Weft & Warp Art Bar Kitchen Scottsdale Az

Weft & Warp, at the new Andaz Scottsdale resort, is an art-inspired restaurant with great food
Adam Sheff's menu is a very well-executed collection of focused and creative yet approachable dishes
Subtly stylish, the Midcentury Modern room splashed with color is a comfortable respite

This is the interior of Weft and Warp Art Bar in Scottsdale, Friday afternoon, May 5, 2017.

Bless your heart, Scottsdale, you try so hard sometimes.

It's understandable, perhaps. A combination of fierce competition and fickle clientele have turned downtown Scottsdale and the surrounding area into a dining environment that isn't much for subtlety. So many restaurants seem locked in a pitched battle to lure the well-heeled with ostentatious design, cacophonous buzz and maybe, if we're lucky, a good meal. The prevailing strategy? Preen or perish, it would seem.

Which makes Weft & Warp Art Bar + Kitchen that much more of a delight.

This isn't to say that Hyatt's new Andaz Scottsdale hasn't landed without the usual anticipatory brouhaha. But the resort and its restaurant, tucked away off Scottsdale Road a mile north of downtown, eschew the usual "look at me" writ large in favor of a vibe that's calm, confident and — egads! — downright classy.

Culturally speaking, this is the kind of desert oasis I can get behind.

Weft & Warp Art Bar + Kitchen's room divider represents the weft & warp weave.

Weft & Warp Art Bar + Kitchen, in the spirit of the artistically inspired Andaz, is named for the perpendicular sets of intersecting threads that comprise woven cloth. I'm not sure why so many restaurants nowadays feel compelled to clarify so prominently that they do, indeed, serve both food and drinks. (This isn't a given?) But the needlessly cumbersome nature of its lengthier title aside, Weft & Warp is equal parts stylish, comfy and delicious in a disarmingly understated way.

To be clear, Weft & Warp isn't the least bit timid, but it's a uniquely tasteful reprieve from some of its over-the-top contemporaries. Midcentury Modern meets local artistry is the motif, minimal shapes and clean lines splashed with enough bold, vibrant colors to look like a Pantone book.

The scene

An aquarium kitchen — surrounded on three sides by floor-to-ceiling glass — sits in the center of an airy, open-format room that mixes all styles of seating (not to mention an oddly compelling collection of chairs) across both indoor and outdoor space, maintaining a comfortable volume even when full.

Furnishings, fixtures and flatware alike are an eclectic but complementary mix, modern without being austere, fashionable but approachable. The staff fits, too. Gently dressed down in casually crisp attire with paint-splattered aprons, they deliver solid service with a wink of laid-back charm and a firm command of the menu.

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That menu comes courtesy of executive chef Adam Sheff, whose choice of profession is either fortuitous or tragic, depending on your tolerance for obvious jokes. Chef Sheff spent the past eight years at Park Hyatt properties in New York and Washington, D.C., before coming to Andaz. Here, he offers a slate of seasonal, locally inspired dishes that sits squarely in the Goldilocks Zone. Neither too wild nor too traditional, too large nor too small, too simple nor too complex, this menu is just right.

Starters

"Bits and Bites" are precisely that, ranging from single bites to smaller-size starters. Some, though exceedingly minimal, are plain, direct and delightfully flavorful. Arizona Medjool dates ($1.50 apiece) receive nothing more than a dollop of fresh cream and crumbled pistachios. Juicy slabs of compressed watermelon ($8) lazily lounge alongside fried chicken skins in a pool of gently tart Crow's Dairy goat milk quark (think: soft cheese/yogurt hybrid) with a whiff of fresh basil.

Crow's Dairy goats also make their mark on a pile of tender little cheese dumplings ($10), rolled in onion that's been reduced to black ash for the faintest bitter contrast. Served in a swirling nest of tender spaghetti squash and tented with shards of squash crisps, they're one of the most unusual and most delectable bites on the menu.

This is the braised lamb belly from Weft and Warp Art Bar in Scottsdale, Friday afternoon, May 5, 2017.

Not to be outdone, tender pieces of lamb belly ($14), unafraid to be their sweetly gamy selves, get a gentle punch on the chin from a briny salad of orange and olive and a fresh, enlivening lift (and a brilliant hue) from a sauce of butter lettuce, emulsified with egg and olive oil and brightened with lemon zest and champagne vinegar.

