抖阴ap

Think of Opus Restaurant as an unfinished symphony. The right notes are there, but they could use some fine-tuning, and a rhythm needs to be established for the performance to come off night after night.

And if you don’t like those particular musical analogies, there are plenty more where they came from.

The conductor of this work is chef Michael Long, a Culinary Institute of America graduate and veteran of various Eastern seaboard restaurants from Florida to Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland. He and his partners opened 5280 Roadhouse and Brewery a few years ago, taking over a pizzeria/brewpub and turning it into a popular locals hangout for beer and buffalo meatloaf. But Long still yearned for a way to show off his skills with innovative, New American-style dishes that require a lot of quotation marks to explain.

Earlier this year, the group acquired space along Littleton’s Main Street, part of which had been Half Moon Bay, a Mediterranean and Pacific Northwest restaurant that had failed to lure suburban diners from the convenience of Applebee’s and Black-Eyed Pea.

Opus faces the same challenge, although you’d think that a roomy, cozy, welcoming eatery that serves creatively conceived fare in a 114-year-old building would be a no-brainer. Not everyone, however, prefers their reality to be real, and Applebee’s makes such nice riblets.

VIDEO

Post reviewer Kyle Wagner says Opus is like a symphony of food…in need of a little fine tuning.

But Opus could be the real thing, a genuinely good restaurant in a setting that looks as warm and rich as the honeycomb from which it takes its colors, an eatery that leaves enough space for people to walk between the tables – imagine! – and smartly sets each one with glass holders of kosher salt complete with a teeny, tiny spoon.

First, though, Opus must figure out the flow of a meal. On one visit, we were handed amuse bouches (tiny complimentary starters) about three seconds after we’d sat down, before we even received menus, and the timing felt a bit off-kilter from then on. Another time, we had ordered our food and munched on bread for a while before the chef’s tidbit arrived. Still, an amuse is always a welcome touch, even if the pistachio-encrusted gorgonzola cheesecake was all about the nuts and needed some kind of garnish to keep it from looking like a King Soopers sample.

And that’s just the kind of almost-there-but-not-quite quality that ran through my experiences at Opus like a half-hummed, half-sung melody. For instance, the housebaked breads were soft and fresh. (Opus pastry chef Anthony Polakowski runs Aroma Cafe, a side note housed in the same building that’s open for breakfast and smells like the inside of a cinnamon roll.) They came with well-balanced composed butters, but we could not seem to get a glass for our champagne that wasn’t so thick with detergent residue that it killed the bubbles.

Concerted effort Restaurant: Opus Restaurant Address: 2575 West Main Street, Littleton Phone: 303-703-6787 Style: Contemporary American Food: ***(out of four) Service: ***(out of four) Atmosphere: ***(out of four) Price: Items from $8 to $33 Hours: 5 to 10 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday, Sunday; 5 to 11 p.m. Friday-Saturday Credit cards: All major Number of visits: 2 Parking: Valet and street Noise: Mid-level Wheelchairs: Yes Smoking: No

Opus was also one of those restaurants where the menu descriptions were like bad press releases, all seared sound and fire-roasted fury signifying nothing that resembled what came out on the plate. And so a baked bison and corn crepe ($8) listed asadero cheese as its third ingredient, but this bundle of gooey goodness was like an upscale cheese burrito, and the huitlacoche (the now-trendy corn smut from Mexico) that was supposed to flavor the corn relish on the side seemed to be MIA.

There were plenty of Asian noodles in the jumbo lump crab cakes ($11), a novel preparation that gave the cakes an appealing texture, but the imperceptible Thai sweet chile butter was pointless, and while there was no mistaking the sweet-tart taste of pomegranates on a sea scallop ($8), the well-matched pumpkin “flan” more resembled smashed squash.

The matchup of cinnamon-sharp Chinese five-spice powder with foie gras ($14) was especially inspired-except that our first batch arrived lightly seared on the exterior and dead-cold in the center, what is referred to as hardcore, or undercooked. To their credit, the staff took the liver back to the kitchen, and the chef came out with a new seared foie, silky and faintly warm all the way through, sitting on a fresh batch of dreamy rice pancakes.

The entrees were a reprise of the starters. An ingenious lobster “chop” ($33) brought the succulent meat formed into a meaty shape (a lobster leg posed as the bone) and held together with a crispy breading, which worked well with a light, vanilla-sweet lobster sauce, but the whipped potatoes on the side were dry, dry, dry, and the lemon cracker garnish was oddly moist and flavorless.

Post / Brian Brainerd

The space inthe 114-year-old building in Littleton is cosy and comfortable.

More saffron “lemonade” sauce and less tomato soupy sauce would have benefited a delectably pancetta-salty, rare piece of yellowfin ($27), and the Florida Citrus Growers will be delighted to know that half of their crop this year was dumped on one poor striped bass ($24) that had me making a fish face just to get through it.

But when Long is on, he’s on: witness maple-cured, mustard-spiked pork tenderloin ($22), buttah-tender and paired with a sweet potato and apple “brulee” and a juicy breast of chicken ($21) encased in macadamia nuts with a wild rice “spring roll” on the side.

Pastry chef Polakowski knows his stuff, too, and proved it with a sumptuous pumpkin cheesecake ($9) and a creme brulee ($7) that came in an almond-cookie “skillet.” And the rest of the staff was knowledgeable and helpful, eager to make things right and to make diners feel comfortable.

The only magnum you’ll find at Opus is the one that holds wine, but stay tuned. If Long and Co. can make a few revisions here and there, the result could be music to our mouths.

—————————————-

Starting today, Kyle Wagner’s restaurant reviews will appear on 9News on KUSA-Channel 9. Watch 9News at 5 a.m. and noon today and every Friday to get Wagner’s dining lowdown.