"Grand-Casual" Cuisine

Meredith Ashton

Restaurant Review

2 November 2016

“Grand-Casual” Cuisine

In 1949 Evelyn Overton made a cheesecake for her husband’s boss. It must have been one hell of a cheesecake, as this single dessert spawned The Cheesecake Factory, an international empire of chain restaurants fueled by customers’ love of ridiculously large portions. Evelyn’s son, David, designed the Grand Lux Café as a sibling chain to its famed counterpart, offering a slightly pricier menu of seafood and steaks than its more appetizer-and-burger focused antecedent. While pricier, the Lux most definitely stays true to the tradition of large serving sizes.  

Grand Lux Cafe Las Vegas

The first Grand Lux Café opened in Las Vegas in 1999 at the famed Venetian Resort, Hotel, & Casino, where it fit the Vegas vibe of excess and splendor. Inspired by extensive European touring, the menu features “seductive flavor profiles” from around the globe, blending the grandeur of Europe with the more casual American dining experience. Chicago’s Grand Lux, the third location to open in the United States, aptly holds real estate on the famed Magnificent Mile.

The Grand Lux embodies the spirit of its birthplace and founders, presenting an incredible feast for the senses as well as the stomach. The restaurant offers a fun dining experience for special occasions, but most definitely borders on the excessive for the everyday dinner.

Only a three hour train ride from Kalamazoo, The Grand Lux Café is an excellent place to dine, but perhaps on someone else’s bill. Typical entrees on the menu range between $25-$35 dollars, and the restaurant is considered to be “upscale-casual” dining.

While the restaurant’s website describes its dining as “casual,” in actuality the term applies very loosely to the Grand Lux experience. The large venue and extensive menu provide something for everyone, however, the only cohesion between the dishes and the décor seems to be the excessive decadence.

Indeed, it is a sensory experience to simply reach the dinner table. Guests begin in the restaurant’s large, street-level foyer with marble walls detailed in shimmering gold accents, the noisy din of the restaurant floating down from the floor above. While the business does not accept reservations, it is generally between a half hour to an hour wait for a table on a Friday night. From here, guests ascend to the restaurant’s main floor via escalator (much to the delight of the eatery’s younger clientele).  Here guests are greeted with an onslaught of rapidly moving waiters, the clatter of cutlery and customer chatter, and the tantalizing aromas wafting from the open kitchen.

Grand Lux Cafe Chicago

The Grand Lux boasts more than 500 seats, spread strategically throughout a handful of cavernous dining rooms. I suggest you take a minute and drink it all in—admiring the large, hand-blown glass light fixtures and chandeliers draped from the ceiling, illuminating the intricate murals of geometric patterns and classical cultural scenes. The decadent décor is dizzying. Fortunately, the restaurant contains multiple spaces adjacent to the central dining room that are more intimate, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Chicago’s evening skyline, with the pulsing electric signs and headlights from the street traffic below lighting the cozy-leather-lined booth.

The Grand Lux’s menu is both daunting and oxymoronic.

Self-described as globe-trotting “grand-casual” food, for the unprepared diner the  diverse selection can be overwhelming. The thick menu spans from salads to pizzas to burgers to steaks to desserts, with quite a few more “grand casual” cuisine options in-between. Dishes such as Asian Nachos, Korean Fried Chicken “Burrito,” Thai Fried Chicken, Monte Cristo Sandwich, and Indochine Shrimp and Chicken blur the line of traditional “American” cuisine by combining international ingredients and techniques with familiar dishes. The emphasis is clearly on constructing what is familiar, and in no way could the Lux’s “international” cuisine stand up to a restaurant focused on a single ethnic cuisine.

The Creamy Spinach & Cheese Dip arrives in a bowl the size of a soccer ball. In addition to its wide girth, the dish delivers in the cheesiness department, offering a rich and creamy mixture of spinach and various slightly salty cheeses. The spicy bite of the accompanying chunky salsa adds a surprising accent to the otherwise mellow dish. In comparison to the large allotment of dip, the chips are lacking in number as well as salt, which seems an odd area in which to skimp.

It was after the appetizer that our server, who had been polite but disengaged, was suddenly substituted for a younger, far more enthusiastic (and close-talking) waiter who filled our glasses after every few sips. The food came very quickly, with little thought to the pacing of the meal for the guests. We were still wading through the spinach dip when our entrees arrived.

Miso Glazed Salmon

The Grand Lux is known for their specialty meat and seafood dishes. The Miso Glazed Salmon with rice and stir-fried vegetables presents an interesting interpretation of the classic “American” dish with Japanese-inspired culinary elements. The fish arrives in a generous wedge covered in a sticky miso-caramelized glaze with stir-fried green-and-orange veggies artfully sprinkled around the base. Miso is a paste made from fermented soybeans and barley malt. The salmon absorbs the sweet-and-sour miso flavor and is so perfectly cooked that it falls off the fork upon carving into the fish. The sauce ties the salmon together with the stir-fried veggies, which offer a light crunch to the fish, and the rice creates a lovely, although bland, base for the rest of the flavorful dish.

The Parmesan Crusted Pork Chop announces its arrival on the table with a heavy thud. The large portion of pork casually leans against a mountainous heap of mashed potatoes, roasted and butter-soaked Brussels sprouts, and well-cooked carrots. The garlic-buttered breadcrumb crust adds a delicious crunch to the tender pork beneath. However, the accompanying cooked carrots are reduced to a tasteless mush, which is a true tragedy compared to the rest of the dish.

 

New Orleans Beignets

 For guests with second stomachs, the Grand Lux has an in-house bakery from which customers can order directly. The New Orleans Beignets have a light and fluffy consistency—contrary to their heavier cousin, the donut. These fried dough-balls are sprinkled with confectioners sugar and, as with everything at the Grand Lux, it is difficult to just eat one. Fortunately for guests, this dessert comes in a heaping-full basket with an abundance of sauces for one’s dipping pleasure. While the chocolate sauce is solidified and the strawberry sauce a sickly sweet concoction, the yellow cream is the perfect compliment for beignet-dipping.

The Grand Lux is the place for a pleasant sensory overload: a fully-body dining experience. The fainter of heart, or those simply desiring a reasonably-portioned, lighter meal should look elsewhere. The Lux has definitely supersized since the days of Evelyn’s single cheesecake.