Review: Nine Tailed Fox Taps into America’s Long Love Affair with Chinese Food

Step inside Nine Tailed Fox, Atlas Restaurant Group’s two-story, 200-seat black-brick-and-steel monolith at The Village of Cross Keys, and you’ll understand why the Chinese-food restaurant was two years in the making.

Even by Atlas’ outsized standards, the whole space, overseen by Ira Imerlishvili, design director at Patrick Sutton Interior Design, is an ambitious, larger-than-life venture, with its jade accents, sprawling rooftop patio, airy atrium, and splendid second-floor bar. It’s a vast space but also balances spectacle with intimacy, thanks to mood lighting, private nooks, and ethereal artwork inspired by traditional Chinese silk paintings and a sculptural rope suspended from the ceiling of the main dining room to anchor the soaring space.

Behind-the-scenes is plenty splashy, too. The kitchen is a generous 2,700-square-feet with a team of 44, including Hong Kong-born executive chef Jeffrey Mei and Timur Fazilov, chef of Asian cuisine, whose C.V. includes a stint at the famed Morimoto in Qatar.

The restaurant’s namesake is the mythical “nine-tailed fox” drawn from East Asian mythology. The fox is known for its longevity, cosmic wisdom, and ability to shapeshift. This could, in fact, serve as a metaphor for Atlas founder Alex Smith, who has mastered the art of time travel, as his ever-morphing empire covers almost every continent and time period from the Jazz Age (The Ruxton), to the ’70s (Italian Disco), to the Belle Époque (Monarque).

This time, Mr. Smith goes to China with a restaurant that taps into America’s long love affair with Chinese food that began when Chinese immigrants, primarily from the Canton region, came to California for the Gold Rush, soon adapting their cuisine for Western palates. From the looks of the restaurant on any given night, that love affair is still going strong.

The menu at Nine Tailed Fox references both past and present, highlighting Cantonese classics, alongside clever, more modern combinations drawn from a country with countless regional cuisines. That means you can expect a catalogue of the familiar Chinese-American staples that most Americans grew up eating—orange beef, chicken chow mein, General Tso’s chicken—whether you enjoyed them in Chinatown (if your city was lucky enough to have one) or at simple mom-and-pop neighborhood take-out spots.

But, in addition to those commonly known standards, there are more modern takes on traditional fare, such as black-truffle roasted duck, or lamb (a commonly consumed protein in China) spiced with cumin and cilantro and folded into pan-fried potstickers.

Along with the potstickers, you’ll find a slew of more traditional dumplings. Dumplings are thought to have originated 1,800 years ago during the Han Dynasty, and that history is honored here—the dumplings are handmade by a team of five and treated as something of an art form.

You can make an entire meal out of mixing and matching, including perfectly pleated xiaolongbao (soup dumplings) filled with bits of chicken; pillowy shrimp dumplings bursting bundles of sweetness; or a fantastic vegetarian version stuffed with assorted mushrooms. There’s a bottle of black vinegar and jar of house-made chile crisp on every table that’s meant for the dumplings but adds a hit of heatand umami to most everything on the table.

Another favorite appetizer was the Singapore Street Slaw, a technicolor twist on Lo Hei salad made for the Chinese New Year. It’s stacked with shredded seasonal vegetables tossed with cashews, fried taro, and fried vermicelli, then mixed tableside in a raspberry and preserved plum vinaigrette. The whole affair is a textural and visual delight with its riot of crunch and a confetti of color.

As for the entrées—prettily presented on the same ’50s-style plates from the Sunday sojourns to Chinatown of my Philly youth—every visit led me to a new discovery. Over a handful of meals, that included a beef and mango dish, accompanied by iceberg lettuce for a crisp element and a cooling component; the pepper steak: tender, wok-seared beef with green bell peppers and leeks in a dark, peppery sauce that delivered real depth and bold, spicy flavor; and a lovely, aromatic vermicelli noodle dish mixed with shrimp and an assortment of vegetables.

Speaking of vegetables, there are plenty of wonderful vegetarian options, including stir-fried sweet pea shoots scented with garlic and dotted with fried onions; and stir-fried eggplant and okra doused in a spicy-sweet cashew sambal. Interestingly, okra is not commonly found on local menus but is a widely used ingredient in Chinese cooking. Don’t miss the chance to order it here.

My only quibble? The kitchen could use more coordination. Dishes are served seemingly tapas-style, which means that the appetizers and entrees come out rapid fire—and often all at the same time. Also, because servers don’t write dishes down, on my outings something almost invariably went wrong. On more than one occasion, an entire dish was missing. On another visit, a server sheepishly came back to the table and asked us to repeat the entire order all over again. (Note to servers everywhere: Write the dang order down.)

Service missteps aside, Nine Tailed Fox is a great addition to our dining scene. I enjoyed expanding my palate, while revisiting old favorites. It made me nostalgic for those family outings when, even as our feast was revealed beneath those bell-shaped lids, I’d crane my neck to see what other tables had ordered. It’s that kind of fare.

Even if the cuisine is ancient, the thrill never gets old.

NINE TAILED FOX, 3 Village Square, 443-688-9511. HOURS: Sun. Thurs. 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m.; Fri.-Sat. 11:30 a.m.-1 a.m. PRICES: Appetizers: $8-16; entrees: $19-76* (whole Peking duck); desserts: $4-14. AMBIANCE: Nouvelle Chinese.