Review: Sel in Scottsdale showcases skillful, safe fine dining

• Branden Levine's new fine-dining restaurant, Sel, offers prix fixe dinners in stylish environs
• A small room, evoking contemporary Scottsdale chic, seats about 50 and is tended by capable servers
• The compact menu is executed with skill, and walks a line between creative and approachable

Times are hard for fine dining in the Valley.

Diners seem less interested in dining and more interested in tasting and drinking. Steakhouses have nearly cornered the market in big-ticket checks. Nimble mid-range restaurants are providing a less expensive alternative for edgy, creative fare. And fast-casual is doing doughnuts on upscale cuisine’s front lawn just because it can.

But those who believe that refined, multicourse dinners with a bit of elegance still have a place in this town are trying to devise ways to make it work.

Sel, Branden Levine’s new spot in Scottsdale’s arts district, is surfing the leading edge of a new wave of restaurants that seek to preserve some measure of fine dining’s spirit, if not all of its trappings.

Levine, a Florida native who arrived in the Valley in 2012, has garnered goodwill from the Scottsdale crowd for his work at nearby Cafe Monarch, where he previously was executive chef. A seasoned kitchen veteran who had a cup of coffee on the television circuit, competing on “Beat Bobby Flay” and “Chef Wanted with Anne Burrell,” Levine has chosen to tack against the prevailing winds with his first solo venture in Arizona.

To frame white tablecloths, prix fixe menus and elegant presentations as subversive may seem an inversion of the natural order, but it appears that fine dining as culinary counterculture is the world in which we find ourselves.

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The scene  

A modest-size building with a patio on a quiet stretch of Main Street, Sel sports an interior with a healthy dose of contemporary Scottsdale chic.

Gleaming white-leather seats fill a room with blue and crystal accents, flanked by a wall of purple velvet that helps keep the volume down, if not exactly hushed.

Servers carry themselves in a friendly but professional manner, though attempts to color outside the lines are sometimes met with resistance, something that shouldn't be an issue at this price point.

Dishes are individually priced and may be ordered a la carte, but Sel’s focus is a prix fixe menu: $70 for four courses ($60 for a vegetarian menu), with an additional $50 for wine pairings.

Though the first course is an either/or affair, choice is otherwise limited to a handful of mains, forging a compromise between the tasting-menu crowd and those who would prefer to select their dinner.

The food

Levine’s first bites, barely more than an amuse and plated as artfully, are perhaps the strongest of the bunch.

A taste of braised oxtail ($17) takes on an atypically light and delicate countenance, set against a sweet corn puree and flaky plum empanada scented with star anise. Eggplant panisse ($16), crisp fritters with a smooth chickpea magma core, lay with confit tomatoes and sheep’s milk ricotta, familiar bedfellows that provide a cool contrast.

Tender, fried Jerusalem artichokes ($16), with beurre noisette and creme fraiche, receive a subtly pungent lift from braised mustard seeds and sit alongside an abbreviated segment of corn on the cob, skewered through its heart and dusted with Kalamata olive powder. Levine’s surf and turf ($17) is similarly hands-on, offering prawn crackers to scoop up delicately smoked lobster tail and — in one of the menu’s few misses — steak tartare with an oddly dull flavor. But seared foie gras ($30) — available as an optional add-on course — is pleasing and playful, set atop a small slice of Cheddar apple pie and brightened with apple cider gastrique.

Roasted butternut squash soup ($16) is a sweetly predictable crowd-pleaser. But it’s tough to find fault when it’s executed so well, a velvety take with an almost tropical air, courtesy of coconut milk and a lime leaf gastrique sweetened with maple syrup.

Salads are less successful and, as the third course on the prix fixe menu, inescapable.

A late-summer salad ($16) of roasted beet, fresh mozzarella and tomatoes with preserved lemon provides more visual than culinary flair, though an ample dose of confit garlic lent an unexpected punch. A roasted artichoke and Parmesan custard ($16), distressingly smeared on the plate and covered with baby kale and balsamic vinegar, was perhaps the lone dud of the dishes I sampled, though the accompanying tomato confiture, intense with a touch of heat, was a star that deserves its own vehicle.

Mains are executed with skill and feature excellent ingredients, though the results are sometimes equal parts flavorful and timid.

Levine has noted, on the record, that he considers filet mignon ($45) an overrated ingredient, and I wholeheartedly agree. Yet there it is on the menu, deftly prepared and safely cocooned in mushrooms, onions and bordelaise. Though disappointed, I’m sympathetic. Fork-tender steaks pay the bills.

Similarly positioned were two duck breasts ($40), one with pear and kale, one with apple butter and crisp salsify, both beautifully balanced and bathed in aromatic reductions without a whiff of risk.

Levine loves seafood, and it shows.

Dorade ($45) is delicately treated and among the menu’s best bets. One preparation with tender gnocchi and a citrus vinaigrette was a splash of acid shy of excellent, but it was later upstaged by an alternate version (Levine tends to riff on a theme), set atop molten fennel with a rich uni beurre blanc and a bracing dash of the sea, courtesy of powdered seaweed.

Nova Scotia scallops ($45) were also strong, seasoned and seared, offered once with kabocha puree and a sweet mustard vinaigrette, on another visit with a sweet blood orange-beet vinaigrette and curry risotto. And agnolotti ($35) turned convention on its head to good effect, pairing the cheese-filled morsels with peas and pureed carrots, though I wish the pasta had the same sharp bite as the lemon emulsion it was dressed with.

Desserts (an additional $12) are a simple and solid finish, from a tender mission fig turnover with goat cheese gelato to a riff on strawberry shortcake with salted caramel cake and a touch of balsamic.

The lowdown

Levine is a pro who can execute, and it’s a fine line he walks at Sel. The restaurant’s biggest challenge may be the expectations set by a substantial price point. Of course, pricier restaurants needn’t be wild and experimental. But one can almost sense a struggle in some dishes, as though Levine is hedging his bets.

Unlike some other similarly priced restaurants around town, this isn’t the kind of food that will make James Beard sit up and take notice. It’s a skillful yet safe approach to refined cuisine that will undoubtedly appeal to a broad audience.

Perhaps that’s exactly the point.

Reach Armato at dominic.armato@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8533. Interact with him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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Sel

Where: 7044 E. Main St., Scottsdale.

Hours: 5:30-9 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 5:30-10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.

Details: 480-949-6296, selrestaurant.com.

Price: $60-$80 per person, excluding beverage, tax and tip.

Stars: 4 (out of 5) 

Restaurant review rating scale

Stars based on food, service, ambience

5 — Excellent

4 — Very good

3 — Good

2 — Fair

1 — Poor