Slightly Oliver

Slightly Oliver is a new “cocktail-themed gastropub” on the Upper West Side. That description is both a selling point and a constraint, the former because there isn’t much like it nearby, the latter because in any other neighborhood it would seem derivative.

The basic idea, we must admit, has been tried before—but not here. If you’re in the area, you ought to be delighted to find Slightly Oliver (Cockney slang for “slightly drunk”), which is unique, as far as I know, on the Upper West Side.

The formula is tweaked for uptown sensibilities. The “commonwealth-inspired” menu (mostly comfort-food standards) breaks no new ground, but it is extremely well made. We tried eight dishes, and I’d be happy to have them all again. Prices are low: most entrées are $20 or less. Cocktails are in three categories: punches ($7); house recipes (described somewhat annoyingly as “tasty” cocktails) ($9), and prohibition-era classics ($12) — a good deal less than you’d pay downtown.

The owner is Stanton DuToit, who also runs Tolani Wine Restaurant a few blocks away, and formerly Sojourn on the Upper East Side. I didn’t much care for Tolani, though I haven’t been back in a while. The idea here seems more carefully edited and focused. DuToit is a trained winemaker, and the wine lists are a strength at both restaurants. As at Tolani, there’s a glass-enclosed wine room visible from the dining room; here, it shares space with a mad-scientist chemistry set that’s used to make home-brew infusions.

There are three connected spaces: a bar in front, a narrow corridor with several comfortable booths separated by gauze curtains, and a dining room in back. It feels more spacious and comfortable than most downtown restaurants with a similar proffer. We visited on New Year’s Day, when neither of the two back rooms were very crowded. There are plenty of exposed hard surfaces (brick, wooden tables) that could reflect sound, if the space were full.

Dislosure: My visit wasn’t pre-arranged with the management, but Mr. DuToit recognized me. He sent out eleven(!) different cocktails, all at no charge, and four comped dishes, in addition to the four we ordered and paid for.

We sampled a wide swath of the cocktail menu. There is a tendency to sweetness; I best liked the ones with offsetting bitter or spicy flavors. Among the punches, try the Last Night in Paris (Claro rum, spiced rum, absinthe, fresh mint reduction, pink grapefruit juice, house blended spices, whisky bitters).

Among the house cocktails (left), I preferred Oliver’s Cilantro (infused gin, Lillet Blanc, house made sour, and cucumber) and the Slightly Green Martini (vodka, green pepper reduction, dill elixir, house made sour mix). I did wince at the idea of calling something a martini that isn’t.

I especially liked the old standards, even if by then I was too, er, Oliver to finish them. The Negroni and the Manhattan, while both recognizable as the classics they are, both had an extra tang of spice that I don’t recall in other versions of them.

Over now to the food, the Chicken Liver & Foie Gras Pâté ($8; above left) was luscious and creamy, though there is not enough toast for it. The staff offered to send more, but I declined, knowing how much was coming.

There are several pizza-like dishes, which they call “flats.” The Spaniard ($12; above right) with chorizo, manchego, and piquillo peppers, was especially good.

There’s a section of the menu called “Stacks” (all $16) and though I’ve no complaints with these items, perhaps they’re comparatively skippable. Duck Spring Rolls (above left) made for a tasty snack food. Kobe Beef Sliders and Bittermilk Chicken Sliders (below left) were just fine, although you’ve had others just as good elsewhere.

Swiss Chard and Ricotta Ravioli ($14; above right) probably violated the legal limit on the amount of butter and cream allowed in one dish, but, oh my! They were absolutely fantastic.

There’s also an excellent rendition of braised short ribs ($18; above right), served here with celery root purée, braised leeks, and apple gastrique.

I would describe the Sticky Toffee Pudding ($8; right) as my dessert of the year, but it was New Year’s Day, so that isn’t saying much. I don’t remember a more enjoyable dessert last year either. Other desserts shown on the menu (a pecan bourbon pie, an apple–huckleberry crisp) sound equally appealing.

If I have a concern about Slightly Oliver, it’s the over-reliance on consultants. Jason Hicks of Jones Wood Foundry helps out in the kitchen (Mr. DuToit says he is there twice a week). Pre-opening publicity also included cocktail whiz Albert Trummer. You’d prefer to see a restaurant grow organically, rather than leaning on people whose main focus is elsewhere.

But in these early days the cocktails are mostly quite good, and if the menu is somewhat predictable by downtown standards, at least the kitchen is acing it. The location at Amsterdam & 85th doesn’t attract a destination crowd, so if Slightly Oliver is going to work, neighborhood folk will have to embrace it, which they should.

Slightly Oliver (511 Amsterdam Ave. between 84th/85th Streets, Upper West Side)

Jones Wood Foundry

Could the Upper East Side be the next bastion of hip restaurants? I admit it’s far-fetched, and we’re a long way from that happening, but the essential requirements are there. East of Third Avenue, real estate is inexpensive by Manhattan standards, making it attractive both for restaurants and the young, single, urban professionals they hope to attract.

