Calle Dão

Cuba once had the largest Chinese ex-pat population in Latin America. Havana’s El Bario Chino (its Chinatown) occupied 44 square blocks in 1870, though today it is restricted to a portion of Calle Cuchillo (“Knife Street”).

Chinese–Cubans predictably migrated to New York, where Chelsea and the Upper West Side became home to “dozens of greasy spoons, unique in that they served Chinese food and Cuban food in separate measure, side by side.” That era has long since passed. More recently, Jeffrey Chodorow’s Asia de Cuba was a clubby, upscale riff on the same idea. The New York outpost closed in 2011, but it soldiers on in London.

I haven’t seen much evidence that New Yorkers mourned the loss. But Naples native Marco Britti fell in love with Cuban–Chinese fusion cuisine when he lived in Havana. He is betting that the city will welcome its re-introduction. To carry out the concept, he hired chef Humberto Guallpa, who was executive chef at Vandaag for its final year in business, from 2011–12. (Britti also owns Favela Cubana, a more straightforward Cuban restaurant in Greenwich Village.)

Welcome to Calle Dão, a fusion restaurant with a fusion name: “knife” in Mandarin, “street” in Spanish. It’s located on one of those forlorn midtown streets where you’d have no reason to go without an appointment, but I suspect they do good lunch business here. Dinner could pick up if the concept catches on.

But will it? There’s no rule that necessarily limits chefs to the cuisine they grew up with. Yet, when an Italian (Britti) and an Ecuadoran (Guallpa) are charged with reproducing the cultures of China and Cuba, you fear that something will be lost in translation. The dark room feels like the Epcot version of Havana. It’s comfortable enough, but the authenticity seems faked.

I never experienced the greasy-spoon version of Cuban–Chinese fusion, but the elements of both cultures are plainly evident, with chopsticks and silverware at every place setting. You’ll certainly pay more than in Havana, with appetizers and ceviches $8–12, entrées $13–32 (most over $25), and side dishes $8.

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By The Hudson

Restaurant names often tell you very little. What do you know, really, about The Simone, Charlie Bird, or Cherche Midi, from their names alone? In contrast, By The Hudson (BTH) makes its value proposition abundantly clear: it’s a room with a view.

Actually, that sells it short. Chef Lusianie Otero’s “Amer-ibbean” cuisine surpassed my expectations, but when a restaurant is named for its location, it’s the location that they’re selling, so let’s discuss that for a moment.

BTH is located at the far western tip of 125th Street, underneath the Riverside Drive viaduct. Tall picture windows on two sides offer gorgeous views of the Hudson. Two other restaurants share the block, but don’t have the scenery: Dinosaur Bar-B-Que and Harlem’s Floridita. The famed Cotton Club is a block away; Fairway Market is just up the street. Another restaurant with a view, Hudson River Cafe, is four blocks north.

Still, the walk from the subway feels a bit bleak, especially after dark. That’ll change, eventually. Columbia University plans to build seventeen buildings over the next quarter-century on the superblock bounded by 125th Street, 133th Street, Broadway, and Twelfth Avenue. Several are already under construction. You can’t help feeling that in five or ten years, this area will be barely recognizable.

With all of the ongling construction in the area, BTH’s timing seems to be pretty good. But the space facing the water (formerly a diner) had been vacant for seven years before BTH opened in September, so I guess it wasn’t an easy sell. The neighborhood clearly has bright prospects, provided the restaurant survives the long winter.

The restaurant is evidently still deciding how best to market the cuisine. Florence Fabricant’s Off the Menu teezer described it as “American, with hints of Italian,” but the chef hails from Puerto Rico, and our server called it “Amer-ibbean.” Osso Buco is the only dish that immediately screams Italian, and there’s a heavy dose of the safe, recognizable standards that many places serve: Shrimp Cocktail, Caesar Salad; Steak & Fries, and so forth. But where the chef does insert her personality, the dishes have a recognizably Caribbean tint.

