Datebook Diner: Azalea blooms again

Azalea's dining area. (Credit: Andrea Melendez/The Register)

The stars aligned perfectly for Azalea two years ago. Just a few months after opening, the caucuses hit town. Political luminaries poured in, national newspapers raved and the hot spot totally took off. Yet by spring - even before founding chef Jeremy Morrow moved on - food began to slip and the overall sizzle began to fizzle.

Fortunately, a successful new menu, along with the recent run of "Wicked" at the Civic Center and some high praise in the Wall Street Journal, have helped bring back the buzz.

Ambiance: Graceful touches successfully meld with hard-edged urban effects in a plush yet postmodern way.

Menu: Chef Sean Wilson, a North Carolina native who has been with Azalea since its opening and took over after Morrow left, often grounds his high-end, detailed dishes with down-home Southern touches such as grits, oysters, collard greens, pimento cheese, peanuts, pecans - and lots of bacon.

First-rate food: For the most part, the kitchen was able to stay on top of the precise, detailed cuisine that glistened with freshness and blazed with flavor. Greatest hits included the tender beef shoulder steak with a luscious blue cheese creamed spinach as well as the chicken with a homemade butternut squash and foie-gras raviolio and a pomegranate salsa verde.

It's nice to know you can go low here, too; starting at $10, the wood-fired pizzas combine clever ingredients in ways that proved dashing and original, at least judging from a winning pie with house-smoked chicken, barbecue sauce, roasted red onion, Fontina and a Cheddar crust.

For dessert, an Orange Mousse Cake proved as creative and passionately wrought as the best here.

Enough, already: Sometimes the Southern angle seems more about schtick than satisfaction. The fried oysters and pork tenderloin tasted like two separate entrées that happened to share one plate. And the molten foie gras croquette on the Dr. Pepper Braised Short Ribs left me scratching my head. One cut into it revealed a watery liquid that had little to offer an otherwise top-notch dish of unctuous ribs.

And as true-to-the-South as the winter greens are, one night they arrived with a harsh, peppery angle that clobbered the finer workings of the dish.

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