REVIEW | 14 Prime

Dear Olivia,

Hi! I hope you’re having a great summer vacation and enjoying lots of time with your friends. In fact, I bet you’re not even thinking about what your parents are doing back at home. But if you’re curious, they went to 14 Prime on Gate Parkway the other night, and they had THE BEST TIME.

(By the way, forgive me if Olivia isn’t really your name. Even though we were seated side-by-side at the bar, I didn’t want to grill your folks on what looked like date night, so you’re more of a device than a daughter for the purposes of this column. Sorry, kid.)

Anyhow, I don’t know if young people these days gossip about restaurants. Maybe you swap Michelin rumors like we used to trade friendship bracelets. If so, you probably caught the whole kerfuffle back in June about 14 Prime’s seating policies. See, there was a reason I got to know your parents over a solo meal that cost $318.61, which lots of diners would understandably say is the kind of outlay that merits a table and chairs. 

On June 6, about one month after 14 Prime opened, its owners—who in 2014 opened the first of a dozen area V Pizza locations—took to social media to explain that parties of two or less would be seated at the main bar or kitchen bar. “Not as an afterthought. Not because you didn’t book early enough. But because that’s how we make the space work,” the post elaborated.

Once word got out, backlash was intense, prompting the owners to post again. This time, instead of a warmly lit photo of curved-back barstools, the image was a balance sheet showing the restaurant hurtling toward failure if it kept making a mere $540,800 a month off a fully booked dining room.

The transparency gambit worked, mostly. On both Instagram and Facebook, plenty of potential patrons sided with 14 Prime, accusing detractors of failing to appreciate the owners’ honesty, the bartenders’ service skills, the bar’s beauty and the inherent joys of impromptu socializing. You know how people on social media can sometimes get a little mean?

Still, the holdouts were unswayed. They provided lots of reasons why they didn’t want to celebrate a romantic anniversary at a bar. They didn’t want a random drunk guy to spill his Grey Goose on their chocolate cake. They were newly sober. They had more on their mind than 14 Prime’s business struggles. They had bad backs and creaky hips. (Gosh, this got awfully adult awfully fast. This is probably where I ought to mention that the restaurant is restricted to diners aged 6 or older.)

Personally, I have no problem eating at a bar, although I wish the stools at 14 Prime were just a few inches higher. In my professional opinion, though, the naysayers have a point—and their stance is testament to what 14 Prime does so exceptionally well.

Namely, 14 Prime is turnkey fancy. The restaurant leaves nothing to chance. If you book a reservation, you’re guaranteed an experience that feels classy, from the moment a glass of sparkling wine is firmly placed in your hand at the host stand until it comes time to deal with the dregs of your dinner.

“We have the most amazing doggy bag system here,” a chipper server reassured guests unsure if they wanted to walk out with leftovers, in addition to the matcha latte and breakfast pastry that’s 14 Prime’s standard parting gift.

In other words, if what you treasure in restaurants is unpredictability and artistry and general weirdness, 14 Prime is not the place for you. But if you rarely get to enjoy a true night out on the town, which I’m guessing might be the case for your parents, it’s not a bad idea to lock down specialness in advance.

14 Prime conveyed that value proposition so clearly, by furnishing its dining rooms in brasses and browns that could make the healthiest marathoner crave a cigar; by listing potato blocks bejeweled with caviar above everything else on its menu (remind me to tell you sometime about how cool it was to see your dad try caviar for the first time!); by sourcing its sculpted cocktail cubes from The Ice Doctor in Gainesville; by putting enough lobster in its mac-and-cheese to counterbalance a C battery.

Surely, in the wake of that messaging, the 14 Prime guys couldn’t really be surprised when guests shirked at the same seating they’d be offered at the airport or Applebee’s.

Likewise, those skeptics shouldn’t have been surprised that 14 Prime is making good on its promise to gussy up bar dinners. While the restaurant is far from perfect—both “bland” and “salty” turned up in my tasting notes at a rate that would sadden a competent home cook—its storybook ambiance envelops even those with their backs to the room. Among the adjectives I didn’t jot down were noisy, rushed, disrupted, cramped or casual.

Not every stab at luxury is successful. Because 14 Prime is intent on making its guests feel cared-for constantly—or, more cynically, ensuring they comply with the 150-minute time limit placed on every reservation—servers speed bread to the table even before cocktails are ordered. And while it sounds nice in theory that every cocktail comes with a snack, as a bartender spieled, that’s a description stretched as broadly as the tableside mozzarella when the house martini’s accompaniment is caperberries and olives. A garnish is a garnish even when it’s placed on a saucer.

As for the rest of the food: As suggested by its name and portraits of oversized cows in the fashion of a 19th century British livestock painting, 14 Prime’s focus is beef. While 30 days of dry aging didn’t make much of an impression on the sliced bone-in strip I tried, its more recent run-in with flames produced the kind of flavorful crust that’s a hallmark of controlled high temperatures. The meat was a smidge oversalted, but perhaps that flaw’s less noticeable if you upgrade with sauces and seafood toppers.

I skipped the shellfish add-ons, as well as the $185 seafood tower, but chose the $25 crab fried rice from a selection of sides that also includes creamed Swiss chard, mushrooms, asparagus, and potatoes. A crowning egg yolk didn’t do any textural favors for the already greasy rice, bulleted by peas and carrots.

Generally, though, 14 Prime is admirably adept on the carb front. I’m thinking of the prim pot pie, with a wedge of stunning puff pastry concealing too many butter-poached escargots to count. Also memorable were the popovers in the giveaway breadbasket, which tasted precisely like the cooked-on cheese that you peel off the edge of a French onion soup crock when nobody’s looking, and—on the same theme—taut tortellini drifting in the beefiest of broths.

OK, I’ve made you wait forever to hear about dessert. I wish I could remember everything on the menu, but I zeroed in on the baked Alaska so quickly that the other choices kind of faded away.

By now, you know that 14 Prime and baked Alaska go together like truffles and expense accounts. Shrouded in piped meringue primed to toast, the ice cream concoction is fetching, fancy, and so much fun.

Between us, you should definitely tell your parents you’ve picked out a place for your birthday.

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14 Prime: 7510 Gate Parkway; 904-688-1499; 14prime.com