Franck's Restaurant — Restaurant in Holladay

Let's start with some basics - this place is out of the way, on a dead-end street in Holladay. It's not really walkable unless you live in the same neighborhood.

And valet parking is the only option. They'll put your car in the gravel lot across the street; some folks are more sensitive to this sort of thing than others, but do be aware of it.

Franck's has both indoor and outdoor seating. I've actually never eaten inside. Outdoor seating is about a dozen tables on the patio; despite the proximity to the entrance, it's actually quite nice. I never felt like customer traffic was obtrusive in any way, and despite the penchant some restaurants have for not serving customers seated outside as well (further from the kitchen, likely to stay longer, etc.), service was unquestionably excellent throughout the meal.

The wine list here is one of the better ones in the Salt Lake area. Because everybody purchases from DABC, a lot of places tend to have the same wines on the list (if you like Zins, literally every restaurant in Utah with an alcohol license carries "7 Deadly Zins"). I was pleasantly surprised to see a few things I had not seen elsewhere. Markup is about on par - roughly 100%.

Onto the food! Appetizers are always great - my wife ordered the Beets a l'Orange and I had the brussel sprouts. I'm not normally a fan of brussel sprouts, but when they're deep fried, well - it's hard to go wrong. The beets are made with a pretty intense vinaigrette. More traditional apps are available on the menu, but the apps are always good here.

Second course is where things stumble a bit. There are only two options on the menu at present, so we had one of each. The blood-orange/Tabasco gazpacho is full of interesting flavor, but it didn't quite mesh as well as I'd hoped. I like spicy food, but not - generally speaking - when it's cold, and the gazpacho came out a little too close to orange-tinged V8 for my liking. My wife had the romaine salad, which was decent if somewhat unexceptional.

I wouldn't say I disliked the second course, just that it was not as well-executed as hoped. Such is the nature of taking culinary risks.

Main courses were the wagyu steak and sea bass. Franck's always excels at presentation, and the mains were no exception (my photography does not do it justice). Sea bass was surprisingly hearty. Whoever the saucier is, he/she clearly knows his stuff.

The steak was amazing. It's cooked somewhere between rare and medium rare, seasoned exactingly, and accompanied by pureed carrots, peas, and strawberry. It's one of a handful of items I can ever recall eating where the advertising much what actually landed on the plate. They claim they cook it at 127F (sous vide, maybe?) - regardless, if you want good steak in a non-steakhouse setting, you should try this.

For dessert, we split a pot-de-creme. Delicious without being cloying.

All told, we spent roughly 2 and a half hours here. A sign of a good evening's meal is the pace of service and consumption; at no point did we feel rushed or that service was lacking. I would give the service at Franck's 5 stars without question. They know their wines, they're passionate about food, there were no errors in handling orders, and no pacing issues. My water glass never got empty.

Food gets 4.5, rounded up to 5. The second-course stumbles are more or less a risk that didn't pay off - Franck's changes its menu frequently, so having some misses on it isn't terribly surprising.

I've been a handful of times - it's a bit of a drive to get up here - but would recommend...

