Special-occasion restaurants are an increasingly difficult thing to find in and around town, especially the ones you haven’t been to before.
Cypress Social? That was the anniversary dinner two years ago. Brave New? A birthday meal a while back. One Eleven isn’t open for dinner anymore. Neither is 42 Bar and Table.
So it goes.
Then, looking for inspiration, you ask Ginny Kurrus one Sunday after church, and the first thing she says is “George’s.”
George’s? Oh yeah, the one that used to be Cafe Prego?
Yes, Ginny said.
John Stephens, son of Harriet and Warren, was back in Little Rock after working in New York for the family firm and wanted a neighborhood joint of the sort he and his wife, Mary Olive, had grown accustomed to from when they lived in the city.
Cafe Prego, a longtime Heights destination, had closed, and the younger Stephens, seeing the opportunity, bought it and took it down to the studs, and George’s was born last August.
Since then, George’s, with its modern interpretations of Italian food, has become Little Rock’s hottest hot spot.
Perusing the online reservation system, most nights I couldn't get a table at all, and if something was available, it was at 9 p.m.
Also, the anniversary was a Tuesday, the one night of the week they’re closed.
Drats!
But we really wanted to eat there, and after some haggling, decided Monday or Wednesday night was fine.
There are some “secrets” about George’s you want to know before you go, though.
One, if you call, a pleasant enough voice will tell you they have ample walk-in space and to just come on down, even if you don’t have a reservation.
That’s true!
Because that’s what we did!
We just rolled on down Monday evening, around 6:30, and the guy working the front of the house asked if we wanted to sit at the bar or in Barnaby. There’s also plentiful outside seating, but, as you might recall, the temperature was 110 degrees on Monday, so that wasn’t even presented as an option.
We said Barnaby.
That’s when the second secret was revealed. If you pull on the wall hard enough, it swings open to reveal a very cool seating area and bar with banquettes and an eclectic mix of chairs.
The tables really aren’t built for multi-course dining, but they did well enough. The music was a funky mix of ’80s and ’90s jams, and the crowd was like the chairs, an eclectic mix of every age holding down a corner of the bar and 20-somethings dressed for something else after dinner.
Being an old, I know not what or where they were going on a Monday night in Little Rock, but it was certainly someplace.
As for the food, it was terrific.
For a starter, we did the focaccia, which was served more like the bread sticks from Pizza Hut, and I mean that in the best possible way.
We split a half salad, the Kavanaugh Chopped, which was light and refreshing. It also came with a couple of surprises.
George’s, like every other restaurant these days, has mood lighting, so Barnaby was dim. Add in the reading glasses, and I really had no idea what was in it, besides chickpeas. So the first bite, I got the creamiest, meatiest chickpea I’ve had in my life.
That’s the surprise, though. It wasn’t a chickpea. It was cubed soppressata, an Italian cured meat.
Regardless, it was delicious, but vegetarians beware.
The dinner entrees we chose were Chicken Parmigiana with spaghetti and Blue Crab Carbonara.
The chicken parm was golden, brown and delicious, while the noodles were a proper al dente. The red sauce was an acidic, tomato-forward variety. I would have liked a touch of sweetness to balance out the acid, but it was good.
The carbonara had a healthy amount of crab, as well as peas, and it was also very good.
Too many episodes of Top Chef have made us both a little Tom Colicchio-y about seasoning, but even if you wanted to add salt, you couldn't’ because George’s is a real restaurant, and salt shakers are for amateurs and chains.
Dessert was the cheesecake.
It might have been the star of the show. Just a plain slab of mascarpone cheesecake with no chocolate drizzle or raspberry coulis on the side, it was light and perfect.
As for the bar, I did a couple of varieties of Lost 40 with dinner. The cocktails, and mocktails, all looked terrific.
The ambiance was A plus. The music, the food, the decor. It was a leisurely two hours, and it felt like a special occasion, which it was.
You could also tell George’s was a Stephens operation with those terrific paper towels in the bathroom and the abundant Molton Brown product by the sink.
As for the tab?
A cool $117, before tip, for a four-course meal with drinks. We also came home with leftovers. No cheesecake, though, as it was devoured at the table.
Will we be back?
Yes. There’s a birthday in July, and we want to return then. But I suspect we'll make it for other meals, and maybe I’ll donate the chairman of the board painting I have of Jack that I rescued from the dumpster years ago and have kept in the garage ever since. It would look pretty good at the bar.