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Oficina Latina

 

If it were in any other U.S. city, Oficina Latina (opened 2½ years ago) would be one of the funkiest, hippest places in town. In New York, you might imagine that it’s just another Pan-Latin spot that you never heard of, though you would be overlooking its many charms.

The décor—really indescribable—is inspired by the Pan-American Highway circa the 1950s. The connection isn’t entirely clear: there’s a pressed tin ceiling recovered from a 1920s bank, various species of mismatched vintage furniture and light fixtures, a barber’s chair at the bar, marble and wrought iron tables, and distressed painted brick walls.

It’s not fancy or expensive: you can have brunch every day for just $12; add a Margarita or Bloody Mary, and it’s all of $15. Dinner will run you a bit more, but not a lot, with tapas $8–15, soups and salads $8–12, tortas $12–22 (but most under $15), mains $20–23.

The cuisine is not aligned to any particular Latin-American country: the chef is Mexican, the owners Italian. The publicist (at whose invitation I visited), says the menu is expected to be rewritten shortly: they’re going to shorten it a bit, and make room for rotating specials.

The bar and cocktail program deserve more exposure. There’s a selection of 100+ tequilas and mezcals, and another 100+ rums and piscos, many offered with custom infusions. A pepper-infused mezcal (right) garnished with a chili pepper was terrific. So was another, made with ancho and lychee.

But the printed menu offers just clichés like mojoitos, piña coladas, and margaritas. The printed specialty cocktails are flavored versions of these (e.g., a blackberry caipirinhas) that sound truly depressing. The beverage director (and co-owner), Paolo Votano, ought to flaunt his better stuff.

While the menu is being re-done, perhaps they’ll improve the plantain chips (above left) that begin the meal: they don’t have enough heft to stand up to the spicy dipping sauce they come with.

But there weren’t many other off-notes to the meal, which showed a kitchen of some accomplishment, especially when it can put the charcoal grill to good use.

 

Grilled octopus (Pulpo a la Parrilla, above left), served with a cilantro dressing, with a potato and celery salad, had a luscious smoky flavor. There was plenty of warm smoke, too, in tacos with roasted suckling pig (Tacos de Puerco, above right), crackling skin, grilled lime and sliced avocado.

 

I love blood sausage when it’s done right (Abrebocas, above left), but this preparation was too loose: it oozed out of the casing, like toothpaste, when you tried to cut into it. Chorizo was fine, but unremarkable.

A roasted deboned half-chicken in a garlic sauce (Pollo a la plancha, above right) was tender and full of flavor, probably from that same charcoal oven.

 

Chili caramelized pineapple (Pina Picante Caramelizada en Agave, above left) was a first-rate dessert, paired with the oddest after-dinner drink I’ve seen: “Passionate Love” (above right), consisting of rum straight-up with lemon wedges that you dip in strips of powdered sugar, cinnamon and coffee, laid out to resemble lines of cocaine.

I can’t comment on the service, since the meal was comped, but the 62-seat dining room was about two-thirds full by 9:00 pm on a Monday evening, so the restaurant apparently has a local following.

I’ve no way of knowing whether the rest of the over-long (and soon-to-change) menu is as interesting as the small sample that we tried. If you order the octopus, the suckling pig tacos, and the chicken, you’ll go home happy.

Oficina Latina (24 Prince Street between Mott & Elizabeth Streets, NoLIta)

Cómodo

How can you not just smile and be pleased at the success of a restaurant like Cómodo?

It grew out weekly dinners that the newlywed owners, Felipe Donnelly and Tamy Rofe, hosted in their TriBeCa apartment, starting in early 2010. Soon it was a full-fledged supper club called Worth Kitchen. By 2011 the health department caught on, and they had to close shop.

But a full-fledged restaurant was always the goal, and with a little help from Kickstarter, they finally have one—and in a lovely location, too, on the edge of Soho in the former Salt space. It’s a typical downtown dining room, with exposed brick walls, a bustling bar, and closely-spaced bare wood tables.

