Melt Bar & Grilled Soft Open Invite Giveaway

Sadly, I am not able to attend the soft opening of the new East Side outpost of Melt Bar & Grilled. That's good news for one person and a guest, though, because I'm giving away my invitation! (Thanks, Matt.) The open house is on Wednesday, May 19, between the hours of 6 and 10 p.m. After RSVPing in advance, you can simply show up with this pass and dine for free. Sweet grilled cheese!

The shop officially opens to the public on Friday, May 21.

To win, simply follow me @dougtrattner and tweet the following post:

@dougtrattner is giving away a pass for 2 to eat @MeltBarGrilled for free before they open! Visit http://trattner.blogspot.com

I'll announce the winner on the @dougtrattner Twitter page on Monday, May 3. If it’s you, send me a direct message via Twitter within 24 hours.

Alan Glazen: Man on a (Tasty) Mission

On pace to open five new eateries in just 18 month's time, Alan Glazen is the most ambitious restaurateur you've never heard of. In contrast to chefs like Bruell and Symon, who slowly and deliberately expand their culinary portfolios, Glazen seems hell bent on opening as many new joints as possible. After unveiling last year Erie Island Coffee on E. Fourth Street, Glazen then provided the start-up cash for Bonbon Bake Shop in the Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood. Next up was ABC Tavern, where he teamed up with Randy Kelley and Linda Syrek, who also run the West Side Market Café. Before the end of the year, Glazen will open a Rocky River outpost of Erie Island and a Detroit-Shoreway restaurant called XYZ Tavern, also with Kelley and Syrek as his partners.

"I never worked a day in my life outside downtown Cleveland," Glazen offers as motivation. "I want to be part of bringing this city back."

At an age when many retired businessmen hoard their cash and hit the links, Glazen, 61, is negotiating leases and writing fat checks. He scours Cleveland's urban neighborhoods – Ohio City, Detroit-Shoreway, Collinwood – for overlooked diamonds that he can buff back to life. Because he doesn't know the first thing about running a restaurant, he partners with operators who do.

"We take great old-school places, clean them up, and bring them back to their former glory," Glazen explains. To judge the success of the formula in action, simply visit ABC Tavern. For decades, ABC was the "old-man bar" that urban hipsters dodged during Ohio City pub crawls. Sure, folks occasionally dropped in for an ironic PBR, but reliably, the joint was Lamesville. These days it's tough to buy a stool. Popular with service industry pros and the people who love them, ABC rocks hard and long until the wee hours of the night.

So, how does a busy tavern save Cleveland? When you elevate one place, says Glazen, you elevate the entire block. A thriving block becomes a destination – an entertainment district, for lack of a better phrase. The higher concentration of destinations, the broader the geographic reach. "People think the suburbs are the competition," explains Glazen. "You simply can't recreate these cool urban settings in Westlake. They tried, and they failed miserably. Hip young people do not want to hang out at Crocker Park. Cleveland can chip away at the suburbs, they can't chip away at us."

"I had a lot of fame in my career," Glazen says matter-of-factly while sipping a cappuccino in his E. Fourth Street coffee shop. One of Cleveland's own Mad Men, Glazen is enshrined in the Advertising Hall of Fame. His upstart Glazen Creative was, as he so eloquently puts it, "the ad agency that beat the shit out of everybody else." His success with producing commercials encouraged him to try his hand in film. "The longest film I ever directed was 60 seconds," he says. "I wondered if I could extend that length." He could, and did. Glazen's documentary work for PBS – a series of ethnographies – earned him a Telly Award.

In order to retire from the thriving agency he started in 1972, Glazen had to find people smart enough to replace him. "That proved to be my big grown-up moment," he says. "I came to the realization that I had a knack for surrounding myself with great people, motivating them, and elevating their game." Glazen does not take credit for turning around ABC Tavern; he takes – and deserves – credit for finding the right folks in whom to place his trust, cash and civic aspirations. "I'm just an ad guy who discovered a pair of exceptional people whose time has come," he likes to say.

