fbpx
Skip to main content

Unpretentious Palate

X

Suggested content for you


share on facebook Tweet This! Email
UNPRETENTIOUS REVIEW

Mico Restaurant

2.5
Overall Rating
2.5
Service
2.5
Food
3
Vibe

The Basics

An Argentinian-influenced steakhouse that could use more inspiration

Last updated: December 15, 2022

In the Weeds

by Travis Mullis

The chandelier over the bar at Mico Restaurant — inside Uptown’s Grand Bohemian Hotel — isn’t something I would normally discuss in a restaurant review. However, I was told on numerous occasions by several members of the Mico staff that it cost a million dollars. It certainly looks impressive, as does the rest of the place, from the dark green jungle scenes on the wall to the matching translucent curtains on the windows. The little white monkey statuettes scattered throughout are a nod to the name Mico, which in Argentine Spanish means little monkey. Yet the great sums of money put into making Mico look like one of the best restaurants in the city can only momentarily distract from the lackluster performance of the kitchen and the bizarrely uninspired menu that fails to live up to the standards of the best hotel restaurants and the unique culinary traditions of Argentina that it’s trying to mimic.    

Hotel restaurants suffer from a bad reputation. Some of this opprobrium is well-deserved, as too often hotels rest on their laurels, offering service and food that never rises above the mediocre. Hotels gamble that their lodgers will choose the easy dining option that’s only a short walk from their suite, instead of straying to another, more creative establishment elsewhere. However, it needn’t always be so. One of the finest restaurants in history was located inside Cesar Ritz’s eponymous Hotel in Paris. Its kitchen, run by Auguste Escoffier — perhaps the most influential chef in history — was the place to eat, drink, and be seen until the Nazi occupation of Paris turned the Ritz into the pleasure palace of the Wehrmacht. It’s quite a shame that Mico, full of confidence that it’s more than just a hotel restaurant, barely meets the middling standards of a midsized city’s power lunch destination. 

Wagyu, the blanket term for four breeds of Japanese cattle, has become a prized item on many restaurant menus since the Kobe beef craze of the ’90s took off. Exceedingly expensive, perfectly marbled, and now farmed all around the world, wagyu beef is deservedly considered the best beef you can buy. When I saw it on the menu at Mico recently, I thought an Argentine-inspired modern steakhouse was the place to throw down a large sum of money for the world’s best cut of beef. Argentina, after all, consumes more beef than any other country on earth. Their entire culture hinges on sizzling meat. I was flummoxed and disappointed when the steak arrived at my table well done, not the medium rare I had asked for. The scallops that flanked it were simultaneously underwhelming and overcooked. All three items, the steak and its two attendant scallops, certainly looked Instagrammable — just like the restaurant itself — but proved to be unenjoyable. The small serving of chimichurri and spicy little aji peppers were a nice if obvious nod to the supposed Argentine influence that shapes the menu, but they couldn’t save a dish that had clearly been rushed through the kitchen with no attention to detail. 

The wine list feels similarly uninspired. Mico does have a nice selection of malbecs by the bottle, yet the selection is perfunctory almost — not really that different from what you might find  at one of the several steakhouse chains that are peppered across Uptown. To add to the mediocre feel of the wine list, none of the staff seemed very interested in explaining the wine menu or showing any sort of knowledge of wine in general. Malbec, a grape varietal long grown in France, never really found its chance to shine until it arrived on the shores of Argentina in the 17th century and was planted in the pampas region of Mendoza at the foot of the Andes in the west of the country. There, the grape found soil that let it flourish, eventually rivaling the best that Bordeaux or Burgundy could muster. It is not a subtle wine. It may not blow away your palate the way a Napa cab might, but the ripe berry notes, dark purple hue, and deeply perfumed nose go well with the distinct savory flavor of grilled red meat. 

To the restaurant’s credit, I was surprised by both the elegance and subtlety of their desserts, most notably a passionfruit tart my wife was eager to try. You wouldn’t think a restaurant that boasts a million dollar chandelier would do anything subtly, yet here was an old-fashioned tart you might find at any pâtisserie or bakery, with more flavor than any dessert either one of us had tasted in quite some time. I was also pleasantly surprised by the octopus served on a bed of black bean purée with generous slices of above-average Spanish chorizo. Cephalopods are notoriously easy to overcook, yet these tentacles had no trace of the chewiness that so often diminishes octopus dishes at many restaurants. 

Perhaps my feelings for Mico are wrapped up in the disappointment that I mentally attached to the years of the pandemic. As 2020 got under way, I looked forward to wrapping up my MFA program in Buenos Aires, where I would spend a few weeks attending workshops, delivering my thesis, and exploring the city with my wife. Instead, I  was stuck doing craft workshops on Zoom and graduating virtually with my classmates, all of us longing to be together in the Argentine capital drinking Fernet and sodas and trying to learn the tango. Of course, I don’t necessarily expect to be automatically transported to the steak-perfumed streets of Villa Crespo each time I eat at an Argentine steakhouse. Yet it isn’t too much to ask that a restaurant that is going to potentially charge a couple $500 for a meal to be significantly more interesting and competent than Mico. Of course, the team at Mico might insist that they are only inspired by Argentina in their conception of the restaurant. If that’s the case, they need to try harder than grafting a poor simulacrum of an Argentine parrilla onto a hip, modern steakhouse. Argentinian cuisine should be robust; it should be fun; it should swell your heart with aficion. Mico does none of that. Instead, Mico delivers what every other steakhouse in Uptown does and nothing more. The million-dollar chandelier hanging from the ceiling only brings that fact more starkly to light.

Posted in: Latest Updates, News, Reviews