By Jill Nagy
Saratoga Springs chef Dominic Colose promises an intimate and, hopefully, amusing dining experience when he opens Amuse at 420 Broadway in October.
The new restaurant will share space with the Broadway Deli, in The Washington building, behind Kilwins. It will be open four nights a week after the deli closes for the day.
Amuse and the Broadway Deli will share work space and most equipment, but will store their food in separate coolers.
Colose will also bring in his collection of Tagines, earthenware pots from Morocco used to prepare a spicy stew.
“I worked with Dan (Chessare, owner of the Broadway Deli) before,” most recently at the Wine Bar in Saratoga Springs, Colose noted.
Chessare said that he and Colose will share costs of the new enterprise and, he expects, the result will be additional revenue for his own business.
The cuisine at Amuse will be Mediterranean-inspired, borrowing the flavors of countries around the Mediterranean Sea but giving them the chef’s own spin.
“It’s really more about the flavors of the Mediterranean than it is about classic dishes of that area,” he said. Think olives, onions, lemons, seafood.
For the first week or so, Colose will entertain customers at a 10-seat “interactive” chef’s counter. “I will be immediately behind the counter,” and, he said he looks forward to “chatting up” the diners as he prepares their meals.
Someone else will do “some of the heavier cooking” behind the scenes.
After the initial run, he will expand to seating 20 for diners and, eventually, add patio seating for another 20, he said.
“I am trying to reduce the heavy stress of operating a restaurant,” Colose said, by keeping everything small in scale: a small staff, a small menu, small plates, on the whole, a small project.
He also plans modest prices, nothing more than $20, and a “well-selected but relatively inexpensive wine list,” mixing imported and domestic selections, keeping in mind that “those things that grow together, go together.”
At 55, he said, “I am old in “restaurant years. It’s keeping me busy but I think it’s going to be fun.” He expects to hire a staff of three or four people, working full-time on a four-day-a-week schedule.
Amuse will be open Wednesday through Saturday from 5 to 9:30 p.m. The Broadway Deli is open for breakfast and lunch from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
