If you have had your fill of exposed pipes and bare brick, take heart. Rust Belt Cafe is yet another converted factory, but with a difference.
The menu is small, but as Spencer Tracy once said of Katharine Hepburn, it is “cherce.” Divided into “smaller” and “larger” portions rather than into appetizers and entrees, offerings encourage diners to choose according to their appetites; the waiter won’t sneer if you order a meal made up of the smaller portions.
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Desserts rank with some of the best in the city. Creme brulee ($5.95), a voluptuous, creamy concoction, comes to the table in white porcelain on a black marble slab; it’s flanked by a basket made from a buttery cookie dough and filled with fresh strawberries and kiwi slices and a single truffle. This is custard made in heaven. Not far behind is chocolate truffle torte ($4.50), dark, dense, bittersweet, and accompanied by a small mound of homemade prune-armagnac ice cream. Chocolate bombe ($5.95), a hemisphere of smooth whiskey-chocolate ice cream on a base of walnut-fudge brownie and coated with white chocolate latticed with dark chocolate, is a chocoholic’s dream come true. Only poached pear in puff pastry ($5.95) failed to measure up. Its superb puff pastry and delicate creme anglaise could not redeem a dull, tough fruit. If sorbets are your thing, by all means try the sorbet trio ($3.95). We tasted two–tart, intense grapefruit and deep pink, true-flavored prickly pear. A dark-roasted, winy coffee makes a satisfying finish.
