Golden Swan, 7500 East Doubletree Ranch Road (Hyatt Regency at Gainey Ranch), Scottsdale, 991-3388. Hours: Dinner, 6 to 10 p.m., seven nights a week.
In contrast to Lathrops, Golden Swan, the signature dining room at this gorgeous Hyatt resort, seems determined to play down the sophisticated angle. Guests wander in dressed in casual resort wear, even shorts. While the outside tables overlook lush grounds and a lagoon, the spare, gray-and-white inside area offers few hints of elegance. The dullest sort of Muzak filters over the speakers. The place is unintimidating and comfortable, but lacking an energetic buzz and "special occasion" spark. This is where you might come to celebrate shooting par on the Gainey Ranch links, not a romantic first anniversary or high-paying job promotion. Nor does the spark of culinary imagination ever quite burst into flame. The Southwestern-accented fare is deftly prepared, but without the soaring inventiveness to be found at comparable high-powered resort dining rooms, like the Pion Grill or Top of the Rock. The breadbasket, though, certainly gets airborne. Crispy little loaves of fresh olive-walnut bread are good enough to make a meal of, especially after they're dipped into a fragrant bowl of olive oil, tomatoes and opal basil. Attentive servers make sure you have plenty of Evian to wash it down. With one exception, the appetizer list seems pretty derivative. That's hardly a crime. But I couldn't help comparing the fare to other versions I've had. Take the smoked-salmon quesadilla. This starter has become so familiar that it could conceivably replace the saguaro as the Arizona state symbol. Golden Swan's entry is no slouch, but it couldn't drive the memory of Vincent Guerithault's magnificent creation from my mind. Lobster tamales are another riff on a standard theme. The dish here, embellished with stir-fried jicama, corn and black beans, sports a mild, pleasant flavor. By comparison, at Top of the Rock, the lobster appetizer comes blended with boursin cheese schmeared between fried won-ton wafers. With Golden Swan's lobster tamale, I had a satisfying one-night stand; with Top of the Rock's lobster napoleon, I've developed a meaningful relationship. In the one instance where the kitchen did aim higher, it showed it could hit the target. Lumpia is a scrumptious egg roll filled with veggies and venison and moistened with a perky, wild-cherry relish. It's a wonderful arrangement of tastes and textures, good enough to crowd out all comparative thoughts. As far as main dishes, Golden Swan's are perfectly adequate, but not the stuff dreams are made of. Pork loin with pancetta and garlic mashed potatoes doesn't reflect a kitchen pushing the edge of the culinary envelope. It's a decent enough way to tamp down hunger pangs, but I expected more than ho-humness from a $19 platter. Shrimp and scallops in a tomato saffron broth also didn't push any hot buttons. Yes, the three shrimp were properly firm and meaty, the three scallops big and juicy. But I never got any of the taste explosions that would sear their memory in my mind. Thoughts of the herb-marinated range chicken will probably linger longest, though more for the stagecraft than consumption. A small bird, filled with pecan-corn-bread stuffing, is wrapped in parchment, sealed in clay and cooked. Then a server wheels it tableside, cracks it open and releases the steaming flavors. Perhaps the elaborate presentation pitched my expectations to an unreasonable level, but once the bird hit the plate, all the excitement was drained.
A colleague of chef Todd Hall, who used to prepare this dish at the swanky 8700 restaurant, once told me it was the place's most profitable entree item. The cost there: $11.95. At Golden Swan, it goes for $19.75. Maybe the price of clay has gone up. Desserts, however, are wonderful. The tarte tatin, sort of a creamy, open-faced apple pie, is perfection. The chocolate-mousse pt is an intense confection, rich with rum and berries and a douse of Chambord. There's even a decent low-fat treat for sinners who don't want to fall off the health wagon, but who just want to hang from it a little while. It's a mix of bananas, sponge cake and low-fat yogurt. On the whole, though, Golden Swan seems just a bit too pricey, a bit too casual and a bit too ordinary. Quite simply, there are better $35 meals in town.