Review: At Beacon Grille, fire-fueled menu soars to first-rank Buffalo dining

First-class ingredients, veteran crew, and 1,000-degree embers ignite instant hit in Allentown

Smoked duck breast, farro, vegetables, blackberry sauce at Beacon Grille.

Becoming an astronaut takes years of training, experience, and a belief you can beat the odds. Thousands apply for every seat, miss the cut, and return to their ordinary jet pilot lives.

A few of the best get to take the controls. There, they prove that the right equipment, operated by the right people, can take you on a trip that’s out of this world.

That’s how it felt to dine at Beacon Grille. Seasoned veterans, armed with a purpose-built kitchen, a trained staff, and a vision of restaurant greatness in the heart of Allentown, have not only taken flight, but stuck the landing.

With experience in fine dining kitchens of Buffalo and larger cities, Bruce Wieszala, executive chef, Dustin Murphy, chef de cuisine, sous chef Greg Kapsiak, and bar manager Frank Pusateri are responsible for food and drink. General manager Amanda Wieszala takes care of the dining room and its guests.

Beacon Grille has parking spaces, across Allen Street in the former Towne Restaurant lot. As unusual as that is for Allentown, it’s not the restaurant’s most remarkable feature.

A wood fire is at the kitchen’s center, caged by a multi-level grill whose grates can be lowered or angled via knobs and levers to catch the right heat as the blaze changes. Hardwood coals let cooks wield temperatures up to 1,000 degrees, while gas tops out at 500. That makes searing, quick-roasting, and other techniques possible for dishes.

Chef de cuisine Dustin Murphy adjusts grill grates.

The fire isn’t a gimmick, applied to gussy up lesser efforts with smoky balsamic-glaze-level cliche. Its fierce heat, judiciously applied, is an agent of change, producing caramelized sears and crusty exteriors that gas flames can’t match. Without leaving dishes smelling like bacon.

Unless they’re meant to, like the bacon nubs ($16), pork belly bites on special one night, a throwback to Wieszala’s Thin Man era. If that’s not available, the housemade lardons – crunchy bacon croutons – on the wedge salad ($14) are another reason to ask for this showstopping version. With confit tomatoes, pickled red onions, and assertive blue cheese presence, larger parties might want to order two, to prevent a wedge issue.

Wedge salad with housemade bacon lardons, Beacon Grille

Pigs are big at Beacon Grille. Half a roasted pig’s head, Mexican style for tacos, Southern style barbecue, or Asian style, with appropriate sides, can be your party’s dinner. There’s one catch, though it should be easy to remember: If you want the snout-to-ear porkapalooza, you must reserve it at least 48 hours ahead.

Or consider the charcuterie platter ($28), a symphony in pig, housemade from Always Something Farm animals raised in Darien. Rotating choices currently include pancetta, soppressata, mortadella, terrine, chicken liver mousse, and lardo-wrapped apples.

Boquerones, caperberry-sultana salsa, aciete cracker at Beacon Grille

Meatless plates include housemade pickles ($7), focaccia with koji butter ($9), and boquerones ($9), Spanish sardines served with Spanish flatbread crackers called tortas de aciete and a briny-sweet caperberry-sultana salsa.

Roasted carrots ($16) on smoked pistachio butter with herbed ricotta and orange blossom honey, and Flat 12 mushrooms in black garlic broth with an oozy poached egg ($16) and water chestnuts for crunch were elegant vegetarian standouts.

Lamb meatballs, yogurt, harissa, chicken skin dukkah at Beacon Grille.

A week later, I miss the lamb meatballs ($17), on burnt yogurt and harissa, and crunchy, savory chicken skin dukkah.

Big scores included the bone-in ribeye ($68), emphatically crusted in cast iron on the hearth while spot-on medium rare inside. Its scale makes this a steak for the table, or possibly a last meal. Thick-cut “Ground Round” steak fries are an ideal version of the childhood chain delight. I’d like a few more fries next time. That said, it’s a good sign when a table is fighting over potatoes.

Bone-in ribeye, steak fries, koji butter, at Beacon Grille.

My favorite large plate was duck breast ($38), gently smoked and seared, over farro with blackberry sauce. The crisped fat along with rosy breast, uplifted by its time-honored fruit partner, was a familiar dish made remarkable by the quality of ingredients and execution.

Crispy-skinned half chicken ($32) with pungent piri-piri sauce, greens and potatoes, and deftly seared halibut ($36) with Sardinian salsa and pancetta vinaigrette both demonstrated Beacon Grille’s heat advantage, without trailing smoky afterthoughts.

Desserts rotate too, but should include the chocolate tart with salted caramel and hazelnut crust ($9), impossibly light and devastatingly effective.

Chocolate salted caramel tart, Beacon Grille

Beacon Grille’s eating includes bar seats, standard tables, and a large high-top table next to the hearth and dish pickup line. It’s an invitation to watch the tinkering and tending that cooking with live fire requires.

That said, if you can’t take the heat, don’t take the chef’s table. Beacon Grille has yet to serve customers in February, but the hearth’s radiance ought to make it prime dining geography during frostbitten months.

The fire-driven Allen Street restaurant presents fine dining skills without white-linen fussiness, drawing from local sources and ancient inspirations, served by a hustling crew of trained professionals.

Make reservations, then see what can happen when topnotch culinary talents who could work anywhere make their stand in Buffalo. Follow the flames to the Beacon Grille, belt up, and get ready for a ride to remember.