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Alice and the Caterpillar croque monsieur (Photo by Justin Chesney)
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Roberts designed the interior, including this small bar area. (Photo by Justin Chesney)
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Bavette's Feast features a beef flap cut. (Photo by Justin Chesney)
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L’eclair of Monte Pistachio (Photo by Justin Chesney)
There are certain restaurants you just root for. Like, literally, walking through the door, you think — I’m gonna like this place. And you’re sure of it, too, is the thing, without any evidence whatsoever to justify this certitude, other than what your senses are telling you. It’s a mood, a look, a spirit in the air, the warmth of a welcome, or sometimes — as is the case with the new Swan Dive — all of the above.
Richmond seems to crank out places like this every other week, as if there were a kit out there for would-be restaurateurs: the quirky, homey space that feels instantly, reassuringly familiar, even if no one has ever stepped inside.
The theme, here, is French, or more specifically, bistro French, but — and here’s another thing that makes you root for it — that theme is developed with a teasing touch. Rather than re-creating a conventional French bistro, with all that that implies — a hidebound approach at the stove and in the room, a somber fidelity to tradition — Swan Dive is more interested in evoking impressionistically, in working a handful of playful riffs. Hence the bordello-red curtains, white tile floors, and vintage movie posters. Hence the witty titles on the menu, from a Manhattan-like cocktail called Napoleon Complex to a burger named Jacques in the Box to, best of all, Under the Cherry Spoon, an allusion to an abysmal (but delightful, and funny) Prince flick filmed on the French Riviera. And hence the menu, which sometimes attempts to deliver a kind of bistro-fied greatest hits (croques monsieurs and madames, salmon and lentils du puy, eclairs), but just as often feels free to draw inspiration (a protein salad with bavette, a hot dog with camembert) without adhering to anything like tradition.
The heavy emphasis on sandwiches and salads makes for a place that feels like a lunch spot even at dinnertime. Or, like what you would get if you crossed Dave Shannon’s campy-but-serious homage to French country cooking, L’Opossum, with Kendra Feather’s lovably old-school diner Garnett’s Cafe.
This menu weighted with salads and sandwiches is not just a means of keeping costs down in a scene that has become increasingly competitive. It also happens to be chef and owner Kevin Robert’s bailiwick, in the same way that some chefs are known for their way with fish, or with small plates.
Food lovers may recall that Roberts is the name behind the late, lamented Black Sheep, beloved for its beefy, over-the-top sandwiches and creative brunches, and Perly’s, the city’s new-breed artisanal Jewish deli (and one of the best in the country of this current crop, I might add). Few industry folks have such an innate understanding of what makes a restaurant good, and, more to the point, of what makes a restaurant in this city work.
So it’s disappointing to have to report that for all that Swan Dive has going for it, at this early stage of its history, it’s more rewarding for serving up a mood and a feeling than it is for delivering consistently on the plate.
That burger, made with fresh-ground chuck roast and topped — at least the option is there — with chopped chicken liver sounded like a powerhouse, a pile-up of the kind Roberts has been doing for years. Richness on top of richness. And it came to the table so tall and proud, as if it were just daring the diner not to Instagram it. But the flavor was oddly thin, and it didn’t help that the patty was under-seasoned. Or that it fell apart halfway through.
Likewise, a croque monsieur of duck and forme d’ambert read better than it ate: a dish of deep, developed flavor, thanks to its slow, red-wine braise, but the cheese congealed quickly, making for a dish of discomfitingly contrasting textures — chewy on top, sloppy and wet beneath as a result of its mushroom bechamel. There wasn’t nearly that jolt of flavor in the club sandwich, but the structure was more supportable, and the top layer of shrimp salad made for a smart and clever condiment, amplifying the flavor of the (slightly overcooked) fish and providing a jolt of bright acidity. Shells of Light, a seafood salad, showcased some beautiful slices of juicy pink grapefruit and crisp, tender greens, but also tasteless crabmeat and mealy chilled shrimp.
The design of Swan Dive is to be essentially two restaurants in one, with, at nighttime, a prix fixe menu for the adventurous. At $26 for three courses, or $32 with (house) wine pairings, the menu again is better on paper than it is in reality.
On a recent midweek night, I took some friends to dinner, each of us springing for the prix fixe — and each of us trying different dishes. A chilled tomato soup was bright and fruity, ideal on a hot night where the air didn’t stir. Similarly, I liked the chill and texture of the vichyssoise, but the vinegar in the soup, applied with too heavy a hand, kept asserting itself, like some clueless, self-regarding colleague at a meeting.
A salad of ham, figs and greens was by far the weakest of the starters, undone by the quality of its meat, with a cartilaginous texture somewhat closer to what you slip into a kid’s sandwich than, say, a pricier and more flavorful prosciutto.
If I was surprised to see this skimping on ham, I was downright shocked to see that two of the three main courses were coq au vin and a plate of beef cheeks and gnocchi. In the dead of summer? Two-thirds of the way through, a friend and I were sucking air, and all that we had earlier enjoyed (the tender lusciousness of the beef and chicken, the perfection of the gnocchi, the intensity of the sauces) already a memory. That each dish came with carved carrots, an old-fashioned fine-dining fillip, and butter-drenched asparagus seemed almost a joke, a parody of a kitchen tone-deaf to the season. My friend who ordered the fish was feeling, for much of this course, superior and smug, until the richness of the butter sauce turned her sluggish, too.
Dessert brought more over-the-top richness, but it also brought clear and unqualified rewards. I loved the mammoth eclair filled with pistachio cream, and as for that Prince-alluding bombe, a dense, dark chocolate mousse capped by brandied cherries, I could see returning every week for a spoonful, or five or ten.
That each is just $5 is an astonishment. Cheap, fun, delicious, playful. More in this vein, please, Swan Dive. More, more. It will make it hard to not root for you.
3 out of 5 stars
805 N Davis Ave.
804-358-1564
Hours: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.; closed Sundays
Prices: $5 to $28
