The Left Bank
511 Rhode Island St, Buffalo, NY 14213
Web: The Left Bank
Phone: 716.882.3509
Rating:    [learn more]
Pros:

Staggeringly excellent appetizers that manage to surpass both their descriptions and expectations, while entrees all qualify as at least good. Strong Italian and American menu picks.

Cons:

High noise level. Slightly pricey entrees are solid, but not as spectacular as truly outstanding appetizers. Desserts are bought from outside source.

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Buffalo Italian

"This plate was a mind-altering exercise in how an utterly common, typically mediocre side dish can be elevated into high art by the skillful use of ingredients."

Sometimes the name of a restaurant tells you everything you need to know about what's inside; sometimes it just throws you off. Having visited The Left Bank - both the original location in Paris, home to the famed Latin Quarter dining district, as well as the same-named restaurant in Western New York - we can say that there's only one similarity between them: superb food. Located on Rhode Island Street in Buffalo, across from a fire station and very close to the steakhouse Prime 490, this Left Bank offers an almost superlative Italian dining experience, so strong in its first course that you mightn't need a second, and probably shouldn't bother with the third. The full story follows.

The Story: As we understand it, The Left Bank was named for the artistic inspiration behind its decor rather than the food; there's only the vaguest trace of French cuisine amidst the mostly Italian menu options. Other than the white tablecloths, matching plates and nice silverware, the interior of this modern-looking restaurant is noteworthy for its red brick walls, paintings, numerous modest lights and candles. There's a bar in the entryway, and a dining room off to the right side, both clearly designed to appeal to thirty-, forty-, and fiftysomethings, and due both to the restaurant's small size and popularity, advance reservations are strongly recommended.

We initially found the venue cozy, and felt comfortably distant from other diners during our meal, but the volume level in the place started out loud and quickly became uncomfortably so. One half of our table of six found it all but impossible to hear the other half, and the ambient noise from other tables was actually disruptive to comprehension. Noise-absorbent walls or coverings would really have helped.

This was, however, our only real complaint about The Left Bank as a dining establishment. We enjoyed great service, starting with proper wine etiquette and continuing through the properly paced delivery of what turned out to be a huge meal. And, had we been there only as a smaller group - a couple, or four people rather than six - the noise would still have been as loud, but not quite as disruptive to our conversation.

Our meal consisted of two courses: appetizers, from the menu's "Premiere Plat" ($4-$11) and "Bourgeois Fare" ($8-$14) sections, and entrees taken from the "Peasant Fare" ($10-$16) and "Grill & Pasta" ($10-$24) sections. Before drinks, tax, and tip, the subtotal for our meal was roughly $200, or a little over $30 per person, which struck us as reasonable for the quality and quantity of the items we received.

Highs: There are times when the elements of a truly great meal can be analyzed by the bite, others, only by the plate, and still others, barely at all; the appetizers we tried at The Left Bank nearly fell into the latter, sublime category. Even though we were trying our best to take mental notes on the dishes, most of the items we tried filled our mouths with the culinary equivalent of silk, our discrete, thoughtful bites giving way to emotional responses rather than rational ones. We agreed that these items, priced attractively and served generously, could and should form the basis of complete future meals; ordering five or six rather than entrees could both fill and thrill a hungry table of four. Here are the highlights.

Banana Peppers ($7). Ever since we discovered and loved the spicy fried banana peppers at Kentucky Greg's, we've been on a quest for the area's best variant on this dish. So far, Greg's shares the title with Left Bank's very different version, full spicy banana peppers that have been baked in a tomato sauce with asiago cheese and basil. Our plate, shown in the first picture, arrived photo-perfect, the contents variously sweet, slightly spicy, soft, crisp, and rich. Served to a single patron, this dish could have been half of a meal, but between the six of us, it disappeared quickly, alone demanding a follow-up visit.

Portobello Mushroom ($8). Oversized and surprisingly beautiful for a mere mushroom, the upside-down portobello cap shown in photo two was stuffed with bread crumbs and artichokes, then drenched in a port wine sauce with green peppercorns. We've had many stuffed portobellos at different restaurants, discovering over time the tradeoffs between the mushrooms' sizes, textures, and flavors. This one was just right from top to bottom, large but not undercooked, firm but not rubbery, and perfectly balanced in stuffing, sauce, and fungus. For such a familiar dish, this tasted surprisingly new.

Proscuitto Prawns ($11). These days, the simple solution to transforming virtually any dish into something great is to add bacon, and though we haven't been fond of that trick when applied to filet mignon, it's dangerously effective with shrimp. As shown in photo three, The Left Bank is using thin-sliced cured ham, wrapped around its two jumbo-sized prawns, which flank a cup-sized mound of polenta and a puddle of tomato and grape vinaigrette. Even if the sauce wasn't there, the crispy ham and the tender prawns would have been enough to sate on flavor, the salty wrap rendering the flavor of shrimp comparably sweet. We would have preferred a couple of extra prawns to the polenta, which was fine but comparatively forgettable.