Jones Wood Foundry, a gastropub that opened in February, has the same rough-and-tumble vibe as many an East Village or Williamsburg restaurant. Whether it’ll succeed is not for me to say, but a young crowd had packed the place by 8:00 p.m. on a Monday evening, and the pro reviews have been favorable (Cuozzo for the Post, Moskin for The Times, Sietsema for the Voice).

I’m assuming the customers are mainly locals, as most Manhattanites can’t escape the impression—although it is decidedly false—that the Upper East Side is the bastion of trust fund babies and and ladies who lunch. That may be true on Fifth and Park Avenues. Take the Lexington Avenue Subway uptown, and turn right as you leave the station, and you find a much more diverse community.

This section of the Upper East Side was once called Jones Wood: it was even a candidate location for what became Central Park. The building itself, dating from the late nineteenth century, was once a foundry that manufactured manhole covers, among other things. Descendants of the original occupants, the Eberhart Brothers, still own the building.

The chef, Jason Hicks, worked in New York at Aureole, La Goulue, and Orsay, but he’s a native of the Cotswolds region of England. He’s partnered here with Yves Jadot, who also runs the Petite Abeille chain and the excellent cocktail lounge, Raines Law Room.

The menu here may remind you of April Bloomfield’s places (Spotted Pig, Breslin), but it’s more of a full-on English pub, with heavy doses of Bangers & Mash ($17), Steak & Kidney Pie ($18), Mushy Peas ($7), Haddock & Chips ($22), and so on. There are also fall-back dishes for the less adventurous, like a DeBragga dry-aged burger for $18 (which I didn’t order, but looked wonderful), roast chicken ($22), or a Niman Ranch pork chop ($28).

Most appetizers are below $15, most entrées below $25, so you can get out of here easily for $50 a head before drinks. There’s an ample list of beers on tap or by the bottle and a pretty good wine list too, though no hard liquor is served. The wine-based cocktail list is by Meghan Dorman of Raines Law Room and the Lantern’s Keep.

Celery root and blue cheese soup ($7; above left) with croutons and crispy bacon was a perfect starter for autumn. But my friend Kelly thought that Sweet pea soup ($7; above right) was overpowered by olive oil. She also found jumbo lump citrus crab salad ($14; no photo), with avocado, roasted tomato, and frisée, just average.

There were four announced specials — why should this be necessary on a menu reprinted daily? — including Partridge ($42), “just shot this weekend in Scotland.” It was served deboned, on a rich root vegetable stew. The server warned us to be on the lookout for birdshot, but all I encountered was a stray bone the butcher’s knife had missed.

Kelly has a hypothesis that food with a narrative (i.e., “just shot in Scotland”) is never worth the tariff, and this dish bore that out. I haven’t ordered partridge before, so I have no idea how it is supposed to be. It tasted slightly gamey, as you’d expect, but it was also a bit tough. A domestic, farm-raised bird on the same bed of vegetables would have been twice as good, and would have cost half as much.

We concluded with an excellent milk chocolate and sea salt pie ($7; left) with Chantilly cream.

The three-room space is smartly decorated in distressed pub chic. There is a long bar in the front room, a banquet-length communal table in the middle, and a dining room in the back. It was not terribly loud, although the crowds did not arrive until the end of our meal. Service was fine for a restaurant on this level: an incorrect order was dropped off, but promptly replaced after we pointed it out.

We didn’t really love anything, and a couple of dishes seemed off-kilter. But I adore the menu, and given the reviews it has received, I suspect we ordered wrong, or caught the place on chef’s night off. Despite the tone of the review, I’d happily rush back, next time I am in the area.

Jones Wood Foundry (401 E. 76th St. between First & York Avenues, Upper East Side)

Food: *
Service: *
Ambiance: *
Overall: *

The Burger at the Spotted Pig

As time allows, I’ve been eating my way through the city’s iconic burgers. On Friday, it was The Spotted Pig’s turn. No less an authority than Citysearch’s Mr. Cutlets ranks it fourth—not bad in a town where there’s a burger on every street corner.

I eat at the Pig only when I can arrive between 5:00 and 5:30 p.m., when dinner service begins. Any later than that, and you’re looking at a long wait. The service puts many two-star restaurants to shame, from the friendly hostess that found a bar stool for me when it appeared there were none, to another hostess that offered without prompting to transfer the bar tab to my table.

But let’s move onto that burger ($17), a hefty monster with a gorgesous beefy taste and a crisp, charred bun. One could argue that the roquefort cheese overpowers the meat (that’s Cutlets’ position), though I would probably order it again as-is. The shoestring fries that come with it are insubstantial.