I took my wife here for our first anniversary dinner, and we were both completely amazed with the restaurant. The staff were friendly, courteous, knowledgeable, and attentive. We had made a reservation for 7 p.m. and were seated promptly, and had the menu explained to us in detail as this was our first time dining here. We looked through the list of appetizers and saw two which caught our eye Upon asking our server to describe them in more detail, she encouraged us to try the brussel sprouts.We then proceeded to place our order, my wife requested the Fried Chicken, and I, the Waygu Steak. When we received the appetizer, the presentation was lovely, and it smelled delicious. It was beyond expectation for such an unappealing vegetable. Both my wife and I were amazed at the flavors, and that this was a restaurant which had actually managed to make brussel sprouts, of all things, delicious! Once we had finished the appetizer, we had the next part of the meal (soup for me, and salad for her) promptly delivered. The soup of the day was a very interesting chilled concoction of pineapple, buttermilk, and garlic, with a garnish of crumbled popcorn. This was the only part of the meal I was not enthused about receiving. It confused my taste buds, and my wife did not particularly care for it either. It was not necessarily bad, but not something I would order again. My wife had gotten a salad with a pineapple granola topping, and upon taking the first bite, her eyes widened with disbelief that a salad could be so delicious. She shared a few bites with me, and we both agreed... the salad was divine. Again, when we were finished, the plates were removed and the entrees arrived. The presentation for both of our meals was exciting. My Waygu Steak was so tender I could cut it with my fork, and it melted in my mouth. My only regret was that propriety would not allow me to lick the plate clean. My wife's Fried Chicken was topped with a mango jalepeno coleslaw, and settled upon a bed of grits. She was not enthused to see grits upon her plate, as she has a long standing hatred of them. One bite of the grits, however, and her face lit up. She insisted that I try them as well, and I spent the rest of the meal trying to figure out how to steal more from her plate when she wasn't looking. They were a perfect balance of cream and texture. Finally, we had finished our entrees and were thinking about getting the check, when the server approached the table with a small glass container filled with what looked like yogurt and fruit on top. It was a White Misu White Chocolate Paux de Creme. We had mentioned upon making the reservations that it was our anniversary, and were delighted that the dessert was their gift to us. It was truly a delightfully light dessert, full of flavor, yet not over powering or heavy. Overall, our experience at Franck's has been unrivaled by any restaurant in Salt Lake. We will definitely be...

We went to Francks for our anniversary, as we wanted a place that was well reviewed and offered chef prepared food in a more laid back setting. The restaurant is beautiful and our server Wendy was great/attentive but she was definitely overwhelmed; I saw her serving tables inside and out, bless her soul. This is a common problem these days and nothing to fault a restaurant or serving team for.

We ordered the cheese fondue and a bottle of wine to start the meal. The fondue was delicious and came with plenty of bread to dip (our server even refilled the bread without us asking). The wine selection was great and they offered some great bottles that didn’t break the bank.

Next, I had the wedge salad: It was small, even for a dinner salad, but the flavor wasn’t bad. It did not feel appropriately priced at $12, though.

For our entries, I ordered the signature meatloaf and my wife ordered the salmon. I was very surprised by how much I didn’t like the meatloaf (I’m not picky and pretty adventurous when it comes to food.) The meatloaf itself was unbelievably salty, the potatoes were well prepared, the onions on top were great and the grape, champagne, lavender (which tasted very similar to pomegranate) sauce just didn’t belong anywhere near meatloaf or potatoes. The portion was generous and appropriate for the price point, but again, due to the level of sodium present, I couldn’t even finish it and had no desire to take it home.

The salmon was a very small filet (about 3oz from the look of it) on top of a very small serving of risotto (about a half a cup). The salmon was well prepared and tasted fine; the risotto was well prepared but the flavors did not go together for my tastes. In addition to the odd flavor combinations, the risotto was overly salted as well, to the point that my wife and I could taste the grains of salt in it. The dish was also served with sour cherries and a cherry miso sauce that did not compliment the dish and didn’t belong on the plate. She didn’t finish this very small portion and also had no interest in taking it home.

Finally, we had a bacon apple tart for dessert: the tart crust was excellent and cooked perfectly, the apple portion of the filling had great texture and flavor, but this was all undermined by the bacon, which was chewy, stringy and just an unpleasant texture in the dish. I’d recommend that this be remedied by removing the soggy, over cooked bacon from the inside and placing fresh, crisp bacon to the top of the tart at the time of serving. The gelato that accompanied the dish was excellent.

Oh, and just to emphasize the problem with the over-seasoning, we had melted cheese as our appetizer and enjoyed every minute of it; the entrees at Francks were saltier than anything I’ve had from a chain restaurant, fast food joint, foodie eatery, taco cart, or fine dining restaurant in recent memory. Overall, this meal was pretty disappointing for the nearly...