THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED Anthony's

THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED Anthony's Restaurant Review:

For years, the venerable Tony's was one of Houston's only choices for premium fine dining, but its continental menu and accompanying hefty price tag excluded the masses. Then came Anthony's with an atmosphere that was not too stuffy, yet not too tragically hip. The mood is even better now that it has taken over the River Oaks spot once occupied by its late sibling, Vallone's. Classic comfort foods of meat and potatoes are dressed up, as if going out for the evening, and served with the same attention to detail found in the most elegant restaurants. Roasted tenderloin of Appalachian pork cuddles up next to leek and shiitake mushroom mashed potatoes. Lamb osso buco sides with grilled eggplant risotto with a hint of Dijon. And two people can partake of a whole hearth-roasted duckling with Minnesota wild rice and a mango-apricot sauce. Seafood dishes get the royal treatment here with such inventions as pumpkin seed-crusted redfish with five onion risotto, the seared Chilean sea bass with lump crab meat and artichoke hearts served with roasted potatoes, and pepper-crusted tuna with brown onion au jus and crispy haystack potatoes. Aptly named finales are indeed grand with choices ranging from the classic, melt-in-your-mouth crème brûlée to something called chocolate universe, dark chocolate mousse and white chocolate spheres filled with passion fruit cream.