Lovers of fine dining will find reasons to return to Amorette

• By Phantom Diner

I’ve long argued that the venue and feel of a restaurant can contribute or detract, often significantly, to any dining experience.

Things such as lighting, seating, music, colors, textures, overall atmosphere can subtlety, and sometimes not so subtlety, set a mood even before a menu arrives.

Amorette in downtown Lancaster is a great example of a how venue can have a positive effect. The place is simply stunning.

It’s located in Lancaster’s large historic Press Building, a century-old former cigar factory and printing company, beautifully refurbished into condos and this elegant first floor restaurant and lounge.

Amorette offers a four-course fixed-price menu, a seven-course tasting menu, a chef’s table, private rooms, a long and lovely dining room and a posh comfy cushioned lounge with a curved bar and a separate menu as inviting as any in the region.

It doesn’t feel like Central Pennsylvania. It feels like what it is: high-end dining in the type of setting one would find in Midtown Manhattan.

It opened in 2018 and I’ve heard nothing other than praise since. I visited recently and can confirm the praise I’ve heard is justified.

Staff is welcoming. And servers are helpful and knowledgeable about the innovative dishes, mostly of French and Asian influence.

My dining partner and I took a brief tour of the restaurant, which includes a glassed-in wall of wines, and opted to dine in the lounge, drawn by the beauty of the bar.

Let me start there.

To say it’s well-stocked is to greatly understate. There are, for example, eight very interesting beers on tap, 20-plus bottled beers, 15 vodkas, 22 gins, 24 bourbons, 19 tequilas, plus lists of ryes, cognacs, scotch, flights and more.

And highlights, in my view, are in-house special cocktails that are hard to resist.

A Black Smoked Manhattan ($14) made with Jim Beam Black extra-aged bourbon, sherry, dry vermouth and Mezcal mist, literally a spritz of the Mexican agave-based spirit, served straight-up with a Luxardo cherry, is as smooth a Manhattan as I’ve tasted.

The wine list is endless (its table of contents is a couple pages), and there’s a selection of wines by the glass.

The bar/lounge menu during my visit featured hot and cold appetizers ranging in price from $16 to $24, and entrees ranging from $18 for an American Wagyu burger with fries to $85 for a Japanese wood-fired A-5 grade Miyazaki Wagyu steak, considered by many the Holy Grail of beef.

I opted for beef tartare ($18), a marvelously moist dish made with pickled veggies, herb aioli and topped with paper-thin tater chippies the size of nickels and dimes.

Other apps included East Coast oysters, smoked Hudson Valley duck, American caviar, house-made gnocchi with oxtail and bone marrow, cod croquettes and lobster roll.

My dining partner chose the “soup of the season” ($12), which was onion but not the kind served in a crock covered with cheese. It was a light puree deemed delicious that came with a tasty crouton of toasted Raclette cheese (made from Swiss and French Alps cow’s milk).

My bar entrée was a red heritage hen ($28) served with cranberry, leeks and celery root, perfectly presented and prepared. I wanted to kick the plate.

My partner went with twin Maryland Blue Crab cakes ($36) with braised cabbage and sweet potato. That plate, too, ended up empty.

We shared dessert. Something sinful called shoefly tart ($12) made with chocolate sable, molasses curd and rum raison ice cream. It’s one of those sweets that upon tasting draws immediate exclamatory comments, as in OH MY GOD!

Amorette is clearly a place of haute cuisine, and lovers of fine dining will find lots of reasons to return.

It is pricey. But given the quality I experienced, rightly so.

Menus change. The four-course menu I saw, at $78 per person, was amazing. First course included oysters, Waldorf Salad or foie gras; second course included but wasn’t limited to risotto, scallops, pheasant; third course included a Wagyu ribeye, lamb, venison, poached lobster; and fourth was a cheese tasting or other dessert.

The seven-course tasting menu goes for $137 a person and includes a vegetarian version. You can check it (and the restaurant) out at amorette.com.

I suppose there are other eateries between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with venues, menus and wine lists such as offered by Amorette. But this eatery is a place to experience, a rarity in Central Pennsylvania.

Plus, February, a month with a name derived from the Latin februum, a word variously related to purification, which suggests denial, might be the perfect time go against the grain and indulge.

And don’t forget Valentine’s Day, always a great excuse to dine out well.

 

AMORETTE

401 N. Prince St., Lancaster

Open for dinner at 5 p.m. every day but Monday

Prix fixe and bar/lounge dining; takes major cards; street parking; reservations suggested; 717-947-7710.