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Little Rock’s hottest hot spot
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Special-occasion restaurants are an increasingly difficult thing to find in and around town, especially the ones you haven’t been to before.
Cypress Social? That was the anniversary dinner two years ago. Brave New? A birthday meal a while back. One Eleven isn’t open for dinner anymore. Neither is 42 Bar and Table.
So it goes.
Then, looking for inspiration, you ask Ginny Kurrus one Sunday after church, and the first thing she says is “George’s.”
George’s? Oh yeah, the one that used to be Cafe Prego?
Yes, Ginny said.
John Stephens, son of Harriet and Warren, was back in Little Rock after working in New York for the family firm and wanted a neighborhood joint of the sort he and his wife, Mary Olive, had grown accustomed to from when they lived in the city.
Cafe Prego, a longtime Heights destination, had closed, and the younger Stephens, seeing the opportunity, bought it and took it down to the studs, and George’s was born last August.
Since then, George’s, with its modern interpretations of Italian food, has become Little Rock’s hottest hot spot.
Perusing the online reservation system, most nights I couldn't get a table at all, and if something was available, it was at 9 p.m.
Also, the anniversary was a Tuesday, the one night of the week they’re closed.
Drats!
But we really wanted to eat there, and after some haggling, decided Monday or Wednesday night was fine.
There are some “secrets” about George’s you want to know before you go, though.
One, if you call, a pleasant enough voice will tell you they have ample walk-in space and to just come on down, even if you don’t have a reservation.
That’s true!
Because that’s what we did!
We just rolled on down Monday evening, around 6:30, and the guy working the front of the house asked if we wanted to sit at the bar or in Barnaby. There’s also plentiful outside seating, but, as you might recall, the temperature was 110 degrees on Monday, so that wasn’t even presented as an option.
We said Barnaby.
That’s when the second secret was revealed. If you pull on the wall hard enough, it swings open to reveal a very cool seating area and bar with banquettes and an eclectic mix of chairs.
The tables really aren’t built for multi-course dining, but they did well enough. The music was a funky mix of ’80s and ’90s jams, and the crowd was like the chairs, an eclectic mix of every age holding down a corner of the bar and 20-somethings dressed for something else after dinner.
Being an old, I know not what or where they were going on a Monday night in Little Rock, but it was certainly someplace.
As for the food, it was terrific.
For a starter, we did the focaccia, which was served more like the bread sticks from Pizza Hut, and I mean that in the best possible way.
We split a half salad, the Kavanaugh Chopped, which was light and refreshing. It also came with a couple of surprises.
George’s, like every other restaurant these days, has mood lighting, so Barnaby was dim. Add in the reading glasses, and I really had no idea what was in it, besides chickpeas. So the first bite, I got the creamiest, meatiest chickpea I’ve had in my life.
That’s the surprise, though. It wasn’t a chickpea. It was cubed soppressata, an Italian cured meat.
Regardless, it was delicious, but vegetarians beware.
The dinner entrees we chose were Chicken Parmigiana with spaghetti and Blue Crab Carbonara.
The chicken parm was golden, brown and delicious, while the noodles were a proper al dente. The red sauce was an acidic, tomato-forward variety. I would have liked a touch of sweetness to balance out the acid, but it was good.
The carbonara had a healthy amount of crab, as well as peas, and it was also very good.
Too many episodes of Top Chef have made us both a little Tom Colicchio-y about seasoning, but even if you wanted to add salt, you couldn't’ because George’s is a real restaurant, and salt shakers are for amateurs and chains.
Dessert was the cheesecake.
It might have been the star of the show. Just a plain slab of mascarpone cheesecake with no chocolate drizzle or raspberry coulis on the side, it was light and perfect.
As for the bar, I did a couple of varieties of Lost 40 with dinner. The cocktails, and mocktails, all looked terrific.
The ambiance was A plus. The music, the food, the decor. It was a leisurely two hours, and it felt like a special occasion, which it was.
You could also tell George’s was a Stephens operation with those terrific paper towels in the bathroom and the abundant Molton Brown product by the sink.
As for the tab?
A cool $117, before tip, for a four-course meal with drinks. We also came home with leftovers. No cheesecake, though, as it was devoured at the table.
Will we be back?
Yes. There’s a birthday in July, and we want to return then. But I suspect we'll make it for other meals, and maybe I’ll donate the chairman of the board painting I have of Jack that I rescued from the dumpster years ago and have kept in the garage ever since. It would look pretty good at the bar.