Mamani just opened a few days ago led by Executive Chef Christophe De Lellis. The French born De Lellis was last at 3 Michelin star Joël Robuchon in Las Vegas. This restaurant is named for the brother owners Brandon and Henry Cohanim’s grandmother who they called Mamani. The brother’s previous projects include Bar Colette and Namo. Much anticpated the menu features Italian and French style cooking in an elegant yet comfortable room. It’s the largest restaurant to open in the new Quad development in Uptown Dallas. The ‘L’ shaped restaurant has 2 dining rooms, an enclosed patio, bar and a private dining room for 10 at one end. Pastry chef Peter Edris makes the breads and Pastry Chef Nicole De Lellis works with her husband on the dessert options. The new place bustles with activity – there are a lot of service people and I didn’t see any empty tables. The background music was too loud but they graciously turned it down when we remarked about it – service is plentiful and responsive. You see the open kitchen when you first enter and the dining area has peach tones, coved ceilings and carpets. The 2-tops were fairly small marble tables with the 4-tops running larger but they made it work without making me crazy. The wine list was large, not online and heavy into French burgandy styles. According to our fun server most of the portions are “humble sized” except for those items in the “to share” section. Spot on, but there was enough to split and have a good taste of the items. The prices are commensurate with the top-notch ingredients they use in the dishes and the level of service as well as the expensively finished interior. I found the food wonderful, the staff and owners engaging and would easily recommend it.
Set-up
Food
Bread We Bake was served with Rodolphe Le Meunier Butter. The 3 flavors were focaccia, Italian style white and a dark quinoa. All were tasty and the doughy interiors were full of nice air holes. The butter was extraordinary and I found myself eating more than usual it was so good. They plan to open a bread store next door in the future.
Murder Point Oysters were topped with a granité and mignonette of Mezcal and red pepper vinegar. These were spectacular. The delicious oysters were perfectly seasoned with the red pepper and then topped with a spicy granité – not too spicy, rather just the right amount to accent the oyster. Yummy.
Hokkaido scallop slices topped with Golden Osetra Caviar were in a sauce of hazelnut, horseradish and lime. This was a pricy option but so wonderful. The scallops had no pastiness and were sweet and lovely with the caviar. The sauce was absolutely perfect in setting off the flavors of the seafoods. This was fantastic.
Agnolotti pasta were filled with sweet corn and topped with Chanterelle mushrooms. The perfectly cooked and tender pastas were delicate and tasty. The mushrooms also had good flavor and made a winning combination with the pastas. A bit of chicken jus was the sauce that brought it all together. Save some bread so you can get every bit of this sauce.
Wild Dover Sole was a plate meant for at least 2, seasoned with Meyer lemon and browned butter and came with haricots verts. They added browned butter to the plate when they brought it out and I had them leave it which is a good idea. To me the fish could have been cooked a minute less and the browned butter sauce helped correct that deficit. I also found the large chunks of lemon on the top overwhelmed the delicate flavor of the fish. It was plenty for 2 but was not as good a version as we had at Scotts in London. The green beans were simply seasoned with salt and butter and cooked perfectly.
We tried to get a side of the Pomme Frites that came with the lobster but instead got Pomme Purée. Since chef worked at Joël Robuchon that wasn’t a bad mix-up. They were indeed classic Robuchon potatoes – creamy, smooth and buttery. They were divine. Didn’t really need an extra buttery dish but so glad we did.
Paris-Brest is a ubiquitous dessert in Paris with slight variations on the theme. This was a good one. The large choux pastry was coated with a sugary crust and well browned hazelnuts. There was a generous amount of filling between the two layers for a really rich end result. It was well done and I’m only sorry that I couldn’t finish it.