The burger seems to be the most popular item at the Spotted Pig. I had a great view of the kitchen, and it looked like about 60% of all orders coming out were burgers. I now see why. It is truly a masterpiece of burger science.

The Spotted Pig (314 W. 11 Street at Greenwich Street, West Village)

FergusStock

The English chef Fergus Henderson is in town this weekend, giving New Yorkers a chance to sample his renowned “nose to tail” cooking. He’s working tonight at The Spotted Pig (menu here), and tomorrow at Momofuku Noodle Bar (menu here).

I dropped in on the Pig earlier this evening. I was fearful of an intolerable wait, but I was there at 5:00, they opened the kitchen at 5:30, and I was seated at 6:00. (I drank a couple of beers in the meantime.) The man at the table next to mine, who seemed to be a Fergus groupie, said that last year’s wait was much worse. For those into celebrity spotting, I saw Anne Burrell and Tom Colicchio. I’ve no eye for that kind of thing, so I probably missed a dozen others.

 

The menu included such Henderson specialties as Roasted Bone Marrow, Ox Tongue, Devilled Kidney on Toast, and Deep Fried Rabbit. All of those looked interesting, but I started with the Pressed Pig’s Ears ($16; above left)— basically a terrine, fatty and gelatinous. Fat, indeed, was the order of the day. Pot-Roast Bacon, Trotter & Prune ($28; above right) was also a plate full of fat, which is not a bad thing, but one must accept it for what it is.

 

I wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about a side of Roasted Parsnips in Duck Fat ($7; above left), which seemed too slimy; or a slice of Walnut, Chocolate & Amaretto cake ($8; above right), which was too dry. In fairness, the latter is a standard Spotted Pig dessert, and had nothing to do with Henderson’s presence.

This was my second visit to the Spotted Pig (earlier report here). For a place that’s a gussied-up pub, the service is impressive. The server was well schooled about the unusual, one-time-only menu. Amidst a crush of humanity, they were still willing to transfer my bar tab to the table, and my napkin was refolded each time I got up to visit the washroom.

The special menu’s signature item was a Half Pig’s Head for 2, for $55 (above). The man next to me ordered this all for himself, as his companion was having none of it. As he dug in, he said to her, “I’ll let you know when I get to the meat; so far, it’s all skin and fat.” By the time I left, he had dismembered most of the head, but skin and fat were all he found. I must say, it looked pretty good, but not to the point that I’d eat one all by myself.

Was it a revelation? No. But it was fun to try a couple of things that no one else in town is serving. The couple next to me was planning to follow Fergus to Momofuku Noodle Bar tomorrow night. I don’t think I can ingest that much fat two nights in a row.

The Spotted Pig (314 W. 11th Street at Greenwich Street, West Village)

Spitzer's Corner

When I heard that Wayne Nish was serving “three-star bar food” at a Lower East Side gastropub, I was a little skeptical.

Guess what? He has pulled it off.

Spitzer’s Corner, which opened in August 2007, had a tough first nine months, with a revolving door in the kitchen. Nish is the fourth chef. The early reviews found his predecessors’ menus underwhelming, and it’s tough get the critics back for a second look.

Wayne Nish

They should come back, because Nish’s menu at Spitzer’s corner is remarkable. Although Nish is billed only as a “consultant,” his hand-picked chef de cuisine, Sung Park, has serious credentials, with stints under Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Didier Virot, and Laurent Tourondel under his belt. He was also Nish’s chef de cuisine for the short-lived second act at Varietal.

And Park is no absentee chef: he was there on a Saturday night.

When I think about the food here, the closest comparison that comes to mind is Momofuku Ssäm Bar. Both restaurants offer sophisticated cooking with luxury ingredients in a laid-back, pared down environment. Park seemed taken aback when I mentioned the similarity, as David Chang’s food has an Asian tang, while Nish and Park come from the French tradition. But once I explained myself, he seemed to agree that the analogy was valid.

The foodies haven’t descended on Spitzer’s Corner as they’ve done at the Momofuku restaurants, but it’s not struggling either. The Saturday evening business was fairly brisk. The restaurant seats 130 and is open daily for lunch and dinner, with food served until 2:00 a.m. There is also Saturday and Sunday brunch.

The menu is inexpensive. A section called “Bar Snacks and Sides” features eight items priced from $4–10, while a section called “Plates,” corresponding roughly to appetizers and entrées, has fifteen selections from $9–17. Most items are suitable for sharing.

The aesthetic is pared down, with most of the seating at long communal tables. (There are a few two-tops.) The wood that lines the walls is alleged to have been made from reclaimed pickle barrels. There are broad picture windows, which on a warm evening are open to the outside.

The name, by the way, comes from a dress shop that formerly occupied the space. It has nothing to do with Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced former governor of New York.