Indeed, Sheff isn't afraid to let lettuce be lettuce. Though the spring salad ($12) feels obligatory, like an excuse to give people a vehicle for a protein topping, the "buttercrunch" salad ($9) is a minimal delight, tossed with nothing more than a light citrus dressing, shaved radish and the tiny, saline pop of trout roe. Some might scoff at the stripped-down simplicity, but what more does perfect butter lettuce need?

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Similarly, other starters are less notable for what they are and more for what they are not. A tiny baseball-size skillet holds a diminutive helping of blue corn bread ($6) and a dollop of tomato-jalapeño jam that works because, unlike so many others, it isn't painfully sweet. Sheff demonstrates that a simple bowl of mushroom soup ($10) can get downright sultry when it embraces their earthy essence and isn't creamed into oblivion.

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Main courses

Offered "for the table," mains are substantial affairs. Whether you choose to share them or hoard them for yourself is your own business. A Sonoran "risotto" ($19) will annoy pedants and please just about everybody else. Combining wheat berries, wild rice and quinoa (none of them, technically, rice), it's a nutty, chaotically textured porridge of sorts laced with Parmesan and topped with crisp fried shallots that's compelling no matter what you call it.

Steaks are composed plates, perhaps not intended for the steakhouse crowd. Both the flank ($28) and the strip ($34) are flavorful affairs, if awfully saucy. But their savory sauces — a soubise (onion bechamel) that's drunk on kilt lifter and a sweet and complex glaze made with dates and black garlic, respectively — make it hard to complain they're so abundant.

This is the bone-in kurobuta pork chop from Weft and Warp Art Bar in Scottsdale, Friday afternoon, May 5, 2017.

A Kurobuta pork chop ($32) is similarly saucy, but here I'm surprised to find how little I mind. Sheff runs perpendicular to convention, avoiding piles of fruit or sweet glazes in favor of an earthy black bean puree and melted bell peppers (OK, those are technically fruits) to complement a pleasantly pink and dangerously succulent cut of pork, so replete with natural sweetness it doesn't need a sugary crutch.

Tender chicken ($26) set atop a trove of avocado with a spiced adobo mop, while a solid dish, feels a little tame amid this crowd. The fish, however, are fabulous. Sweet and tender trout ($24), seared golden on the plancha, needs nothing more than some cauliflower, lemon and a smear of nutty romesco. And the roasted swordfish loin ($36) splashes in a bath of citrus vinaigrette along with beets and melted leeks.

Sides

Blistered shishito peppers ($7), for many, is a reflexive order, but if there's only one vegetable side in the cards, resist the habit and order the roasted baby yams ($9) instead.

This is the roasted baby yams from Weft and Warp Art Bar in Scottsdale, Friday afternoon, May 5, 2017.

I'm a stalwart supporter of seasonal cuisine, but I'll cop to dreading the moment these little orange beauties come off the menu. Sheff claims to have built the dish around the charred i'itoi onions that top it, but that's underselling the yams, slathered with a mix of brown butter, ancho chiles and sherry vinegar that pops and sizzles on the tongue.

Forget the rest. I'll have two more of these.

Desserts

This is the mesquite tart from Weft and Warp Art Bar in Scottsdale, Friday afternoon, May 5, 2017.

You'll find a short list of artfully composed sweets made with atypical care.

Those whose tastes skew light will gravitate to an airy horchata mousse with apricot curd ($9), while decadence junkies can sink into a superlative chocolate sticky toffee cake ($9) replete with dates.

The sharpest finish, however, may be a debonair mesquite tart ($9), light chocolate and coffee custard in a mesquite flour shell with goat's milk caramel and white chocolate whipped cream.

The lowdown

Weft & Warp is not so easily crammed into a category of restaurant that would ordinarily garner a lot of attention. It's too subdued to pass for a posh hot spot. It's too polished to appeal to the indie-obsessed. It's too approachable to build a reputation as a laboratory for food geeks; too refined to make a play for mass market success.

Thankfully, it appears Weft & Warp is largely unconcerned with all of the above and content to confidently go about its business. Listening to a litany of well-financed but subpar restaurants bray about how delicious and stylish they are can get awfully tiring.

Best to take refuge in a place that actually is.

Reach Armato at dominic.armato@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8533. Interact with him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.