FIG is a reasonably large one room restaurant with an additional bar space. It did have one large table in the bar area and bar seating for walk-ins. The dining room has one wall lined with banquette seating and a couple booths in back but the rest is composed of nice sized tables that are well spaced. The lighting is low and linens are nice but the napkins a bit small to stay well on the lap. It was packed when we got there for dinner but by 10:00 the crowd had pretty much moved on. They have remodeled since we were there a few years ago including new light fixtures and art. The chef is Jason Stanhope who won the 2015 James Beard Foundation Award as Best Chef in the Southeast.
The service is friendly and helpful. They were willing to split our beef and fish entrees so we could try both but brought them out at the same time and there is a small fee of $2 to split a dish. However by splitting on separate plates we both had nice saucing of the dishes.
We started with the Chicken Liver Paté which was truly paté not mousse, so no cream and butter. However the celery root slaw and house made pickles with horseradish were wonderful accompaniments to the strongly flavored chicken liver. It came with a nicely toasted and un-greasy slices of brioche but was good just to eat on its own. There is also the multigrain and sour dough house breads if you prefer. If you like chicken liver and I do, I highly recommend it.
The poached snowy grouper was served with several colors of beets and a onion soubise. It had a great herby flavor along with hints of olive oil. A very pleasant dish with nice textural contrasts and good tastes.
The roasted beef ribeye was served with some tasty Kentucky wonder green beans. The beef was cooked a perfect rare and the mushrooms were almost fruity. A very tasty combination of flavors.
We ordered a side of potato purée to go with and it was smooth, creamy, rich and wonderful. A total yum!
For dessert we had the blackout cake which was aptly named. I needed some extra lighting to show the delightful layers in the dense cake. There was a lovely gooey chocolate in the center and sweet, sticky caramel on the plate. This was a lick-the-plate kind of dish.
