If you haven’t been to Paulette’s Restaurant lately, it’s time to revisit it.
Daniel Clark, Paulette’s food and beverage director, made changes to the menu at the restaurant, located at The River Inn of Harbor Town at 50 Harbor Town Square. But he kept what makes Paulette’s Paulette’s.
A native of Paris, France, Clark has worked in the hospitality business in Europe, South America, and the United States. In Memphis, he’s been with Adam’s Mark, Graceland, and the Marriott. His River Inn position includes Terrace and Tug’s Casual Grill.
He visited Paulette’s when he was asked to take the job last November. “I wanted to see what I was getting involved with,” Clark says.
He was pleased with what he saw. “It is a restaurant that has so much potential. I saw that it was lovely and has a good name in Memphis. And has a feel for the past without being outdated.”
Fine dining has changed in recent years, Clark says. “It’s very different from what it used to be.”
Instead of being elegant but stiff, fine dining restaurants are elegant but also have “a sense of peace.” Not quiet but comfortable, he says.
Clark wants to “keep the tradition and the hospitality” of Paulette’s, which was founded in the mid-’70s by Paulette Fono. It was later bought out by the late co-owner George Falls. “First of all, you cannot replace George Falls. Nobody can replace such a figure. But what we can do is revive the essence of what Paulette’s is.”
And that’s fine dining without being pretentious.
Working with the owners, Clark updated the dinner menu, but kept signature items, including filet Paulette’s, the salmon, shrimp and grits, and redfish with crab meat.
He’s now designed all the Paulette’s menus, including lunch and brunch.
Clark was able to introduce a “more exciting” lunch menu. He based his ideas on the type of lunches served at private clubs, including the old Crescent Club, where he was director of operations. These were places where working people could get an “elegant, quality lunch” even if they only had an hour to eat.
Paulette’s owners allowed Clark to “put some personal ideas and a little bit of his French influence” in his menus. “But Paulette’s is not a French restaurant, although it sounds like one.”
The restaurant is “American/continental.”
Fono, who came up with the original concept for Paulette’s when it was on Madison Avenue, is Hungarian, Clark says. They served a lot of crêpe dishes, including ham palacsinta, a ham crêpe. “Over the years it became fine dining.”
Paulette’s, which moved to Harbor Town in 2011, still features crêpes, including a chicken, asparagus, and spinach crêpe at lunch and crêpes Suzette at dinner.
New dinner items include a blackened barramundi and seafood angel hair pasta; veal chop Normandy, a dish made with a bone-in veal chop, wild mushrooms, and Calvados cream sauce; and pistachio-encrusted rack of lamb served with a pesto instead of “the traditional mint.”
Clark kept Paulette’s famous popovers with strawberry butter as well as the signature Kahlúa pie, a “monument of chocolate, coffee ice cream, and Kahlúa.”
His son, Jeremy, surprised him when he told him he loved to eat at Paulette’s. “My son is in his 30s. He has long hair and tattoos. But he’s very current. He’s a nice young man. Stable.”
Jeremy, who also celebrated his wedding anniversary at Paulette’s, told Clark it was the type of place where he and his wife could have a nice conversation.
Clark thought if a 30-year-old thinks that way about Paulette’s, which is kind of a classic fine dining place, so will his friends. “Going after these folks is my new goal. To be able to attract these young people.”
He thought, “How do we make Paulette’s a place they will think of for a special occasion?”
Clark wants Paulette’s to pop up in their minds when they think, “Where could I have a nice, quiet, elegant, romantic dinner?”
The “wow moment” is what Clark says he’s going for. And sometimes that means old-school. He’s serving crêpes Suzette table side, the way restaurants did back in the day, along with bananas Foster and cherries jubilee.
Clark also is revamping Paulette’s wine list. “I’m a very different wine person than most. I’m not going to throw some fine, exquisite language at you on how to differentiate the aromas of nectarines and blueberries. That’s not me.”
He wants to bring back the old Paulette’s wine dinners, but they’re not going to be “driven by a winemaker.” Clark doesn’t want wine reps who are going to push wines from their wineries. Paulette’s wine dinners will be more like classes on the “general knowledge of wine.”
Justin Soffer, 29, and Alessandra Daniele, 24, recently tried some of Paulette’s new menu items, including the barramundi, lamb, and filet. They also had the crêpes Suzette, which Daniele described as “incredible.”
“We had such a good experience at Paulette’s and would definitely recommend it if you were looking to do something different, romantic, and slightly outside of the city,” Daniele says.
And, Soffer says, “Paulette’s was an exceptional experience for all of the senses.”
Clark wants guests to “have an exquisite dinner at Paulette’s, a nice conversation, have some smiles, and leave with the impression that they want to come back.”
He adds, “Food should be the reason they come. They leave with a total experience. Not just the food.”
