Chef serves up gourmet offerings
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
By REID DUFFY, letters@thejournalnet.com

Sept. 29, 2004

Chef Richard Goss created quite the foodie buzz in June.

After nurturing and showcasing his culinary craft in such ports of call as Aspen, Colo., Knoxville, Tenn., and Vermont, Goss opened a distinctive restaurant in his wife’s hometown of Franklin.

Richard’s Kitchen is a block south of the Johnson County Courthouse on South Main Street. The establishment is housed in the narrow confines of a building that began life as a Studebaker showroom.

It’s joined with Provincial Gardens by Meg, a plant and garden store that Goss’ wife, Meg Jones, bought next door in the spring.

In tandem with a small outside patio area, Richard’s Kitchen seats about 60.

The six most intriguing seats are those situated at a counter in front of the open kitchen, where patrons can watch Goss and his sous chef, Gary Cox, bring their small but varied menu to life with efficiency and flair.

It amounts to a crash course in Advanced Gourmet Cooking 101, with Goss stressing his insistence on fresh, in-season produce, fresh fish and prime meats, while paying tribute to Midwestern meat-and-potato sensibilities and money’s-worth portions.

Watching Goss and Cox char grill a salmon fillet ($19), a 12-ounce pork chop ($19) and prime New York strip ($26) — while wielding a sauce pan of fresh tomatoes, zucchini, olives, garlic and basil over leaping flames for the penne primavera ($13) — provides appreciation and education for the creative efficiency that goes into operation of a bustling restaurant kitchen dispensing quality meals in a timely manner.

After a most satisfying appetizer of mutant grilled portabello mushroom ($6) topped in a delicious and spicy garlic aioli mayonnaise, I immersed myself in the 12-ounce cut of prime rib ($19).

The meat fully earned its house-specialty status for exceptional tenderness and flavor, with a wonderfully salty seasoned ridge. It was as good a prime rib as you’ll find in central Indiana.

A 16-ounce cut ($24) is available for the Atkins dieter, who will have to pass up the tasty garlic mashed spuds.

My wife, Loretta, enjoyed the tenderness and flavor of the two boneless chicken breasts that provided the foundation for the chicken picatta ($16). The poultry was immersed in lemon caper butter over rice and wilted spinach.

She was impressed with the flavor of the capers, but the butter and hot bacon dressing of the wilted spinach combined to make parts of the dish oily.

Overall, Richard’s Kitchen proved an enjoyable and enlightening dining experience that left no room for the molten chocolate cake and strawberry shortcake dessert options.

It also is open for lunch Tuesday through Friday, showcasing chicken salad on croissant, tuna melts, salmon cakes and ribeye sandwiches.

And at both meals, it is worthy of a destination drive for those who, for indecipherable reasons of their own, do not call Franklin home.