Brave New Restaurant describes itself as “a casual, warm environment, delicious food and excellent service at a reasonable cost.”    Opened by Peter Brave (and his ex-wife Marie) 33 years ago in a former Steak and Egg location it had 1750 sq ft.   In 2000 he moved to its present location – a large upstairs space with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the Arkansas River.   Through the years he’s added on space, patios and private dining rooms to total 5,980 sq.ft.  He worked in the kitchen as well as the floor until Chef Ben Lindley was hired in 2022.  Now his son Gordy, who serves as General Manager, and his daughter also work at the restaurant and they are poised to continue the legacy he created.  The large room had no music, lowered lighting, carpeted floor, acoustical ceiling and a corner of the room open to the kitchen.  The black tables were unclothed and art was on the walls.  Peter Brave made his way around to tables of regulars.  Service was good as was the food.  The menu has options at many price points with generous portions.

Set-Up

 

Food

The Bread service was slices of white bread with a great crisp crust and lots of airholes in the doughy center.   It came with large slabs of butter that were a bit hard to spread but the bread had wonderful flavor on its own.  They will bring more if you ask.

 

They offered a Half & Half option for their baked fresh Gulf oysters which we started with.  The Oysters Rockefeller were topped with a spinach garlic parmesan cream sauce.  The Bienville were topped with shrimp, mushroom, and seasonings.   Both were outstanding.  The large oysters were kept nicely juicy and the toppings on both had lovely amounts of flavor.  The Rockefeller might have been a tad more flavorful but I would have enjoyed an order of either.  This was a nice way to get to sample both.

 

Entrees come with soup or salad and we both wanted to try the soup of the day which was tomato-lentil, made completely with tomatoes from Brave’s garden.  The lentils thickened it nicely and the chef added a bit of cayenne to the mix.  It almost felt like there was meat in it, it was that savory.  Very good start.

 

The Stuffed Chicken was a half chicken from Rabbit Ridge Farms with the breast stuffed with Borsin cheese and the leg and thigh sautéed in butter served on a pool of creamy leek sauce.  The chicken pieces were mostly boneless with the skin having a good crispness.  The white portion got a bit dry with the dark maintaining more juiceness. The potatoes were nicely sauteed but the red cabbage was a weird touch.

 

Duck with duck was pan-roasted and spice-rubbed duck breast, smoked duck sausage and cranberry wild rice, finished with blood orange demi glace.  Both parts came sliced and the breast was still medium rare.  The red cabbage fit better on this plate and was excellent with the sausage.  The sweet sticky sauce was lovely on the breast, that had no hint of liver flavor.  The breast went best with the rice mix.  This was a great plate.

 

Dessert was an oral menu and we both tried their housemade ice cream.  My husband had the Mint Chip and I got the White Russian.  Both had wonderful texture and came with a fabulous thin crisp almond butter cookie.  The White Russian had a coffee essence to the flavor.  My husband thought the chocolate chips in the mint were too big but I was totally happy with the Russian and could have eaten a lot of those cookies.