Since opening in January 2002, Lantern restaurant on
West Franklin Street has quickly established a solid clientele for
their classic Asian dishes and friendly uptown restaurant and bar
scene. In a year of restaurant closures, the peopled tables on a
weeknight and sumptuous dishes topping myriad trays afloat through
the house seem a near miracle. What’s their secret?
First there’s style. The streamlined front section of
the restaurant with minimalist décor features black rectangular
tables with polished stones to touch as you dine, a large
rectangular wooden mirror, two sets of five white lanterns suspended
over the front and back seating areas, ending with a floor to
ceiling metal screen in a circle motif.
Around back you find the more relaxed side of Lantern
in the red and black pillowed Lantern bar. Enter either through an
iron-gated door from the alley off West Franklin or through a hall
from the front dining area. There’s rattan furniture for waiting and
bar seating and round tables with banquettes that create intimacy in
a dimly lit cozy space. Red lanterns are strung over the bar.
Formerly the cold storage of Leo’s Restaurant, this room now feels
very East Village.
Next there’s drink. Dionysus is fully worshipped here
with a hot bar scene that lasts until 2 a.m. on weekends. Last
winter a drink called Thai-One-On earned a reputation. The wine list
is extensive and changes often with stunning choices in German and
Austrian whites that best complement the cuisine. Schmit-Wagner
Riesling and Lehmann Semillon are among those offered by the glass.
Exotic cocktails such as Dark & Stormy suggest film noir titles,
and it’s true that Chef Andrea Reusing once studied cinema at NYU.
About that time she burned out on cocktail waitressing and moved to
cooking in a restaurant in the East Village, a defining moment in
her career.
Finally there’s the menu. And it’s tasting the salt
and pepper shrimp, the tea and spice cured chicken, the tuna tartar,
or my recent favorite, the crab cake appetizer, that wins you over.
Take the crab cake: the exotic flavors of the spicy cucumber sauce
with complex Thai ingredients including kaffir lime and gangongal.
Those tastes, deeply absorbed by the sweet sautéed crab, separate
and play on the palate. I simply wrote ambrosia in my notes. The
heart of the gourmand begins to beat in those little nodes that sit
on the tongue. Once I tasted at Lantern, the line at the door made
perfect sense.
Andrea Reusing offered another reason for Lantern’s
success. Economics. “We wanted to open a restaurant that would be
sustainable,” she said. “I want people to be able to come and work
here and count on their jobs. When we first opened, the pressure was
that we be fancier than we are… and there was some disappointment
among self-described gourmets that we don’t change our menu as often
as they would like.” But Reusing stressed that by keeping
ingredients more predictable she can maintain mid-range pricing.
Entrées start around $16 and appetizers range from $5-9. The four
daily specials—that the excellent wait staff describes with
aplomb—serve to refresh the menu often enough.
When I asked Reusing to define Lantern’s cuisine, she
said it is Asian, not fusion. “When I think of fusion, I think of
wasabi mashed potatoes,” she added. “When we do a Thai dish, we make
it with respect for the original ingredients, even if we have to
substitute something.” At Lantern creative substitution instead of
purist ingredient-driven cooking keeps overhead down and prices
reasonable.
But why Asian cuisine? “I missed Asian food when I
moved to Chapel Hill,” Reusing told me. “And it’s nice to have Asian
food with very fresh ingredients.” In other words there are no
canned bamboo shoots opened in this establishment. Even the wasabi
comes fresh from the Pacific Northwest. And often the Thai basil is
brought in from California. Other ingredients are purchased closer
to home. The grouper and flounder often come from North Carolina.
Yet the squid hails from Rhode Island. Vegetables for the most part
are purchased locally and from an organic grower in Asheville.
The menu features foods from five Asian cultures—Thai,
Chinese, Indian, Japanese and Vietnamese—prepared as taste benders
from the respective cultures: fried whole fish, tea and spice smoked
chicken, vegetable and chic pea stew, miso glazed black cod with
shiitake mushrooms, and pho-classic Vietnamese soup. That’s more
cultural reach than you notice when first glancing at the menu since
the dishes harmonize so well.
Dining in Chinatown when living in NYC left a deep
impression on Andrea. So she brought the Chinatown classics, salt
and pepper shrimp and steamed fish with seared ginger, to Lantern’s
menu. One upcoming Japanese classic for meat lovers will be steak
skewered and cooked with sea salt, crispy spinach and green tea
rice.
A self-taught chef, Andrea moved to Chapel Hill in
1996. She’s been a food writer for the News and Observer, the Chapel
Hill News and Spectator. She even catered for a while. Then she
helped open Enoteca Vin in Raleigh where she served as chef until
she left to find her own restaurant space. Andrea co-owns Lantern
with her brother Brendan Reusing who, according to his sister, “runs
the kitchen.” They made many decisions about Lantern together as
they renovated the space.
Early in life Reusing cooked with her grandmother.
Then in college she found herself so hungry that food began to
define her life.
“I just love food”, she said, I love to eat. When
you’re always thinking about your next meal, you’re drawn to
cooking.” As survival, I think she meant. But so many of us have
survived on rangier choices. I guess she never settled for a pack of
Nabs. Or a Twinkie. Instead she played around making exotic desserts
so that now Lantern’s list includes delights such as roasted banana
ice cream with soft caramel and salted peanuts and hot chocolate
cake with Thai coffee ice cream. Reusing pointed out that the
desserts aren’t classic Asian but they relate. Maybe that’s where we
get to fuse a bit.
I’ve been to Lantern a lot. I might almost be
considered a fixture there soon, and if I don’t watch it, they will
hang a coat on my arm next winter. What I notice that’s also Asian
is the sense of family that’s been created. It seems that at Lantern
all the employees have bonded into a unit. Andrea says, “I love the
people who work at Lantern. Everyone has fun. They’re so
enthusiastic. It wouldn’t be what it is without these people. What
they do is what makes Lantern work.”
You all know who you are—Sheila, Ric, Jeremy, Silvia,
Kristin. And there are more of you with pleasure written on your
faces. Your good times are contagious. There must be an old Chinese
proverb that says: “A happy house is good for digestion.” And more,
I’m sure. Long life. Good belly laughs. Prosperity. 
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