FORM OVER FUNCTION

Potager is like the new $300 shoes you just bought that make your toes bleed. The gleaming restaurant, lush patio, rustic bar and open kitchen are all extremely beautiful and scream French countryside sans the smelly locals. The organic, Boulder Farmer's Market suppliers scream of Alice Waters' Chez Panisse. But, what it does not scream is, "We know how to cook." The people behind Potager have done a remarkable job with the details: Old cookbooks line the wall bordering the open kitchen, the floor to ceiling wood wine case is sprinkled with hay, the outdoor patio provides a beautiful garden and perfectly weathered wood window coverings, and the menu reads beautifully with wine recommendations for each course. Everything about Potager charms your senses...until the food arrives.

The food is focused on seasonal ingredient from local growers which is exciting yet debilitating. The kitchen tries to treat seasonal vegetables simply to exemplify the ingredients' 'essence', but it also gets repititive. Out of the eight dishes we ordered, seven probably had corn, tomatoes or both. But, most of dishes did not 'feature' the corn or tomatoes. It always seemed like an after thought with little creativity: A goat cheese souffle with a tomato puree. Why not a tomato souffle or tomato bread pudding? Anyways, that's beside the point that the kitchen could not cook a chicken correctly. The first roast chicken to come out was rare in the middle and sent back. The replacement chicken that came out included a dry, tough breast and an undercooked thigh and leg. I can understand the first chicken being undercooked, but the second? When a plate comes back in a kitchen you better damn well make sure the second one is perfect. There is also an instrument called a quick read thermometer that is part of every cooks' uniform. Use it! Make sure your customers don't get salmonella, especially while cooking half a chicken on the bone. Otherwise, my monkfish came out luke warm, the souffle was barely warm, the tomato tart crust was soggy, and the lobster and tomato risotto had no lobster. Given, it was the first night of a new seasonal menu change, but it doesn't make it okay to forget the basics of cooking. Raw chicken and warm food do not bode well for a restaurant critiqued as one of the best in Denver.

Even with the major oversights in our visit, I want to give Potager another chance. I feel they are capable of so much more. They have a great vision that is hard to come by in Denver. The space is too captivating to fail. From the perfectly weather-stained walls to the angelic, pregnant bartender, the restaurant is too charming and the ideas are too big to come crashing down...Yet, that might be their ultimate problem.