Located in the center of downtown Salt Lake City, Laurel Brasserie & Bar is the type of place which seems to be focused on making things look deliberately polished and familiar, at the same time. The ambience, as you enter its doors, is a straddling of the European brasserie tradition with a new Rocky Mountain-wise demeanor: warm wood, inlaid with brass, low lighting, and a buzz of conversation that prevents the room at any time from seeming noisy, yet. It is the kind of restaurant that can be found for a spontaneous date night, a celebratory dinner or a night to myself with a good book and a glass of something chilled.

The difference between Laurel Brasserie & Bar in downtown Salt Lake City and the rest is its ease of blending old techniques and locally sourced ingredients. The menu is a love poem to the French bistro cuisine and the Utah seasonal bounty. The surest hits of brasserie - crisp, butter-smeared snails, bowls of creamy soups, a constant rotation of roasted fish and steak - should be revisited with local ingredients and the attention to plating typical of the small event that each plate becomes. Here, there is the respect of tradition, which is softened by the curiosity of a chef who makes the experience of tasting something new: mindful swaps, colorful herb accents, and conscious applications of local dairy, greens, and proteins make the tasting experience new.

Service at Laurel succeeds in being professional and sincerely warm. Waiters know the menu and wine pairings without sounding practiced; they are the ones who will advise you that a chef recommended that a certain dish go with this particular wine and then check back at the right time. The tempo is not rushed. It could be at a lingering dessert or a quick visit to the cocktail and small dishes, the staff adjusts the atmosphere to the ambiance of the table which makes any visit feel thoughtful.

By the way, cocktails: the bar menu of Laurel is surprisingly good. The classic cocktails are done with accuracy and respectfulness, and some of the signature cocktails lean towards local flavors, herbaceous, citrus, and house-made modifiers that point towards the cooking identity of Utah. The wine list combines accessible bottles by the glass with the more adventurous bottles by the smaller producers; reads as a friend who will encourage you to explore something new, but will always have a sure-footed pinot in the fridge.

Versatility is one of the strengths of the Brasserie. The dining room easily transforms to breakfast meetings, relaxing lunches, weekday dinners, and after-dark drinks and meals. Weekends are very lively and happy with families, couples, and groups celebrating special events and weekdays are very sophisticated and business lunch with neighborly touch. The design adds: intimate banquettes that can be sat around and communal tables which bring larger groups of people and intimate tables which are in isolation and can be sat around and have a quieter dinner. It is a venue where a multitude of various events can take place and at the same time still retain the same quality of service and food.

Laurel desserts are the desserts that would leave you with no space. Anticipate pleasant endings-- consider tart fruit crumbles, rich chocolate preparations and creamy custards--with a high touch. Serving a dessert with a bar digestif is a little, gratifying ceremony, which completes the meal.

In addition to the food on the plate, Laurel Brasserie & Bar is an extension of the downtown Salt Lake City cuisine. It is designed and built on a menu that tells of the increasing food interests of the city in seasonal and expert cooking without neglecting the aspect of hospitality. It is the type of joint whereby the locals take out of town friends to demonstrate to them a reliable, trendy atmosphere and where the visitors can enjoy a slice of the culinary transformation of the area without feeling overly trendy.

Laurel should take the first place among the places someone would include in a list of the reliable downtown eateries, or places that they would plan a weekend in Salt Lake City. It is intelligent and contemporary but with traditional joys of a well-operating brasserie: excellent cuisine, friendly service, and a room that makes the guest want to arrive at least a little longer than scheduled.

When you want to tell someone about something at Laurel in a social or a newsletter or even recommend it in a lifestyle roundup, you can include with any post a little, simple note as to why it was so memorable: how the seared fish was served with a bright herb vinaigrette to cut through the richness, or how the bar cocktail was so thin and light and therefore so playful at the same time. Such details in human beings make a recommendation resemble direction by a friend and not an advertisement.

To brands and local curators such as Salt & Seek, Laurel Brasserie & Bar is the type of place that represents everything important: a friendly location, attention to quality, and the possibility not to feel as one. It is a site to be explored and, when explored, appreciated, a city center haven where basic gratification is inflated and all food consumed seems, somehow, to be the beginning of a fine tale.