This post is out of the ordinary in that it wasn’t reviewed by a slate of Rouletters (there are just two Rouletters – myself and my wife) and the restaurant isn’t in Rochester. However, as the Rouletter who came up with this RRR concept (Roulette Dealer? Croupier?) I obviously love food. I’ve been obsessed with trying this place for a long time and wanted to share the incredible and life-changing event that was the Muddler’s Club. It wasn’t a meal it was an experience. I’m sure there are other cliches that apply here, but I’ll spare you.
This is a tasting menu, and it is all chef’s choice. The dishes change constantly and you don’t know what you’re getting until it arrives. This means no written descriptions, so as we talk through our dishes, most of our descriptions are based on our own taste experience and efforts to try to distinguish ingredients. First, we received the Bread Course. This was milk bread and olive bread with milk butter. The rolls were warm, crusty, and soft in the center. The butter was deliciously creamy. My only comment would be that the olive roll didn’t taste very olive-y.
The Snacks were one part art and one-part mouthfuls of culinary delight. Extra points for calling these delicately created masterpieces “snacks” instead of, say, the amuse-bouche course. Beginning at the top we had the perfectly square potato stack. It came with a lovely cream with a bit of dill topped with roe. They were the perfect mix of crispy and creamy. Seeing the individual potato layers was a delight.
Moving clockwise, we come to a play on a caprese salad in a tart. Pesto, heirloom tomatoes, and burrata finished with pistachio and layered in a crispy tartlet was one of the loveliest bites of the evening. You visually expect it to be sweet but are pleasantly surprised by the impeccably seasoned savoriness that melts in your mouth. It was fresh, creamy, and well-rounded
Finally, on the bottom left was crab in a citrus sauce wrapped like a tiny spring roll and adorned with colorful flowers. It was a tastetastic balance of fresh, zesty, and sweet. ⭐ 5.0 ⭐
Ah, the Seafood Appetizer. Or the Soup. I Googled it and it said soup is an actual course, so I’ll go with that. It actually makes sense if that’s the case because one thing is crystal clear at the Muddler’s Club: the chef is having fun. This would explain replacing a traditional soup course with a perfectly seared scallop covered by a fine slice of a cured meat swimming in a butter sauce containing soup-size cuts of skinned pickles and sweet peas crowned with a buttery foam. My wife and fellow Rouletter realized on this day that she likes scallops. Eating this was an adventure all on its own. It made me think of watching the judges on shows like Top Chef. I totally get now why they try tiny bits of individual elements and then taste them all together in a perfect spoonful. We were flummoxed by what turned out to be the skinned pickles for quite a while and then delighted when we figured it out. The flavors mixed in such an ingenious way that you began to wonder if you had ever really tasted food before. Oh, and putting foam on a “soup” course when traditional soup foam or film is considered a gross byproduct of congealed protein was brilliant. Slow clap for the chef. This one was a close second when it came to top dishes of the evening.
The Appetizer was a lamb carpaccio with artichoke hearts, parmesan tuile, elevated mayonnaise, and a slightly spicy tomato sauce that was reminiscent of ketchup. But like the ketchup the guy in the “If I had a Million Dollars” song would buy. It was all covered by a perfectly toasted crostini adorned and decorated beautifully. Extra image below because you just had to see this from two angles.
I can even begin to describe how exquisitely these tastes blended and complimented each other. Don’t even get me started on the brilliance of the textures. If you asked us two days ago if we liked lamb we would have said no. But this? This was a culinary masterpiece and the top dish of the night. My wife wanted to score it higher than a five, but the scale is here for a reason: alas, we cannot be reduced to chaos simply because we had the most perfect carpaccio in existence. ⭐ 5.0(+) ⭐
The Seafood Main was a cod with zucchini and squash blossom that had tomato consommé poured over it tableside. As a rule, we don’t like fish. We like shellfish and sushi rolls, sure, but just a plain ‘ol piece of fish? Yuck. This one was lovely and didn’t have the least bit of a fishy taste. The consommé was a lovely and delicate compliment to this otherwise lightly adorned cut of fish.
The Meat Main was a cut of streak with wild asparagus and some light vegetables served with a puree. The steak was a touch overcooked, a touch under-seasoned, and the vegetables were a little flavorless. Our guess is that the cook wanted the steak to speak for itself and be the star of the plate. Unfortunately, this steak just couldn’t handle the lead. For a couple of steak lovers, this was the most disappointing dish of the night. We both agreed we would rather eat one of those black angus New York strip steaks I get at Skip’s and grill for us back home (see? There was a Roc reference in here!).
This was the Pre-Dessert Course. It’s like a deconstructed and reimagined strawberry shortcake. I’m not even sure I have the vocabulary to describe what was going on here. The crumbles were the texture of a broken-up cookie and had a lovely shortbread-adjacent flavor. This was covered by a cheesecake-like homemade ice cream, strawberries, and clear strawberry gelee bits topped with a fresh cream foam. Standing on the left is something that tasted a bit like a cream bark but with a touch of a bite. Maybe a crème fraîche bark? On the right is a crunchy piece of fresh strawberry glass. It was light. It was creamy. It was crunchy. It was fruity. It was strawberry shortcake but better somehow. It was like if you were in wonderland and instead of the mad hatter being crazy he was a genius dessert chef who served people whimsical and other-worldly desserts with their tea. This would slay on Zumbo’s Just Desserts. I said what I said. This was tied for, um, best dessert?
Last but certainly not least was the Dessert Course. This was a banana dulce de leche. Banana you say? We gave it a skeptical look. It didn’t respond. That dulce de leche mouse was to die for and perfectly complimented by the cocoa tuiles. But the pièce de resistance was that damn banana cake that was crumbled at the bottom. The cake was perfect: moist, fluffy, and just the right amount of banana gave this dish a freshness element that pushed it from delightful to divine.
They offer a wine pairing option and if you like wine my wife highly recommends it. Each glass perfectly complimented or rounded out the course. There was only one that wasn’t in the “great” category though there were a lot of fancy words describing the complexity. We also had a chuckle that here on another continent La Crema chardonnay from California (which is a favorite on one of our friends back in LA) was on the pairing list for this meal. I of course had beer (some local lager) and it was lovely.
The service was truly inspired. There was flair. There was flow. The entire waitstaff stopped by your table throughout the night bringing you things or taking things away. They were friendly and attentive without being distracting. Watching our main server move was like experiencing poetry. I frankly don’t understand how they made serving tables look like a graceful dance, but here we are.
Overall, this place was as close to perfect as I can imagine a restaurant to be. The restrooms were single stall but only one was all-gender (the accessible one), which is not unusual in Europe. The seating was 2.5 hours and you used every minute of it. We left full and happy. You can add on a cheese course or a coffee course if you wish, but we were stuffed!
A true artist, Chef McCaughey was creative and unique without overdoing things and pushing them out of balance. The atmosphere is industrial and cool with a hidden entrance found in an alley. The Muddler’s Club is named after a secret society that met in the area 200 years ago and the masonic art is still alive and well across from the restaurant. Reservations open 6 weeks in advance and fill up almost immediately, so if you’re ever planning to be in the area, make sure you get a table at the Muddler’s Club well in advance. Their Michelin star is incredibly well deserved.