Providence Café is a neighborhood restaurant with a long and celebrated history. Opened in 1992, the café was the front-runner to a trio of “Providence” restaurants including Providence Bistro at University Place and Providence Bistro at Ballantyne. In the fall of 2001, the three establishments were separated and individually sold. Don Both purchased Providence Café.

Both moved to Charlotte from Hilton Head. Having been in the restaurant business for a great part of his adult life, he came to the Queen City looking to open a place of his own. After working with several restaurant groups here, Both heard that the Providence restaurants were for sale. Although he was not interested in owning all three establishments, the concept and location of the Myers Park café impressed him enough to make it his.

Both has slowly made changes, updating and refreshing the interiors and the patio, and reinventing the menu to offer basic yet eclectic American cuisine.

Have it your way
“We’re an upscale neighborhood café,” Both explained, adding that nothing at Providence Café is formulaic. “My goal is to have my customers feel comfortable, to have them feel at home here. I want them to know that this is their place.”

The place is comfortable, relaxed, with little to no pretense. It’s always busy – predominantly with ladies and professionals lunching at midday, neighboring families in the early evening, and a nighttime crowd interested in a dining experience rather than in just eating dinner. Interiors are artsy and upscale with a beautiful patio that, despite its location, is an adjunct to the dining room, not the bar. Two private dining rooms are available for large groups and private parties.

The menu is not cutting edge but offers a respectable selection. The list of wine, beer and specialty drinks follows suit. Chef Kevin Kouruc says he isn’t there to reinvent the wheel. “I buy good-quality ingredients and don’t mess around with them much,” he explained. The restaurant has a loyal customer following and there are several menu items that, despite any sort of creativity in the kitchen, regulars won’t allow management to change. The spinach and artichoke dip and the blackened chicken penne have both been on the menu since the restaurant’s inception.

As lunch service phases into dinnertime, menu items escalate in sophistication. At dinner, the phylloencrusted Atlantic salmon and crabmeat is one of the most popular entrées. It is tasty, but the rich combo of fish and crabmeat with the buttery pastry and creamy béarnaise sauce was too much of a good thing for me. I preferred the Chilean sea bass served with al dente spaghetti squash, delicious Yukon Gold whipped potatoes and a light dill-chardonnay sauce. The pan-seared trout with a maple-pecan glaze, the same whipped potatoes and roasted haricot verts (tiny green beans) is another good choice.

My biggest disappointment on the café’s current menu is the crispy pork tenderloin cutlets. Served with creamed spinach, mushroom spaetzle and a red wine demi-glaze, this dish is a great idea gone wrong. The cutlets I was served were thin and overcooked. The offering started as a winter special, a takeoff on Wiener schnitzel. In colder weather, Kouruc says, the recipe worked. In the heat of the summer though, it does not. Apparently, I’m not the only one to express dissappointment in the dish; Kouruc noted that the cutlets will soon come off the menu.

At Providence Café, recurring menu items are offered at lunch and dinner in addition to several daily and nightly specials. Specials rotate every three or four days. Kouruc changes the café’s menu once a year to include specials that were well received the preceding year. The café offers several excellent sandwiches and a variety of hearty salads for lunch and dinner. The café club sandwich is quite tasty, but the petit fillet sandwich is about as good as it gets. The restaurant had a petit fillet sandwich on the menu when Both bought the place, but he made it a signature sandwich by adding a thick slathering of boursin cheese and a layer of fried onion strings stacked on a fresh-baked whole wheat bun – outstanding.

Personally, I love the salads at Providence Café. The Southwest chopped iceberg salad is great when you have a taste for something south of the border. Although it usually comes with blackened chicken accompanying the jalapeno jack cheese, scallions, black beans, roast- ed corn, tomatoes, tricolored corn tortilla strips and Southwestern Ranch dressing, I substitute rare beef tenderloin tips for the chicken. The iceberg lettuce wedge with its blue cheese vinaigrette constitutes a pleasant change of pace from most wedge salads dressed with a creamy blue cheese. The Asian tuna salad made with fresh greens, yellowfin tuna, cucumber, mandarin oranges, Chinese noodles, toasted almonds and a sesame tamari vinaigrette is another favorite.

As for appetizers, despite popular opinion I think it’s time to move on from the spinach and artichoke dip. Albeit a tasty combination, this appetizer enjoyed its heyday nearly a decade ago. Instead, try the warm baked brie or the rich lobster and crab cakes. The most unusual starter on the menu is the Chinese pastry sticks. Here spinach and thick, crunchy asparagus are wrapped in egg roll wrappers and lightly fried. The stack of sticks is served with a spicy Thai peanut sauce.

Our daily bread
All of the café’s breads and desserts are made in-house. The bread selection includes Kaiser rolls, wheat buns and Parmesan herb focaccia featured on many of the café’s sandwiches; mini hamburger buns on the kids’ menu; the vegetable focaccia served at lunch; and the cheesy focaccia served at dinner. The focaccia comes with a plate of olive oil and balsamic vinegar mixed tableside for dipping. Beware, though: The tasty combo fills you up fast.

The dessert menu includes cappuccino ice cream pie served with chocolate crumb crust, a ganache topping and toasted almonds – another longtime Providence Café favorite. The homemade cheesecake encrusted with buttery macadamia nuts and served with caramel sauce and whipped cream on the side is equally good.

Family fun
Providence Café offers children a menu all their own, but it’s not written down anywhere – ask the server for details. In addition to the expected chicken fingers and grilled cheese, look for corn dogs, made-from-scratch hamburgers, pasta sauced any way, a petit fillet, a kid-sized portion of salmon and a host of sides including most children’s “vegetable” of choice: macaroni and cheese.

Instead of crayons, the café offers small Etch-A-Sketch pads available at the hostess stand.

Well-known Charlotte restaurant critic, food writer, cooking instructor and connoisseur of food and wine, Heidi Edidin writes "The Charlotte Weekly: Culinary Corner," a restaurant review or food feature that appears weekly. Contact Heidi with questions and restaurant, food or story ideas by email at heidi@thecharlotteweekly.com.

This article first appeared in "The Charlotte Weekly" on August 18, 2006. "The Charlotte Weekly" is a free, locally owned, independent newspaper that's "About the Community, For the Community," available every Thursday in North and South Charlotte and Uptown.

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