Bruschetta ($10). Though pricey and certainly not discernible as such from the photograph, this six-piece plate of bruschetta - toasted bread topped with oil and cheese - was a mind-altering exercise in how an utterly common, typically mediocre side dish can be elevated into high art by the skillful use of ingredients. The Left Bank changes bruschettas daily, so there's no guarantee that you'll get the same one as shown in photo four, but between what tasted like two cheeses - one sweet, one salty - the sprinkles of basil and sweet vinaigrette on its top, plus the small salad in the center of the plate, we'd say this was the best bruschetta we've ever had. Was it worth $10? No, but it was wonderful nevertheless.

Other appetizers not shown but still enjoyed included traditional Caesar Salads ($5, or included with entrees), and a second pleasant shrimp dish ($9) consisting of grilled prawns on top of artichoke bottoms. The shrimp and artichokes were served with goat cheese, a sprinkling of field greens, and a sweet, slightly citric sauce. Though we're not big artichoke fans, we found that the goat cheese and sauce neutralized them while enhancing the flavor. By contrast with the proscuitto version, this dish was limited only by the smaller size of its two shrimp and the lack of a more filling central element.

The Left Bank's entrees were a slightly different story. After the meal, we agreed that while we had all enjoyed the main courses, and found them filling, they generally didn't taste as amazing as the appetizers. Our fifth picture shows a plate of two Filet Mignon Tournadoes ($24) served in a just-right mushroom sauce with broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, mashed potatoes, smoked bacon and a topping of horseradish cheese. They were tender, only slightly small for the price, and just a little too fatty, the sauce masking what tasted like an average cut of filet.

Our sixth picture depicts a juicy Pork Tenderloin special ($20), not the menu's standard version with Grand Marnier, but rather with a non-citrus wine sauce, onions, broccoli and mushrooms. We thoroughly enjoyed the meat, but found its price a little high and its accompanying mashed potatoes plain. These dishes were three-star items to the four-star appetizers, pricey and only meeting expectations, rather than exceeding them. Other entrees, including a romano Cheese Tortellini ($15), homemade ravoli, and a special salmon dish, were all firmly in the "very good, even for the price" category, more than we'd typically say about pasta and fish items at Italian restaurants.

Lows: We don't generally say this about restaurants we review, but even after ordering this large, multi-person meal at The Left Bank, there wasn't a single plate that was objectively or subjectively "okay" or "bad" in the bunch. Only two deserve brief mentions as slightly below expectations.

One of our appetizers, the Fried Oysters ($9) shown in the seventh photo, consisted of three piles of deep-fried, battered oysters served alongside puddles of creamy creole remoulade and a leafy basket of tomato, corn and jalapeno salsa. While the oysters were pretty good - close to very good when the salsa was placed on top - the remoulade lacked flavor, and the cores of the oysters were slightly and perhaps intentionally undercooked. It's obvious that this item would go over better with some diners than others; we liked it with the salsa, but would picture it as a knockout with some pepper and spice.

Similarly, one of the entrees, the Pasta & Seafood ($19) shown in photo eight, combined a substantial bowl of linguini, a smattering of scallops, shrimp, and mussels, and a very thin tomato, garlic, wine and olive oil sauce. We'll freely admit to having a bias against ordering pasta dishes - they're almost always overpriced relative to their contents - but the member of our group who picked it had no such reservation. Having previously ordered this item before at The Left Bank, he noted that the dish had been prepared unspectacularly on this occasion, the noodles left a little dry and chewy, and the seafood less than noteworthy, but said that it had previously been better. Despite its imperfections, he felt that the leftovers were worth bringing home, and having sampled it, we'd call the dish better than most of the seafood pasta dishes we've had at other restaurants. Still, we liked the Cheese Tortellini more.

Normally, we'd conclude a review with some discussion of the sweets on offer, but one of the couples at our table - trustworthy friends of Buffalo Chow, and otherwise fans of the place - strongly advised us to skip the desserts; they'd tried them before and found them to be bad. We asked and confirmed that they were brought in from a local bakery rather than prepared on site. As such, this review takes only the other portions of the menu into account; we went elsewhere after the meal.

The Verdict: As of the date of this review, we haven't awarded any full four-star ratings to Western New York restaurants, but there's little doubt that The Left Bank came as close to this mark as any local place we've visited. Having polled our group after the meal, everyone agreed that a three-and-a-half to four-star rating was appropriate, with the majority leaning towards three-and-a-half; if we offered quarter-stars, this would likely have rated even higher. There was a broad consensus that the appetizers were fantastic - great enough to skip the entrees entirely, if ordered en masse - and everyone had been at least satisfied, in some cases very pleased, by the entrees. Having skipped the desserts based on the recommendation that we do so, we avoided one aspect of the meal that might have been disappointing; you can decide for yourself whether to take the risk.

Ultimately, we were so satisfied with the quality of our Left Bank meal that we feel comfortable making the following high recommendation: if you're looking for an upscale, outstanding meal, this place should be high on your list of options. Though the noise level may put off some patrons, the flavor of the items here is enough to make a visit virtually mandatory for those who consider themselves fans of Italian food, and even those who don't. The appetizers alone are good enough to turn non-believers into worshippers, and you can take that to the bank.