In a well-run restaurant, there are hundreds of things that just happen in the background, and the average diner never notices them until they’re not done right. At Cómodo, you never get the sense that the owners were amateurs a year ago. For a couple that was throwing once-a-week home dinner parties, Donnelly and Rofe have made the transition with remarkable ease.

The cuisine is Latin American, not exactly fancy, but a step up from comfort food. I gather it changes regularly. As of last week, there are seven appetizers ($10–17), six entrées ($17–28) and three desserts ($7–11).

I neglected to photograph the bread service, which came to the table warm, in a little paper bag, with soft butter that contained spackling of toasted almonds and sea salt. The overall effect was like a Ritz cracker.

 

A Brussels Sprout Caesar Salad ($10; above left), shaped like an over-size hockey puck, was the least successful dish we tried, as a garlic parmesan dressing obscured the flavor of the Brussels sprouts, and we didn’t detect much of a Caesar salad flavor either. (It looked better than the over-exposed photo shows.)

Roasted Cauliflower Gratin ($12; above right) was quite a bit more successful, sort of like a macaroni and cheese, with cauliflower replacing the macaroni.

  

Braised Berkshire Pork Shoulder ($24; above left) was excellent, and a much heartier portion than the photo suggests. It came with trumpet mushrooms, greens, and a huge helping of mashed potatoes (above center) with a surprisingly smoky flavor.

Duck Breast ($28; above right) was pretty good, but I hardly touched a wedge-shaped serving of quinoa sprinkled with butternut squash and smoked mozzarella. Next to the regal duck, it felt like a humble afterthought.

 

Flourless Chocolate Cake with passion fruit sauce ($11; above left) brought the meal to a strong conclusion, along with a small plate of petits fours (above right).

Aside from one minor glitch—really, not worth mentioning—service was better than you’d expect at such a casual spot. We didn’t sample the wine list, but they make a terrific Sangria. You won’t go wrong if you stick with that.

The restaurant was practically empty at 7:00 pm on a Wednesday evening, but by 8:00 it was nearly full. Aside from a Hungry City piece in The Times over a month ago, there hasn’t been much press coverage, so they must be getting good word-of-mouth. As of today, you can add me to the fanclub.

Cómodo (58 MacDougal Street between King & Houston Streets, Soho)

Food: Hearty, upscale Latin American cuisine
Service: Surprisingly polished
Ambance: A crowded, but not oppressively loud, downtown dining room

Rating: ★
Why? Food a shade below destination level, but in another year it might get there

La Mar Cebicheria Peruana

La M.C.P. closed in August 2013 after two years in business. I am not surprised: as discussed in the review below, there were many reasons to be skeptical.

*

On either the website or the printed menu at La Mar Cebicheria Peruana, the first thing you see is the list of cities where the restaurant is franchised: eight of them to date. In all, chef Gastón Acurio has thirty-three restaurants on three continents, most of them duplicates trading under a handful of names, like Astrid and Gastón, Tanta, and La Mar. He makes Jean-Georges Vongerichten look like a small-time operator.

I guess Chef Acurio never got the memo: New Yorkers don’t take kindly to imported franchises and chefs. He would have been far wiser to open under a new name, giving at least the impression that he was creating something unique. It could have been a complete sham, but who would know?

Then, there’s the location, the former home to Tabla. Even Danny Meyer didn’t survive here. It’s a large space on two levels, in a high-rent building. Only a well-capitalized operator who was very sure of both himself and his concept would have considered it. But restaurants need to fit the personality of their neighborhoods, and La Mar (named for the sea) feels like a cruise ship past its prime. Does that work at Madison Square Park? Only time will tell.

Wikipedia proclaims Chef Acurio “a true culinary visionary who has put all his effort into rediscovering Peruvian cuisine.” (Apparently the Wiki Police have not yet gotten around to censoring this clearly biased article.) Besides nearly three dozen restaurants, he hosts a television show in Perú and is author of various cookbooks and magazines. That’s a lot to live up to.

