Usually when you find places that try to do two things at once, the results are mediocre at best, like restaurants that serve Chinese and Japanese food or Chinese and Mexican, I once had the displeasure of eating at a Thai restaurant with a built in Dunkin Doughnuts.  When some places try to change an aspect of their business you can sometimes be pleasantly surprised, and such was my experience at Prophecy last week.

Prophecy, located on south Broadway, has been a low profile player for a while, recently depending on private parties and its club business during the recession.  With the addition of Salvatore Callarame, Prophecy is proudly serving dinner as well.

But according to my earlier statement this is still a nightclub right?  So if you order dinner you would get “club food” the higher priced cousin to “bar food”.  Just so you know this is definitely not the case at Prophecy.

Usually when I eat I am quiet, I enjoy the taste and wait until after the meal to make any comments about my impressions out of respect to the chef.  I found my meal to be quite different than what I had expected, most of the time when I see high end food it’s the service or the presentation that really strikes out at me, but Prophecy is different. From the very first I noticed the European influence of the dishes, using an artichoke stem in a dish is something considered unfashionable in this country.  The next thing I noticed were the bold flavors in the foods, this is always hard for the chef as people have different tastes, and what one person may enjoy another may hate.

The food:

We started with three appetizers, shrimp ceviche, stuffed artichoke, and a simple antipasti made with mozzarella, roasted peppers, and raw tomato sprinkled with minced parsley to give it a light fresh taste. The stuffed baby artichoke was the perfect medium dish, not bland, but not overly spiced, the vegetable was tender and the stuffing had a slight earthy taste (mushrooms not dirt). The ceviche was the perfect dish for me; bold citrus from large slices of orange mixed with a heavy cilantro taste were mellowed by chunks of avocado and just a touch of tomato for body.

Next came a pasta course, one old Callarame family recipe and one bowtie pasta with fresh pesto provided contrast to make it more than just a plate of pasta, the taste of eggplant and fresh cheese was compared to the taste of basil and garlic.

The salad came alongside the main course, a panko crusted chicken Parmigiano, baby lamb chops, and Prophecy’s signature skirt steak.  The chicken had an unknown complexity for such a widely used item, and the tender skirt steak was well marinated and perfectly tender, but yet again I was amazed with the lamb, the flavors were citrus and pepper as they had been cooked with chimichurri a seasoning local to Uruguay.

Last came a dessert sampler, Gelato, apple strudel, crem brulee, cheesecake lollipops, warm crepes filled with peanut butter, and the most decadent chocolate lava cakes. There is not much I can say about this without sounding like a total pig, yet I will admit after trying at least one of everything I had the urge to slip the rest into my bag for later (which would have been very messy).

I recommend this place for foodies, aspiring foodies, the few people who constantly cover places I have already covered(you know who you are), first dates, anniversaries, and anyone who likes good food.