DINING REVIEW: New menu, chef push Charles Court to dining excellence

Charles Court has long been known as The Broadmoor restaurant where rich out-of-towners could go so they could tell the folks back home that they ate elk or buffalo. It specialized in “Colorado Cuisine,” which for the most part meant a French treatment of wild game. It was good, but according to past Gazette reviewers, it was never great.

In the past 18 months, something stunning and wonderful has happened. New chef Greg Barnhill took the helm after working his magic for years at the Beaver Creek Lodge in Vail and a number of upscale seafood showcases in Florida. The first thing he did was chase most of the game off the menu. Then he replaced it with a bold, but nuanced, exposition of plates that play up his love of varied textures, simple, assertive flavors, and damn good fish.

“There really is no such thing as ‘Colorado Cuisine’ as far as I’m concerned,” he told me recently. So he created a more free-form American menu that flows from sea to shining sea.

The results are first-rate. Try as I might, I couldn’t find a dish that was not superb.

Charles Court, which sits in the west tower of the hotel, is named for hotel founder Spencer Penrose’s less-flamboyant business partner, Charles Tutt, and it has always served as the less-flamboyant partner to The Broadmoor’s first lady of fine dining, The Penrose Room.

Jackets are required at the Penrose Room. Charles Court merely requires resort casual, which means, as the answering machine for the restaurant admonishes, no jeans or flip-flops.

I’ve always thought of Charles Court as the safer, less-interesting partner to the Penrose Room, but after trying Barnhill’s dishes, I think it can easily give the Penrose Room a run for its (vast piles of old) money.

Dinner is naturally pricey. But I don’t get the sense that the prices are there to keep the wrong types of people out as much as they are there to cover costs. At Charles Court, you pay, but you also get some of the best ingredients, expertly prepared.

Dinner started with the server asking if we would prefer bottled water or fresh, pure Rocky Mountain water, i.e. the stuff from the tap.

The menu needs no such decoration. Each straightforward description is all the euphemism you need. Each sounds so enticing that it is hard to decide.

None of our choices proved wrong.

Diver scallops with pear risotto over vanilla Riesling sauce, port syrup and lamb pancetta ($13) was a true feat: Plump, tender scallops perfectly seared and sitting like clouds over a hill of light, expressive risotto (a feat in itself) were surrounded by a complementary morass made up of the rich sweetness of vanilla and white wine cream, tart port syrup and crunchy, salty, savory lamb.

Combining all flavors and textures on one plate, that’s sort of a signature thing, Barnhill told me later. If it is all as good as the scallops, it is my thing, too.

Each plate astounded. A generous lobster cocktail ($15) was jazzed up by a bright mango horseradish and micro greens.

Even the traditional Caesar Salad ($8), which is no longer served tableside because Barnhill has tried to tone down the stuffiness of the restaurant, is taken to a higher level by amazing white anchovies.

Entrees continue the reign of excellence.

The pepper steak ($38), an old standby Barnhill kept at the request of regulars, is raised to a new level by sweet and spicy homemade mango chutney brimming with Indian spices.

Pork Three Ways ($32), which on some nights, as a special, ratchets up to four or five ways, features a luscious, rich Berkshire chop with a delicately spiced apple sauce, braised belly (think bacon, unsliced) and a fantastically smoky, house-made bacon mixed with simple wilted spinach. On the side is a palm-size cast-iron skillet brimming with a loaf of steaming corn bread.

“I try to keep it simple,” Barnhill told me. “Get the best ingredients you can and try to stay out of the way.”
Looking for a weakness in the menu’s epicurean armor, I ordered the seafood cassoulet ($28), a stew of lobster, salmon, halibut, scallops and white beans. It had the potential to be phenomenally bad. Instead, it was just phenomenal.

The kitchen staff poaches the seafood in its own luxurious lobster stock (which takes long hours of boiling and seasoning to produce), then broils the dish until the pate of each chunk of fish gets a caramelized crown. Then they add a reduction of German Riesling and vanilla, a bit of cream, and fresh white beans.

“It started as a byproduct dish for us,” Barnhill said.

Dessert has its own star lineup.

Vanilla bean crème brûlée is the picture of perfection in both texture and flavor. A fabulous apple crisp included homemade creamy, somewhat sour, real crème fraîche that is a perfect complement to the fresh apples. Chocolate mousse is so rich it could probably afford a golf club membership.

Service was attentive and stealthy. My one complaint is the bold vanilla that shows up in an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert. On their own, each is fabulous. Ordered together, they grow cloying and monotonous. But the excellent servers would probably know that, and steer diners to more complementary choices.