Seasons 52

Seasons 52 is the Darden Restaurants attempt at a fresh-grill upscale-casual concept, opened in 2003 and now at about 40 locations nationally. The Lone Tree restaurant sits on the south side of Park Meadows mall (same parking lot, separate building, separate entrance) and has been in steady rotation for date nights and corporate dinners since it opened in 2014. The conceit is in the name: the menu rebuilds four times a year, every entrée comes in at under 600 calories without telling you about it on the plate, and the wine program runs 52 selections by the glass spanning roughly $9 to $20.

The flatbreads are the consensus play. Order one to start regardless of what else you're getting; the mushroom and the Philly are the two we'd point you at first. Beyond the flatbreads, the cedar-plank salmon is the most consistently reviewed entrée, the Kona-crusted lamb loin gets shoutouts in the reviews even when other things miss, and the wood-grilled scallops are the third-place go-to. Mini-indulgence desserts (the small parfait jars) are intentionally portioned to share around a table of four.

Happy hour runs Monday through Friday 3 to 6pm in the bar area only, with half-off flatbreads and several $7-9 wines and cocktails that turn this into a defensible weekday sit-down for two without breaking $50. The atmosphere lands somewhere between a hotel restaurant and a steakhouse: low light, quiet enough to talk, dressed-up booths. It's a chain, and it shows in the corporate-room feel and the predictable consistency, but unlike most Darden brands the food is genuinely competent and the wine list is the rare chain-restaurant program worth taking seriously.