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It took a second visit to the Beach Club Pizza Bistro before I realized that “pizza” was inserted between the restaurant’s first and last names. As it turns out, there was quite a lot I didn’t notice the first time.
The Bistro is located in a skillfully restored historic building at 21939 Lakeshore Blvd. in Euclid. What better place to spend a drizzly day than in a restaurant with a beach theme.
The walls are brightly painted in shades of terra cotta and turquoise, and even though it was gray and dreary outside the seashell speckled gauzy sheers let plenty of available light in. The ceiling is painted tin and glimpses of exposed bricks peek out at corners and doorways.
I invited three women with discerning palates to join me for lunch in return for their opinions. With an open invitation like that, lunch could have turned into a gripe-fest. We didn’t let that happen and chose instead to enjoy our meal and ignore the dreary, rainy weather.
The dining room was relatively quiet. It was later in the lunch hour and not many people were still eating. We had a long, leisurely lunch. Actually, the food was quite slow to arrive. One of my guests, who waited tables for many years, suggested our server took her cues from us. A bunch of women, in no apparent hurry…maybe she thought time was not of the essence.
And it wasn’t. It had been a long week, and an even longer time since I’d been out to lunch, even just for fast food. It felt like I was cheating on my usual lunch partner – my boring, old laptop – with a good-looking, much younger man.
Not mentioning any names, but two of us were running late, so I called and asked one of my guests to order a couple appetizers with strict instructions they not be either potato skins or chicken fingers.
I should have known the Beach Club Bistro, a member of the Cleveland Originals, would have nothing resembling either one. The menu is definitely not run-of-the-mill.
In fact, other than the salads which are quite ordinary (enough with the dried cranberries already), I’d describe the menu as ambitious. And even the Caesar had its own flair; it’s topped with black olives, albeit canned.
We tried the Shorehaven gratinee, which turned out to be a lot of cheese on top of a few tiny shrimp and almost invisible pieces of crab, topped with sliced green onions and served with really good asiago cheese pita triangles. It had good flavor, but there was simply too much cheese. We also tried the crab cake served on a bed of mixed greens with a remoulade for dipping which we all agreed was a better choice.
The soups – lobster bisque and chipotle butternut squash – also were far from mundane. The tomato-based bisque was thick and hearty as was the squash soup. The latter was a hair too sweet (it almost tasted like liquid pumpkin pie), but it was tasty and looked appealing with an artistic squirt of poblano pepper cream.
With pizza as its middle name, you won’t be surprised to learn that you can choose between 13 9- or 12-inch specialty pizzas or design your own. They are named for area locales such as the Noble Beach Club (topped with Caribbean salsa, asiago cheese, ham, pineapple, bacon and provolone) and the Henn Mansion (barbecue sauce, garlic chicken, celery and bleu, asiago and provolone cheeses).
Choose from unusual toppings like ricotta-stuffed eggplant, asparagus tips and mole sauce.
A few of the restaurant’s desserts are made in-house. We tried two of them and they were both wonderful. I can never say no to homemade tiramisu. It was absolutely divine, so creamy and rich that along with everything else we’d eaten, and the sweet potato-white chocolate tart with vanilla bean gelato, (incredible; we did finish that one) we just couldn’t finish it. I brought the leftovers to eat in front of my laptop.
Overall the entire experience was a good one. The ladies room was spotless, the sink sparkling and the mirror splash-free – leave it to a bunch of women to notice that.
If you’ve eaten at the Beach Club before, you’ll notice the menu has changed. I’m dying to go back for the crispy duck paprikash with pumpkin-sage gnocci and haricot vert. I’m sure they’d pair well with a couple of the Beach Club’s specialty martinis or a selection from the extensive wine list.
Don’t get into the rut of eating at your desk with only your computer as a companion. Go out to lunch and sit down in a different restaurant at least once a week. There are so many in and around Lake County that you’ll never run out of places to cheat on your laptop.
Laura Freeman writes regularly about restaurants for the Lake County Business Journal. Lfreeman@lakebusinessjournal.com. |