They don’t have a hard liquor license, but there are 40 beers on tap and another 40 in bottles. They’re listed on the menu with brief tasting notes, as you’d find on a wine list (“Epic malts, spicy notes w/ hints of baker’s choc”).

They aren’t just the obvious beers, either. There couldn’t be many places in town serving Delirium Tremens, Victory Golden Monkey, Stone Arrogant Bastard, or Rogue Dead Guy Ale. The servers are like sommeliers, recommending beers that pair well with the food you’ve ordered.

The wine list is more modest, though the server insisted it should be taken seriously too: five reds and seven whites, all available by the bottle or the glass, with the most expensive bottles priced at $36 (not counting Veuve Clicquot Brut, $110).

Full disclosure: We dined at Spitzer’s Corner at a publicist’s invitation, and our meal was comped. We sampled considerably more food than any two sane people would order on their own. However, as I always do, I am calling the shots as I seem them.

I’ll be haunted for a long time by the “French Kisses” ($10), five luscious armagnac prunes filled with a liquified foie gras mousse. This was a dish that could come out of the kitchen at Per Se or Jean Georges, and it wouldn’t seem out of place. Prunes and foie gras make startling bedfellows, but we had the same observation several times during our long meal.

 

Nish works similar magic with a salad of warm Spinach and Shitake Mushrooms ($6), in which the startling extra ingredient is a white soy sauce.

I was eager to try the Duck Fat Potato Cake ($6), but it was the evening’s only dud. There’s plenty going on in this dish too, with confits of shallot, garlic, rosemary and thyme, but it was too dry. I expected the duck fat to be more flavorful, but I really couldn’t taste it.

  

We loved the bracing, bright flavors of a Red & Yellow Tomato Salad ($9), with goat cheese, marcona almonds, balsamic vinegar, and watermelon-chili dressing. Even better was Mac & Cheese ($9), which the menu says is made from local artisanal Saxelby cheese and topped with herbed duck cracklings.

A Sweetbread Po’ Boy was just fine, but the sandwiches that came next surpassed it.

We had the Roasted Pork Belly Sandwich ($11), the Warm Duck Confit Sandwich ($12) and the Soft-Shell Crab Po’ Boy ($15). We couldn’t agree with was the best, as all had their merits. They all benefited from Nish’s playful combination of unexpected ingredients. The pork belly was paired with a red wine sauerkraut, the duck with pickled daikon radish, the crab with housemade aioli. My girlfriend thought that the tempura batter on the crab was especially successful, while I was partial to the pork–sauerkraut combination.

 

Halibut, at $17, is the most expensive item on the menu. It was the second item we had (after the “French Kisses”) that could come out any three or four-star kitchen with no one batting an eyelash. It was certainly as good as the wonderful halibut we enjoyed the night before at Café Boulud. A lemon walnut crust imparts a tangy crispness to the perfectly roasted fish.

Our stomachs had by now reached our limit, so we barely tasted the Herbed Roast Chicken, but it seemed to be just about perfect, with (according to the menu) herbes de provence and jus roti. Once again, take note of the price: a half chicken for $12.

 

The last item we tried was the Kobe Burger ($16). There’s a bit of dishonesty here, as it’s actually American Kobe beef, and strictly speaking, that’s a contradiction in terms. On the other hand, where else is any kind of Kobe beef (even if it’s Wagyu) available for $16.

We aren’t the hamburger experts, but my girlfriend said, “This is the best hamburger ever.” A blogger on Serious Eats disagrees with us, but to our taste it was excellent: a nice charred exterior, a perfect medium rare inside, and a buttery brioche bun. To be sure, the real Kobe beef would have more marbling, but this was impressive enough, and what do you want for $16? At the Old Homstead, the Kobe burger is $41, and I don’t know if their menu is any more accurate about its origin than Spitzer’s.

For the record, Spitzer’s also serves a trio of sliders for $9 and a short rib burger for $10. Both are available with cheese, but when a customer asked for cheese on the Kobe burger, the server declined. There are culinary standards to be upheld, even for hamburgers.

Our server was knowledgeable, attentive and friendly. There are paper napkins, but silverware was replaced after every course. We were clearly getting the VIP treatment, so you can take that for what it’s worth. But there’s no denying the attempt here to serve “pub food” several orders of magnitude better than the norm. Word of mouth seems to be catching on, but only time will tell if this level can be maintained.

There are some limitations, besides the spartan surroundings and communal tables. At present there is no dessert menu or even coffee. Some people would consider the lack of cocktails a drawback, but with 80 beers available no one should go thirsty here.

Full credit is due to the persistent owners of Spitzer’s Corner, who could have given up on their gastronomic ambitions and relied on their beer menu. Instead, they snagged Wayne Nish and Sung Park, who have turned this pub into a destination.

Spitzer’s Corner (101 Rivington Street at Ludlow Street, Lower East Side)