dining guide Rigatoni tubes with smoked pancetta. Below: Bier cocktail
review bäd ragaz
1417 S. Federal Highway, Boynton Beach, 561/336-3297
B
ad Ragaz in Switzerland is a municipality known for the healing properties of the thermal waters that bubble up from beneath its mountains. Bäd Ragaz Hall & Biergarten in Boynton Beach is a restaurant known for the healing properties of another, rather more adult, liquid. Beer. Our local Bäd Ragaz is the creation of chef-restaurateur Alessandro Silvestri, who’s created a smashingly gorgeous biergarten done in cool, contemporary blues, grays and whites. There are vaguely Moorish arches, a huge bar in the center of the dining room and gleaming exotic wood tables. However, perhaps most relevant are the comfy booths complete with a trio of taps that allow you to pour your own of the evening’s three featured brews, chosen from a few dozen on tap. (There’s another 50 or so by the bottle.)
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Of course, any self-respecting biergarten must have a pretzel, in this case a twisted skein of bronze dough as big around as a baby’s arm. It soaks up beer and is a good excuse to consume carbs, mustard and house-made pickles, if you’re into that sort of thing. Less filling and more rewarding are fat, meaty mushroom caps stuffed with Black Forest ham and presented with a beefy-tasting tomato sauce. Equally rewarding is the exceedingly generous smoked trout salad. The trout is a little on the dry side, but it comes with so
IF YOU GO PrIce ranGe: Entrées $12-$28 credIt cards: All major cards HOUrs: Tues.-Sun. 5–11 p.m.
much other good stuff—mild, creamy goat cheese, dried cranberries, avocado, toasted walnuts—that there’s no need to cry in your beer. It’s the suds-centric entrées where the kitchen really shines. Eight different sausages can be had, served with mustards (good), fries (not so much) and sauerkraut (terrific). The smoked bratwurst was hearty and juicy, full of smokyporky goodness; the boudin liegeois, a rich, velvety veal sausage, was subtle and elegant. Vienna schnitzel reminds you just how tasty a simple, thin-pounded medallion of veal crusted with crunchy, golden breadcrumbs and tweaked with a squeeze of
lemon can be. It’s a welcome bite of nostalgia. As for another classic Viennese dish, apple strudel, let’s just say the flavor was as good as the pastry was thick and soggy. Still, if you want to cry in your beer, there’s no better place to do it than Bäd Ragaz. —Bill Citara
november 2013