Urban Renewal

The artful Downtown @ the HiSAM brings a little style and flavor to the city

There are some restaurants that just feel right as soon as I walk through the door. I’m not sure if it’s a matter of proper feng shui, good karma or industrial-strength cleaning products, but some places just glow. It’s a combination of being new and exciting, while at the same time comforting and slightly familiar – kind of like home, only cooler, and you don’t have to clean up. I can’t put my finger on it, but I’m sure that these mysterious, crowd-pleasing elements have been distilled and bottled and are under lock and key at Starbucks’ corporate headquarters.

STEAK AND POTATOES: Downtown’s petite filet comes with a zesty peppercorn sauce and a haystack of shoestring potatoes. photo: Jimmy Forrest

Downtown @ the HiSAM is one of those places. Located in a quiet corner of the Hawaii State Art Museum, the restaurant is reminiscent of an upscale museum café, with a little more style and a little less affectation. It has stained concrete floors, modern furniture and artful lighting fixtures and ceiling panels. A hanging (and working) water feature partitions off the small dining area from the rest of the museum.

The space is bright, open and airy. The restaurant even has a nice view of the museum’s courtyard pool.

Downtown’s lunch menu, which fits on a single page, is as inviting and accessible as its interior design. It features nearly two dozen items and is written in concise, almost terse, language. As we scanned our menus, there were audible “oooohs and aaaahs.”

We started off our meal with a trio of appetizers: Roasted Organic Beets ($7.50), Heirloom Tomato Salad ($8) and Fatty Ahi Sashimi ($12). The tomato salad was the best of the three, featuring multicolored cherry tomatoes and Greek olives. The tomatoes were flavor dynamite. I especially liked the croutons and mozzarella, both of which were torn into bite-size pieces, giving the salad a rustic look – and a lot of flavor.

Our beets were overcooked, a little too soggy for me, and the citrus dressing was unexciting. The sashimi was just OK.

DOWNTOWN @ THE HiSAM 250 S. HOTEL ST. 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mondays to Fridays and 11 a.m. to 2pm Saturdays 536-5900

The entrées were more impressive. At first, I thought of ordering the Sandwich of Duck Confit with gruyere ($10.50), which sounded fancy and a little naughty. Instead, I went with Kulana Petite Filet Mignon ($16.50), not as fancy, just as naughty. My dining companions ordered the Lasagna of Lamb ($13.50) and the Wild Copper River Salmon ($14).

My petite filet was very petite, about the size of a half a pack of cigarettes. If you’re really hungry, you might think about something else. However, I found the portion appropriate for lunch. Moreover, the steak was perfectly cooked – soft, tender and tasty. The beef was accompanied by a handful of greens, a zesty peppercorn sauce and a small haystack of lightly salted shoestring potatoes.

The lamb lasagna was a quiet and pleasant dish: a creamy, smooth consistency with subtle flavors of mint and game. The salmon was a little bolder. The bright orange fish was well seasoned. The rosti potatoes were a little too salty.

We ended the meal with two desserts: Churros y Chocolate ($6) and Olive Oil Cake ($6). Both dishes were humble and familiar. The churros, the popular Latin-American deep-fried pastry, had a crust that was deep brown and crispy while the insides were tender. The dough sticks came with a creamy chocolate dipping sauce, which pushed it to the next level. The cake was also well executed: moist and rich inside with a pleasing crunchy outer shell.

We left Downtown happy and satisfied, wanting to linger a little while longer before heading back to work. I’m still not exactly sure what it was about that place – the atmosphere, the food, the service – but if it came in a bottle, we would have taken it back with us and spread it around the office.

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