta as well as the white, peppery root vegetables. A velvet background to a standoff between smooth/earthy and crispy/salty, all components played out wonderfully. It was one gorgeous bookend to the meal. The other we hadn’t ordered yet.

The decadent Filet was this time grilled and served with Gorgonzola cheese, seared Brussels sprouts, and tourned carrots — a classic French knife cut which results in the product looking like a small football with exactly seven sides. Whether done for kicks or because the Pats are about to win the Super Bowl I’m not sure, but I appreciated the effort either way. In cutting through the picturesque cylinder of beef, I couldn’t quite tell if the slight toughness of the filet was a result of overcooking (I ordered medium rare, got medium) or the state of my very dull steak knife. Both are quick fixes, but for the price I would have liked to have seen it right the first time around. The Scottish salmon was presented as a cutout cylinder of fish, the sauce (a fashionable foam) over the top, sitting on its starch (wild rice pilaf) and surrounded by vegetables (fennel confit). Again, the salmon was cooked slightly over the suggested medium rare, and again, it didn’t suffer pikes for it. But when the server explains to you how it will be cooked, it should arrive that way.

All was forgotten over Caramel Ice Cream — the best single dish of ice cream in the city, in my opinion, and the other bookend — and through the remembrance of dishes past: the Lavender Marinated Duck Breast, the Fried Veal Sweetbreads with demiglace, the Maytage Blue Cheese Martini . . . the Back Bay Grill is as much a standard-bearer for the food in Portland as anywhere else, and should continue to be recognized as such.

Andy King can be reached at dinnerwithandy@yahoo.com