Gourmet With a View
Chateau Grille at Chateau on the Lake combines creative gourmet dining with stellar views of Table Rock Lake.
If you’re going to have dinner at Chateau Grille, be sure to do it the way I did. First, have a semi-exhausting and very busy day at work. Then, accidentally leave the house 20 minutes later than planned and drive, in a big rush, from Springfield to Chateau on the Lake. (To add to the experience, miss at least one highway exit.) In an am-I-too-late-for-my-reservations panic, check in at the hostess counter. Get seated at a romantic little table for two by the window, overlooking Table Rock Lake and a beautiful Ozarks sunset. And then… finally relax. That’s how my Chateau Grill experience went.
It’s a restaurant with a gorgeous view that you can’t help but enjoy, no matter how stressed you are. And this is a restaurant. There’s no one rushing their customers to order, rushing them to finish eating, rushing them to pay and rushing them to leave. This is fine dining. Before my dining buddy, Eli Estes, and I ordered, our server brought out a basket of freshly baked, crusty rustic bread with honey butter and Creole orange marmalade butter. We started with an appetizer: the crab ceviche tower ($12). The dish is the definition of refreshing. The tower itself is crab meat with a few goodies mixed in (diced tomato and cucumber), and it’s served cold with a cool inverted cucumber ravioli on top, tart lime foam and a little pesto on the side for dipping.
Chateau Grille415 N. State Hwy. 265, Branson, 417-243-1777 |
The light and gelatinous cucumber ravioli looked like a Kelly green balloon or a giant ping-pong ball-sized sphere of caviar. It tasted like brightness; it wasn’t like anything I’d eaten before. The flavors of each component in the dish melded together into something so light and refreshing that it was almost thirst-quenching.
For my entrée, I ordered the seared red snapper ($26). The snapper itself is delicious in its simplicity: It’s not doused in sauce or suffocated by spices. It’s just perfectly cooked fish with crispy skin (only the second time in my life I’ve thoroughly enjoyed fish skin). My favorite part of my dish, though, was the warm slaw that was served with the fish. It’s made of fennel, apples, carrots and a little bit of bacon in a light olive oil dressing. Every bite had a little bit of bacony saltiness, a little sweetness from the carrots, a little tartness from the apples and the warm complexity of fennel. It was absolutely delicious.
Eli ordered the ribeye ($32), which our chef recommended as a customer favorite. It was tender and juicy and topped with a port reduction and caramelized onions that were as sweet as candy and served with a side of whipped potatoes. Eli and I finished our meal with the lemon cheesecake with mascarpone whipped cream ($8). It was a tart, creamy and delightful ending to a wonderful meal. For me, dining at Chateau on the Lake is a big splurge. But it was worth every penny. This is a restaurant whose chef knows how to have fun with creative flavor combinations, and the results are extra-tasty. My only regret is not ordering the watermelon and feta salad with spicy pumpkin seeds. Have you eaten those three things at once? I haven’t, but I plan to.
