OUR REVIEW OF POLO'S SIGNATURE

Strategically positioned between River Oaks and Tanglewood, Post Oak Grill turned out to be quite the home run for Chef Polo Becerra. The Mexico City native poured ample flair into the mostly traditional cuisine there, but also never lost sight of his restaurant’s true mission as upscale watering hole and really classy pickup bar. When Post Oak Grill was having a good night, you could probably spot the decrease in recently and soon-to-be divorced traffic at the Palm.

Still, when Becerra decided to open a restaurant more devoted to food – and a newer, more youthful version of food at that – he was smart enough to gather the best help money could buy. To run the kitchen at what he called Polo’s Signature, he raided the kitchen at Mark’s and came away with Adam Puskorius as his executive chef. And to run the dining room, he lucked into the near-legendary Jon Paul, a household word among the well-heeled for his years at Brennan’s of Houston and especially at tony’s. The fact that Paul had recently extricated himself from an ill-fated entrepreneurial venture called Sabor on Montrose nailed the biblical adage that all things work for the good. Doing a bit of prospecting himself, Paul brought along his right-hand guy from tony’s, Cesar Ebora, to serve as wine manager.

It goes without saying that the phrase “New American Cuisine” is as meaningless as can be. Initially, it probably meant something – like when Jeremiah Tower was cooking it for Alice Waters at Chez Panisse. In the decades since then, however, the vague grasp the phrase exerted on meaning has been pressed aside by the service of almost anything alongside almost anything else. And since “American cuisine” can arguably include anything our nation can include, no one had quite the clout to make a useful definition stick. At Polo’s Signature, New American Cuisine apparently refers to the melting-pot bag of tricks that a chef can draw from. At their best, we’re totally happy to let chefs Polo and Adam keep drawing, based on their own inclinations, and totally ready to forget those chefs who didn’t draw so well or so wisely.

Among the appetizers at Polo’s Signature, you might follow your normal Texas inclinations to anything that sounds the least bit Tex-Mex. The shrimp empanadas with roasted avocado salsa are extraordinary, as are the beef tenderloin tostadas with smoked jalapeno avocado sauce and even the weirder goat cheese lamb enchiladas with roasted pacilla sauce and toasted pumpkin seeds. Starters shine, however, even removed from Tex-Mex. Check out the light but satisfying Tuscan soup with pulled chicken, cous cous (more Sicilian than Tuscan, honestly) and spinach, or any from the dazzling collection of salads. Best bet from these is probably the fried oyster in warm pancetta vinaigrette, our beloved Italian bacon working its sweet-smoky magic on spinach, frisee and arugula. If it’s offered as a special, be sure to order the lobster salad with fresh tropical fruits, candied pecans and tequila-lime vinaigrette.

From a practical standpoint, the list of entrees is ambitious – 13 selections of seafood and meat, plus six more items described as Steaks and Chops. Our favorite seafoods here are the pan-seared sushi-grade Hawaiian tuna, paired with jasmine fried rice and ginger sake sauce plus those slices of pickled ginger we all love from sushi bars, and the hyper-fresh roasted Chilean sea bass with braised fennel, saffron sauce and some deliriously good whipped potatoes. Among the meats, we love the tender grilled lamb loin with roasted garlic rosemary sauce. Of course, we might love anything that came with the confusingly described but dead-on comfort food “Gouhda cured Ham Mac and Cheese.” Whatever language that’s attempting to be, we intend to become fluent.

Desserts change day to day, with no “menu” except a tray that shows up when appropriate. Still, in the months Polo’s Signature has been open, a certain sizzle has attached itself to the three-layer chocolate mousse cake, the carrot cake with coconut-cream cheese icing, and the banana-pineapple bread pudding with chocolate-cognac sauce. Best of all, if you ask, Cesar Ebora might splash the bread pudding with some extra Pierre Ferrand cognac – one more example, if one more were needed, of Polo’s Signature getting it right.