The restaurant is dead. Long live the restaurant!

First, this space held the friendly Leon's on the West Side for many years. Then there was T-9, the female sports bar and restaurant, which was equally adept at providing a classy feed. And now this prominent location on the downtown side of Broadway is the Providence home of Turtle Soup, a restaurant that quickly became popular when it opened in Narragansett three years ago. Evidently, the South County boîte has spilled over with so much culinary wherewithal that it needed the big city to take up its excess. Or so it seemed on a recent visit.

I was palling around with my friend Jerry. I'd lured him from his aerie in Marblehead, Massachusetts, so I wanted the dinner to be worth his trouble. Besides, he is a prime time gourmet, having eaten his way around the country on expense accounts and then around the world on sheer momentum. My fond memories of Turtle Soup in Narragansett made trying it out with him a bet with nice odds.

Pleasant space. You notice this as soon as you walk in. The bar's at the far end, background rather than a noisy centerpiece. The ceiling is high, busy with heating ducts painted black and old-fashioned fans above the fanciness. There are widely spaced tables, tasteful photographs on the walls, and drooping Christmas garlands to keep the atmosphere from getting stuffy. Because of the corner spot, there are enough windows so that there is plenty of natural light during the day.

There's a wide selection of wines by the glass. Speaking of preliminaries: the bread, swirled with pesto, is better than many an overpriced appetizer I've had. The accompanying plate of olive oil contains herbed and sweetened balsamic vinegar that's hard to stop tasting. Along with pot stickers and pizzas are crab cakes. (Other than the $5 bruschetta, appetizers are $7 to $8.) We chose a special, pan-fried crab-filled spring rolls with a horseradish aioli, and were both pleased.

The starters, salads, and sandwiches are noted on the menu as late night items. They're served after the kitchen stops making the more ambitious orders. Four beef and white meat offerings are at the end of the menu, but Turtle Soup's heart is clearly with more than a dozen pasta and seafood choices.

The honey soy cod ($13) intrigued me, with its coconut couscous and toasted sesame watercress salad. But raising my eyebrows higher was what they promised to do to catfish ($13). Out came a filet, sautéed brown and with none of the muddy taste that has made me avoid ordering catfish outside the South. Billed as pistachio-encrusted, it was heaped with a mixture of chopped nuts plus a nice pineapple salsa complement. A taste of the skin-on mashed potatoes in the middle made me drop the hand I had raised to get a pat of butter. (By the way -- our waitress came back to ask how things were only a couple of minutes after setting down the entrées. I hope she's a trendsetter.) The accompanying asparagus spears were delicately thin -- none of that saving money in the kitchen by serving tough little saplings.

Jerry did as well with his pasta special ($16). A modest pile of al dente capellini was surrounded by sea scallops and medallions of tuna. The delicate cream sauce contained bits of prosciutto and thin disks of asparagus. Just as I'm wary of catfish, he rarely orders tuna, because, in his case, it tends to taste raw or overcooked. But like Goldilocks' porridge, Turtle Soup got it just right and he ate it all up.

You don't have a meal as good as this without capping it off with dessert -- well, if you do you should be ashamed of yourself. Temptations included Key lime raspberry cheesecake and apple crumble. But the idea of Creamsicle frosting on the "orange sunshine" cake tugged me into childhood nostalgia, so I had to go with it.

Jerry admitted he was originally "suspect of everything," before coming around to appreciating everything. He tried the "Mile-high Berry Crumble." Good choice. The bulk of the wedge was dense with assorted berries, heavy on the black ones, I would guess, and the buttery crumb topping struck a strong cinnamon note above the delicious berry din. (Each dessert was $5.75.)

I hope that Turtle Soup doesn't lose its accent on excellence when its menu shifts toward a more French and Mediterranean emphasis. Our server mentioned that this change is coming. Having cloned the Narragansett menu so well, the Providence restaurant, evidently listening to customers, is ready to become its own distinctive self. Keep up the good work, Turtle Soup.

Bill Rodriguez can be reached at billrod@reporters.net.

Issue Date: December 27, 2002 - January 2, 2003