Sam Fox’s latest restaurant is arguably also his greatest – and if you drink too much, you can always crash upstairs.
By Nikki Buchanan | Photography from Rob Ballard
Le Âme – the name of the gorgeous new French-inspired steakhouse in the recently opened Global Ambassador hotel – presents a conundrum. How are we supposed to pronounce this inaccurately spelled French phrase (which means “the soul,” as in the soul of the hotel)? Luh ah-may? Lay ah-may? Lah-may? I’ve heard it all three ways.
The anecdotal backstory is that owner Sam Fox (the local mogul who forged a restaurant empire, sold it for a gazillion dollars, earned multiple James Beard Award nominations and constructed the posh European-style Global Ambassador as his hospitality legacy… that guy) was worried that people would see the correctly conjugated “L’Âme” and pronounce it “lame,” which would be lame, indeed. He added an “e” to avert the problem.
The correct way to say it is lahm, for what it’s worth.
Lame, lahm, whatever. It’s a scintilla of awkwardness in an otherwise terrific restaurant, a transportive space so smoothly run it hums. (In fact, I can’t think when I’ve had friendlier, more well-informed servers.) As he has done many times before, Fox enlisted Valley designer Judith Testani to manifest his vision. She’s used dark wood, a hand-painted frescoed ceiling, walls of Venetian stucco and green velvet banquettes to conjure the luxurious aesthetic of a 19th-century Parisian brasserie. The mirrored room is part cozy throwback, part contemporary hot spot. I could live here.
Some among the Valley dining intelligentsia have dismissed the menu as predictable – an inane observation given the obvious emphasis on French classics. You’ll find French onion soup, quiche, beef Bourguignon and the like, supported by a roster of steaks (popular in this longtime cattle town) and a “Jewish Quarter” section offering four Jewish classics at lunch. No, the food is not cutting edge, but it’s beautifully plated and flawlessly executed, which is enough for me.
Who’s the chef? Who isn’t the chef, more like. Fox’s culinary all-star team includes executive chef Jason Hua, “culinary creative director” Eric Kim Haugen (who jointly created menus for all six of the hotel’s restaurants), food and beverage director Dushyant Singh (formerly of Blue Hound and Weft & Warp) and master sommelier Jonathan Ross, who has curated a global wine list to satisfy both the budget-conscious and those with the wherewithal to drop $3,000 on a Domaine de la Romanée-Conti.
On an early, unofficial lunch trip, I go for crunchy duck spring rolls, sided with greenery and sweet plum sauce (a French take on a Vietnamese classic), and an exemplary salade Niçoise, composed of seared tuna, potatoes, green beans, a hard-boiled egg and Niçoise olives, anointed in a light, lemony vinaigrette. A sinfully rich chocolate tart, set on a perfectly crumbly crust, confirms what I already suspected: These guys know what they’re doing.
The next visit begins with a balanced beet and frisée salad containing radicchio, goat cheese and candied walnuts – a textural bonanza that flashes sweet, salty, earthy and bitter flavors. Next up, Ora King salmon so rich and fatty it’s easy to see why it’s considered the Wagyu of salmon. Nestled in a creamy fumé blanc wine sauce splashed with licorice-y Pernod, the fish is downright luscious with accompanying onions, potatoes and shiitake mushrooms.
Le Âme also turns out fantastic steak frites – a juicy, cooked-to-temperature flatiron, charred at the edges and topped with a melting medallion of herbaceous Café de Paris butter. Accompanying french fries are skinny and crispy, just as they should be.
The dinner menu offers more excellent bistro classics, including briny, clean-tasting PEI oysters, served with cocktail sauce and Champagne mignonette. There’s also a fabulous steak tartare of hand-chopped raw beef mixed with shallots, capers, cornichons and a healthy dose of mustard crème fraîche, which gives it extra richness and oomph. Sided with a buttery, toasted baguette, it’s the tartare to turn the tartare-averse to the dark side.
Like everything else, porcini mushroom bisque, enriched with white truffle Parmesan cream, is a lesson in decadence. So, too, are hunks of baguette, split in two and stuffed with warm, melty Brie, roasted garlic and truffle honey – an inexpensive luxury.
Chicken, roasted to a burnished brown, strewn with crunchy bits of toasted brioche, sided with buttery whipped potatoes and set in a puddle of truffle chicken jus, falls into the same category – modest ingredients turned into something that’s more than the sum of its parts.
In an elevated variation on a classic, beef Bourguignon is made with rich, fatty short ribs, braised in red wine and served with duchesse potatoes (piped mashed potatoes baked until browned), carrots, mushrooms and bacon lardons. I wish it were more stew-y and less composed, but it’s delicious, nonetheless.
We’re too full for strawberry crema-filled Basque cake, topped with strawberries, wild strawberry gelato and strawberry coulis, but its textural contrasts (faintly crispy outside, moist and creamy within) are irresistible.
I’m far more impressed than I expected to be. Fox Restaurants have long held a reputation for being solid, if unexciting, crowd-pleasers, but Le Âme is the best thing Fox has ever done.
I’ll be back for what a friend tells me is fantastic matzo ball soup and a slew of other dishes I’m eager to try. And no, I’m not embarrassed to say I love this Fox Restaurant.
Le Âme
Cuisine: French/Steakhouse
Contact: 4360 E. Camelback Rd., Phoenix, 480-697-6201, globalambassadorhotel.com
Hours: Breakfast M-F 7-11 a.m.; lunch M-F 11 a.m.-2 p.m.; brunch Sa-Su 8 a.m.-2 p.m.; dinner 5-10 p.m. daily
Highlights: Niçoise salad ($23); truffled Brie baguette ($16); steak tartare ($24); steak frites ($39); strawberry Basque cake ($14)
