Garden of Eatin’

From the Food Vault Dept.: The saga of the restaurant reviewed below is a doughty one. A 19th-century farmhouse was turned into a convent in the 1960s by slamming a large stone edifice in front of it. After the nuns gave up, the place began its journey as a restaurant. The Heavenly Inn was first, followed by Rene Tornier’s three incarnations: As L’Auberge Suisse in 1986, eventually re-naming it Swiss Fondue, then, as you’ll read below, a final (for him) re-branding as The Herb Garden. Fine dining wasn’t destined to persevere at that place: next it became J.J. Madden's Pub, then The Big Box Bar. It’s now been shuttered for about five years, although it was supposed to become an apartment building. As to the fate of Tornier, I have no idea and Dr. Google is mum on the matter. As a side note, this piece ran three months after my daughter, Lily, was born, and Susan, my wife, didn’t feel like making the visit with me. So her midwife, “Claudia,” joined me instead. I pseudo-named her because Lily was born at home, with no board-certified obstetrician around, which could have landed the attending midwives in legal trouble. But that’s another story, a boondoggle unto itself.

                                                                                           

The property according to Google Maps.      

GERSHWIN'S “AN AMERICAN IN PARIS” was playing as we were seated. That will introduce Rene Tornier, chef-owner of the Herb Garden. You may have known the restaurant as Auberge Suisse or, more recently, Swiss Fondue.  It’s a former convent on New Scotland Avenue in Slingerlands, a picturesque (and shorter than you think) drive from anywhere else in the Capital Region. Tornier is a transplant, a sculptor who trained as a chef in restaurants that took him from St. Thomas to Savannah, Ga., before he landed in this area to open his own restaurant in 1986 with the flavors of Switzerland and France informing the menu.

He’s had a stormy relationship with fondue, the best-known Swiss dish. It bounced on and off his menu according to how he believed it was being perceived. Sometimes it didn’t seem serious enough; other times, as when he renamed his restaurant to celebrate it, it seemed like a good draw.

“The trouble with calling the place ‘Swiss Fondue,’”says Laura Singh, his assistant, “was that people thought all we were about was cheese.” Fondue is an Herb Garden menu item, but the restaurant’s new name is intended to showcase fresh food and healthy eating – and the large herb garden going in behind the restaurant this summer.

As my friend Claudia and I sipped a nice gewurtztraminer and studied the menu, in a pleasant porch area serving as the no-smoking room, the music shifted to Natalie Cole singing standards. New interpretations of classic songs, which is what Tornier does with his classic menu items.  If you’ve had good beef Wellington elsewhere, you won’t be disappointed by the Herb Garden version, but you may be a little surprised.  We’ll get to that in a moment.

For starters, we ordered cheese fondue. The problem is this: You can’t stint on the cheese. Gruyere is a classic component, and that’s the basis of a concoction that works in other cheeses and a tasty portion of white wine. Served in a decorative pot over a flame that will keep the mixture bubbling, it arrives with a basket of bread cubes and long-handled skewers.

We demolished it. That is, we pledged restraint and went ahead and finished the portion anyway. It’s addictive. Claudia wanted to follow it with a cup of tomato bisque, the promised soup of the day. “It turns out we’re out of that,” said Laura, “and the soup is chicken and leek.” Not  at all the same, especially when your mouth is set for tomato, but Claudia chanced it and was very pleased with what she got – well-seasoned, opening into a nice bouquet on the palate. I had a simple endive salad in which the bitterness of the lettuce was matched by a pungent raspberry vinaigrette.

Our appetites were well whetted for what followed, which included music by Django Reinhardt and the Quintet of the Hot Club of France. Classic stuff, with a little gypsy originality. The beef Wellington was finished in its own shell of puff pastry and was far and away the tenderest, tastiest piece of steak Claudia ever had eaten, she reported. Everything from the pâté coating to a subtle sauce was perfect.

I don’t get to sample sweetbreads too often, and my confidence in Tornier’s approach was rewarded by an excellently sautéed portion in a rich cream sauce – guilty-pleasure eating, I’m afraid, but all the more delicious for it.

Side dishes included a rosette of carrot puree, sauteed zucchini strips and a helping of Anna potatoes, roasted in stock and finished with Parmesan cheese.

The bad part? We saw only one other couple at dinner that mid-week evening, and a slow restaurant can be a lonely place. Elegance dictates that there should be at least two servers on the floor, but economics required that only Laura be there to assist us. Which she did, promptly, but there were stretches of time when we would have liked to speak with her.

Toward the end of the meal we did so, at length, and learned more of the restaurant’s plans. The emphasis on herbs will carry through other areas besides food – remedies and tea, for example – and plans are afoot to hold lectures and workshops about the stuff.

The restaurant has a reputation for being expensive, and if you order as we did, it’s true.  But there are early-bird specials as well as always-available fixed-price deals that will bring a meal there well within your budget. Don’t be bashful about calling to talk about it. The only improvement I’d like to see is a selection of less expensive wines.

We finished with desserts – a rich genoise cake layered with chocolate for Claudia and crème brûlée, an extraordinary egg custard, for me.

Dinner for two, with wine and dessert, tax and service, was $120.

The Herb Garden, 1903 New Scotland Ave., Slingerlands 439-xxxx. Serving dinner Wed-Sun 5:30-10 or 11, depending on reservations; Mon-Tue available by reservation. D, MC, V.

– Metroland Magazine, 3 April 1997