room — are a tangible homage to generations past .
The restaurant is also a full-throated endorsement of community , not only in the benches , pendants and tilework put in by locals , but by way of its eclectic and increasingly regular crowd . There are plenty of twenty-something diners but they vibe easily with a much older crowd , all of whom wait patiently for a table to come their way . ( A Joan Didion look-alike was quick to tell every waiting stranger what they had to order and gave a few hugs before departing .) As for the staff , they ’ re young and full of praise for Brown ’ s work (“ Possibly the best thing I ’ ve eaten .”) as well as his quest for equitable work wages (“ Gratuity is included so no one gets screwed .”). So if family was the inspiration for Frank & Laurie ’ s , it ’ s also the aspiration for the daily mechanics .
You can get as kumbaya as you want , though — a restaurant is only as good as it tastes , and a daytime menu has a heavily drawn blueprint that it must embrace or reject . Brown , expectedly , does both . The ingredients are de rigueur : eggs , cheese , bread , syrup . But , like Thick Neck , it ’ s the syntax and translation that matters when you ’ re dealing with a finite language .
The most surprising dish in a series of innovations , for instance , is a quivering quiche with the texture of custard . There ’ s
Chef Eric Brown and Sarah Watts , owners of Frank & Lauries ’ s . no cheese or vegetables for the sake of drama — and no place to hide if the seasoning is off . It ’ s one of the simplest and best iterations of an egg out in the world and its crust — a whole wheat version with so much butter that it resembles puff pastry — is an epiphany . Inquiries about its origin were met with what I ’ ve come to expect : “ trade secrets ” and “ The chef was messing around with it .” ( If there ’ s one thing that Thick Neck and Frank & Laurie ’ s have in common , it ’ s the staff ’ s nonchalant acceptance that kitchens regularly get everything right .)
Even dishes that stick closer to the prototypes — pancakes and sandwiches — distill the experience of eating to its essence . A steamed egg sandwich with cheese and caramelized onion on a classic Thomas ’ English muffin may look like an Egg McMuffin but it ’ s the insistently porky sausage that conducts the symphony . It spills out of the bread haphazardly and has such a pronounced crunch that I started to confuse meat for muffin .
A patty melt on rye conjures up both a diner and a deli Reuben . Roasted cabbage takes out the sour of sauerkraut but none of the texture , and there ’ s something about the sandwich that suggests a Big Mac might have just been elevated to fine dining . ( This seems like a good time to call attention to the hash browns , which also manage to mic drop on fast food . They ’ re cubes of salty crust served with a smoked oyster aioli , which one eager woman ate with a spoon and loudly debated asking for extras .)
Like his old menu , Brown uses this one to play around with the concept of salads — he showers herbs in such liberal fashion that they become main ingredients . Shredded carrots are matched with mint , a market salad ( featuring almost every offering from the eponymous market ) is dressed in a coriander vinaigrette , and a cool plate of cucumbers is covered in fish bits and handfuls of enough dill to squint and see pickles approving of this welcome madness . Even black bass crudo is hiding under a mound of shaved celery and a neon green lovage oil , all of which turns a light seafood dish into a poem about produce .
There are plenty of savory dishes as well that almost meander into dinner territory : fish in roasted onion broth , sausage and polenta , lamb meatballs with stewed beans . ( They ’ re a sign of things to come as the restaurant expands into Friday dinner and beyond .) The only reason not to order them for brunch is that it ’ s a challenge to eat six large plates and it ’ s impossible not to want to eat everything . Don ’ t opt out of the fresh spaghetti , though , which is served simply with anchovy butter or preserved fennel seeds and sweet clam confit , each version waiting to be adopted into the Italian vernacular .
All of this should be enough . But Brown is aware that an afternoon meal almost always fixates on bread and here he complies with custom . Large biscuits with shards of sea salt are served with fresh jam and soft whipped butter , and if you had only a single bite of food at F & L ’ s , this might be the one . But the griddled pound cake is utterly pristine , an archetype of the highest caliber served with thick whipped cream that sits just to the left of sweet . Think ahead and order it as your closing dish , a worthy dessert even if you ’ re approaching overload .
Like his baked goods , Brown himself has settled into a groove that manages to marry modernity and comfort in equal measure , never asking diners to lose their footing entirely but consistently upending a meal that thrives on tradition . And while this small city has a great many culinary accomplishments under its belt , the fact that Providence convinced Eric Brown to settle here long-term might be its most notable coup of the year . 🆁
108 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l SEPTEMBER 2024