"It's practically impossible to get conventional funding to open a small restaurant," says Randy Kelley. "Alan is willing to take the risk. Taking on partners has its own set of problems. Some want too much involvement, and others don't have anything to offer to the partnership. Alan makes us better businesspeople." Two months into ABC's run, Glazen called Kelley into a private room. Instead of the tongue-lashing that Kelley expected, Glazen told him that it was time to find their next location.

Glazen's reputation for having deep pockets is creeping through the restaurant industry. Like a studio head, he finds himself on the receiving end of a lot of pitches. And while he hopes to seed this great city with upwards of 20 new small businesses, he is no fool. "I don't invest in other people's pipe dreams," he warns. "If there is a good location, and you are a good operator, I want to be the guy you come to."

First ABC. Now XYZ. Easy as 123.

The remarkable turnaround at ABC Tavern (1872 W. 25th St., 216.861.3857) is no happy accident. By combining the right space, neighborhood, crew and menu, husband-and-wife team Randy Kelley and Linda Syrek transformed a sleepy saloon into one of this city's liveliest joints. Both vets of the service industry scene, the duo also earns credit for turning around the West Side Market Café (1979 W. 25th St., 216.579.6800), which they took over almost four years ago. Along with partner Alan Glazen, the team is ready for their next act. They recently signed a lease to take over the long-closed Perry's Family Restaurant (6421 Detroit Ave.), located in Detroit-Shoreway next to Cleveland Public Theatre. "We were originally looking at the City Grill space," says Kelley. "And right there across the ding-dang street is Perry's!" The sturdy old building is a much better fit, he says. Large storefront windows look out onto busy Detroit. Inside there are exposed brick walls, tile floors and attractive brick archways that separate the dining room from the kitchen. Expected to open in fall, XYZ Tavern "will be the neighborhood tavern for Gordon Square," promises Kelley. Boasting a bigger kitchen than ABC, the space will allow the team to offer a more ambitious food program. While the menu is far from set, Kelley says diners can expect quality cocktails, food, value and service. "That area is so hot," adds Kelley. "There is a zero percent chance of failure."

Metropolitan Cafe Reopens as Metro

On Thursday, April 22, the restaurant formerly known as Metropolitan Café reopened to the public as Metro Bar + Kitchen (1352 W. 6th St., 216.241.1300). Following a four-month, $500,000 facelift process, the Warehouse District eatery unveiled a dramatic new look, feel and menu. In explaining the restaurant's fresh concept, Joe Saccone of the Hyde Park Restaurant Group says, "The economy is suffering but folks still want to go out and have a good time. Our challenge was to build a place with all the bells and whistles, while maintaining reasonable price points for today’s customer." In addition to casual American classics like ribs, chicken and steaks, the menu adopts popular culinary trends like sharable starters, gourmet burgers, creative flatbreads and booze-spiked milkshakes. To complement the expanded, two-level island bar, there is a greatly improved cocktail and craft beer selection. Next month, Metro will christen its swanky new sidewalk patio, complete with sliding-glass doors, outdoor bar and awning-covered soft seating.

Dante Finds Greener Pastures in Tremont

If it's true that the best chefs are those who move around early in their career then Dante Boccuzzi has a lock on the Golden Toque Award. The Parma native's resume is so padded with prominent posts that one might presume him guilty of embellishment. Of particular note are star-studded stints in London, Milan, Hong Kong, San Francisco and New York.

If Boccuzzi were in the resume-editing spirit, the one restaurant he likely would choose to omit is Dante in Valley View. From the jump the fit was never ideal, the chef later admitted, and he soon set his sights on greener pastures. Those emerald meadows turned out to be Tremont, Cleveland's reigning culinary disco. And what an edifice to call home! The former bank building is, by all measures, one of the sweetest houses on Restaurant Row.

