PRICE:
Frommer's Very Highly Recommended

A strong current of thought in cooking these days believes that everything from everywhere should be in play. Critics of this position hold that in mixing techniques and ingredients from around the globe, you lose the moorings and character of place. I'm not so sure. Unlike that found in the long-established cuisines of the world, America has less tradition to follow and has always been about innovation and borrowing from others. What I find to be more alarming is the mindless use of disparate ingredients for the sake of notoriety or simply because our modern distribution network now makes it possible. Local celebrity chef Claire Smith is immune to these criticisms. Her cooking is purposeful and shows a distinctly American sensibility, and not some bowdlerized version of foreign cooking for local tastes. It is often new and inventive. And when it's not inventive, it's just plain good. The salads are fresh and well dressed, the soups are soul-satisfying, and the main courses show flash. The restaurant's decor also shows some flash -- unabashedly modern, simple, and with a couple of playful references to 1960s Dada. Shade is in the Heights and is a pioneer of another sort in being the first to circumvent the neighborhood's 100-year-old code prohibiting the sale of drinks. Cheers!

Copyright: Excerpted from Frommer's Texas, 4th Edition, (c) 2008, Wiley Publishing, Inc.

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