The menu is in six categories, a layout that blurs the line between appetizers and entrées, and seems calculated to provoke over-ordering. The traditional appetizers are $11–18, the main courses $26–42, which makes La Mar a rather expensive restaurant, especially if you accept the tacit invitation to order from each group.

We did the opposite, eschewing the so-called appetizers and entrées entirely. In the meantime, it’s easy to fill up on fried plantain chips (above left) with their appealing hot dipping sauce.

The Cebiches ($15–28), the so-called national dish of Perú, lead off the menu. There’s much more variety here than the Mexican ceviches commonly seen on New York menus. The “Tigre Tasting” ($15; above left) offered three drinkable shot-glasses: fish, shrimp, and octopus, all fairly spicy. But I liked the “Popular” ($18; above right) better, with salmon, shrimp, ocotpus, and crisp calamari in a tart green sauce.

Tiraditos (raw fish) are Perú’s answer to sashimi, though to me Italian crudi seemed like a more apt analogy. Three kinds are offered (all $18), of which we tried two (above left), the Nikei (Toro tuna with chile pepper, tamarind, and sesame oil) and the Chaifa (wild salmon belly and cilantro in passion fruit).

Carapulcra is a Peruvian dish akin to a potato stew. It was offered as a recited special, with pork belly as a decidedly non-traditional extra ingredient. The dish as presented ($26; above right) didn’t resemble a stew at all. Was it meant to be an appetizer or an entrée? After multiple failed attempts to get an explanation, we decided to take our chances. It was pretty good, but it’s difficult to ruin pork belly.

The wine list features an ample selection of Argentinean, Brazilian, and Chilean wines, along with more familiar fare from Spain and California. The price range is in line with the food, with decent options below $50, though they were out of my first choice.

The space has a bright new design from starchitect Stephanie Goto (Corton, Aldea). I don’t think it’s her best work, but maybe this tired look is what the client wanted. The layout is the same as Tabla, with a bar and lounge on the ground floor and the main dining room up a flight of steps. It was about half full on a Saturday evening; still, we had trouble hearing our server’s recitation of the daily specials.

The food was all at least pleasant and inoffensive, but it is nothing I am dying to have again. Add two glasses of sangria at the bar ($13 each), and a bottle of Malbec at the table ($52), and we were well above $100 a head, and that’s without ordering traditional entrées. Absent more excitement on the plate, I am somewhat skeptical that the restaurant can build a long-term following at these prices, and in such a sterile space.

La Mar Cebicheria Peruana (11 Madison Ave. at 25th St., Gramercy/Flatiron District)

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

Coppelia

Coppelia, as critic Robert Sietsema observed in the Village Voice, is what the average New York City diner might have been, if the tradition had been founded by Latinos instead of Greeks. Or the Walt Disney version, at any rate. It could transfer to the Cuban pavilian at Epcot (if there was one), and chef Julian Medina wouldn’t need to change a thing.

Medina is in his moment now, with three outposts of his Mexican place Toloache, two of his pan-Latin restaurant Yerba Buena, and now Coppelia, which is billed as Cuban, but isn’t really anchored to any national cuisine.

Coppelia is the least ambitious of the three, but as diners go, you’ll be happy it exists. Located strategically at the midpoint between Chelsea’s clubland and the Meatpacking District, it’s open 24/7, serving the perfect food for soaking up alcohol after night on the town. At 8:00 p.m. on a rainy Saturday evening, it was nearly deserted. My son wondered how it could stay in business. “The crowds come later,” I explained.

If you come in sober, what you’ll find is decent, inexpensive (for Chelsea), pan-Latin cuisine. Entrées are $13.95–17.95; burgers and sandwiches $6.95–7.95; starters and salads $2.95–10.95; breakfast dishes, served all day, $4.95–9.95. The food is slightly better than you are entitled to expect at those prices.