What some call "loud," we call lively. This bistro is compact, at times boisterous, and chock-full of compelling characters – everything the old Valley View spot was not. It is precisely this heightened energy level that distinguishes Dante 2.0 from the beta version, which was too cavernous to ever feel hip. We say, Turn it up!

Boccuzzi's travels have granted him a unique set of culinary skills. In the wrong hands, the blending of cuisines like Italian, French and Asian could be disastrous. But the chef has such command of flavors that nothing feels like fusion. A diner can move seamlessly from scallion-studded calamari with chili aioli to silken porcini risotto to grilled skirt steak with curried cauliflower and not get gastronomic whiplash.

That doesn't mean one wouldn't benefit from a better roadmap. Dante's menu suffers from poor layout as it lacks distinct sections for starters, mids, and mains. Worse, vertical columns unintentionally steer diners up and down the page rather from side to side, which is how the dishes are grouped. Promised changes to the spring menu should address this issue.

Much of the problem (if you could call it that) is due to the fact that the menu contains so many appealing options. There are nearly a dozen appetizers, three versions each of pasta, polenta and risotto, and eight main courses. Toss in the three soups (a puree, a chunky, and a broth) and the trio of salads, and one begins to see why a coherent menu is essential.

Boccuzzi doesn't dabble in a cuisine, he immerses himself in it. His charcuterie platter (an absolute steal at $14) is laden with housemade versions of mortadella, sopressata, and the chef's righteous "Parma Town Prosciutto." The plate also contains silky chicken liver mousse, rustic duck pate, and a steamy crock of pork rillettes. Moving from the cured to the raw, diners can opt for briny oysters ($12) stacked atop a seaweed throne, sweet and spicy beef carpaccio ($10), and one of the finest preparations of tuna tartar ($12) in the 216.

Some of the brightest and most satisfying components on the menu are the mix-and-match pastas, polentas and risottos. Guests can select among various toppings and portion sizes, making it easy to add one or more of these to any meal. Al dente linguini ($4/8/15) is crowned with a poached egg, generating an on-the-spot carbonara sauce. Broth-soaked porcini mushrooms enrich an already supple Arborio risotto ($4/8). But the finest starch just might be the soft polenta paired with succulent braised rabbit ($6). This dish may forever banish the phrase, "Poor bunny."

Though the preparation will soon evolve with the season, the sea scallop entrée ($19) we enjoyed was both delicious and surprising. Perched on tempura-fried mushroom caps, the seared scallops benefit from the textural boost. But it is the black and white sesame vinaigrettes that leave us licking our fingers. Grilled and sliced skirt steak ($20) has all the beefy goodness and none of the toughness characteristic of the cut. In place of ho-hum spuds, this dish features crispy potato croquettes. The only "duck" in the bunch turns out to be a pancetta-wrapped duck breast ($22), which arrives too rare on take one, and too chewy on take two.

Despite its petite size, Dante offers an unexpected range of seating options. Bar diners benefit from plush leather stools. Parties looking for a measure of privacy can book the bank vault, a safe bet for four-tops. A soon-to-open glass-walled gazebo will offer picturesque alfresco views. True connoisseurs, however, are flocking to the chef's table. Seated in the kitchen, food fans enjoy a chef's tasting menu comprised of seven, 14, or 21 courses.

Plans are still in full-go mode on Gingko, Boccuzzi's modern Japanese eatery located beneath Dante. Look for it to open sometime this summer.

Dante

2247 Professor Ave., Cleveland

216.274.1200

Sawyer Snags Food & Wine Best New Chef Spot

As his mentor Michael Symon did in 1998, Jonathon Sawyer of Cleveland's Greenhouse Tavern has been selected as one of Food & Wine's Best New Chefs class of 2010. The annual Chef's Issue is the mag's July edition. Congrats to Sawyer and the entire Greenhouse team.

Now who's Happy in the CLE?