Hell's Kitchen

We descended on Hell’s Kitchen on a Monday, the four of us, expecting the hellfire and brimstone and everlasting chaos of a kitchen under siege. Or, at least, we envisioned the antipode to the white tablecloth, fresh-flower breakfast place. Why do we expect Hell to be so over-populated? Perhaps Salvation Sundays, with brunch from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., attract a bigger, noisier crowd, confident the gospel music will perfume the multitude of sins right out of the air. This quiet Monday noon we could see right down to the paint-it-black-you-devil floor and the blood-red doors and the fiery licks around the edges. So we ate. We almost made a meal of great bread with salted butter—to hell with special diets—and sweet marmalade and jam and the freshest sort of peanut butter ever. Then we remembered we hadn’t yet become complete gluttons, so we continued with crab cakes and walleye and B.L.T.’s, ham and pears grilled with Swiss cheese, fries and fruit and the biggest, blackest, yes, blackberries you’ve ever seen. We could have made a meal of the side dishes and been no less sinful. So many forms of comfort food, so deceptively simple and tempting, we’ll undoubtedly return to sample more. If the scene is vaguely familiar, remember your last journey to Hell—your previous Night (there is a pungent Bloody Beer Mary to cure what ails you), or your secret tryst in the old Du Jour’s Casual Café. Same place, a couple of familiar faces (they always said that would happen down below), but an entirely new and rakish breakfast/lunch joint on the scene. Check out the art on the walls. It’s no sin to look. Hell’s Kitchen, (612) 332-4700