Fish tacos ($9.95; above left) offered crispy flounder and guacamole, topped with a rich chipotle cole slaw. Arroz con pollo ($15.95; above right) could feed a family. The chicken was tender, the rice sweet and sticky, and there was an abundance of peas, peppers, and scrambled egg.

But Ropa Vieja ($15.95; above left) was dull. The shredded beef both looked and tasted like traditional diner food, and a side of beans (above right) was too watery.

There is no liquor license yet (the staff says it’s a week away). A lime soda imported from Mexico wasn’t bad at all, though at $4.50 is a bit expensive in relation to the menu. Service was attentive, as it ought to be when the ratio of staff to customers is nearly one to one. I’ve no doubt they get a lot busier later on.

I wouldn’t want to over-hype Coppelia, but it’s the kind of restaurant you’re glad to have around.

Coppelia (206 W. 14th St., west of Seventh Avenue, Chelsea)

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

Nuela

Note: Nuela closed in February 2012. The space re-opened in June 2012 as Raymi, under chef/restaurateur Richard Sandoval.

*

The pan-Latin American restaurant Nuela opened last month in the Flatiron District, after an agonizing two-year wait. Douglas Rodriguez, the original chef (and Top Chef Masters alum) withdrew, leaving his one-time assistant, Adam Schop, in charge.

Wear your sunglasses and bring your earplugs. The all-red décor will assault your eyes, while the blasting sound track will bludgeon your ears. It is not a pleasant place to eat. The owners took over the huge space that had been Sapa, but I don’t remember feeling like I was in an airplane hangar, as I did here.

The menu offers sixty items in a dozen categories. There are so many ceviches that a separate menu must be printed to accommodate them. One’s eye is naturally drawn to the entrées for two: ribeye ($90), chicken ($48), duck ($60), or whole fish ($58). Suckling pig is served by the quarter ($65), half ($130), or whole ($250). Solo entrées are $25–32, ceviches $10–22, small plates, soups and salads $3–12.

The bread service (left) was wonderful: cheese bread and cornmeal, with honey-doused mascarpone for dipping. Matters turned quickly south when the appetizers arrived.

 

Oxtail Empanadas ($9; above left) had a strangely flat taste. Mixto Ceviche ($14; above right) had such a muddy taste, and was swimming in so much sauce, that I couldn’t even make out the octopus, shrimp, and crabmeat it allegedly contained.

The quarter suckling pig ($65; above) was just fine, but the degree of difficulty was low. The pig was served as a random pile of oddly-shaped pieces. Nothing much was done with it, except for baking the creature in its own fat and hacking the carcass apart. (There was an unidentified tangy dipping sauce, along with scallion pancakes and a superfluous helping of rice.) It came on a wooden board that didn’t quite fit on the small table, very nearly pushing our plates off the edge.

The wine list was expensive. The dull $56 Tempranillo we had came to the table warm. After pouring two half-glasses, the server volunteered to chill it. Twenty minutes later, it came back hardly changed.

You can probably cobble together a good meal here: with 60 items on offer, some of them have to be good. We aren’t at all interested in trying any more of them. We hated our appetizers, and there are plenty of places in town that serve a great suckling pig in a much nicer space.

Nuela (42 W. 24th Street between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, Flatiron District)

Food: Satisfactory
Service: Satisfactory
Ambiance: A noisy red airplane hangar
Overall: Satisfactory

Zengo

There is no good reason why the East Midtown restaurant space at 40th Street & Third Avenue ought to be cursed. But cursed it apparently is. Four Jeffrey Chodorow places failed there—most recently Wild Salmon—before the Chod finally gave up.

Zengo is the latest to give it a shot. The hyperactive chef Richard Sandoval is in charge, but with fifteen other restaurants in five U. S. cities and three countries, I suppose I should put that in scare quotes, as in, “in charge.” In case you’re wondering—admit it, you were!—this is the third Zengo, after Denver and D.C.

With Sandoval in demand everywhere from Mexico to Dubai, he needed a solid hand in the kitchen, and he had one in former Elettaria chef Akhtar Nawab. But less than a month into the venture, Nawab took a hike. The reasons remain unexplained, but are easy to guess. Zengo is a dumb idea, sloppily executed. Any self-respecting chef would be embarrassed to be associated with it.

Although Jeffrey Chodorow is not involved here, his uncanny propensity for error hovers over the space like a death stink. A Latin–Asian restaurant that serves sushi rolls, dim sum, and tapas? Only the Chod would suggest something so obviously ill-conceived, so gimmicky, so pandering, so offensive to common sense. The menu is like something you’d find at an airport food court, offering a bit of everything without any sense of purpose. The cooking is better than at an airport, but the service isn’t.

From a meandering list of small plates in multiple categories, we started with the Peking Duck-Daikon Tacos ($12; above left), which was the best thing we tried. Thin daikon wafers passed for pancakes, which held slices of duck confit, curried apple, and an orange-coriander sauce. However, we ran out of daikon before we ran out of duck.

Braised Pork Belly ($13; above right) was swimming in a lentil sea. It is hard to overwhelm pork belly, but this plate managed it. You could barely taste the pork.

We ordered a bowl of fried rice ($8; below left) as a side dish, but the kitchen delivered it as a mid-course. At first, we thought this was intentional, but the server disabused us of that: “Your main courses will come out as and when they’re ready.”

Sure enough, “as and when” is the mantra here, often to the customers’ dismay. At two different tables, we saw plates sent back because diners had only just received their first group of appetizers. At one table, the server got into an argument, instead of just admitting the screw-up. Although the restaurant was not full, plates were shot out of the kitchen at machine-gun pace, as if the staff wanted to empty the room as quickly as possible.

We didn’t send anything back, but this was not a relaxing meal.

Neither of the entrées looked especially attractive on the plate: Grilled Colorado Lamb Loin ($27; above center), Braised Short Ribs ($24; above right). The lamb was wonderful, but we didn’t much care for the lazily-plated assortment of vegetables underneath it. The short ribs were slightly on the dry side.

Real thought went into the beverage program here. There is a wide selection of both reds and whites. At $42, the 2008 Cline Cashmere Meritage was a very good choice at the lower end of the list. There are over 400 tequilas and mezcals, and a separate downstairs lounge (La Biblioteca) in which to enjoy them.

The folks at AvroKO did their usual bang-up job with the décor, although the cavernous three-story space is bound to feel like a airplane hangar, practically no matter what you do with it. And it’s hard to imagine it will ever be full.

The opera singer Plácido Domingo is a partner here. One’s immediate reaction is that he ought to stick to music.

Zengo (622 Third Avenue at 40th Street, East Midtown)

Food: Satisfactory
Service: Fair
Ambiance: Satisfactory
Overall: Satisfactory

Yerba Buena Perry

Yerba Buena, the well regarded Latino restaurant in the East Village, has a new baby brother across town. I assume it is just a coincidence that its predecessor in this space, Matador Bistro Latino, was a very similar restaurant.

The nominal chef at Yerba Buena Perry, Julian Medina, now has three restaurants (counting Toloache in West Midtown), and one worries whether they all have his full attention. We enjoyed our meal here, but there were some missteps.

The price range of Medina’s restaurants may soon reach nosebleed levels. In the East Village, the entrées max out at $27. At Perry Street, four dishes top this amount (several of them steaks, including the obligatory ribeye). Appetizers, however, are about the same at either place ($9–14). Once the average main course is above $25, you’re not talking about cheap eats.

A Tuna Ceviche ($13; above left) with sweet onion and pickled watermelon was too tart. Arepas ($13; above right) were like Latin American sliders, stuffed here with coffee glazed pork belly and cabbage slaw. The coffee taste didn’t come through for me, but they were none the worse for it.

Lechon ($24; above left), or roast suckling pig, packed a strong comfort-food punch. Ropa Vieja de Pato ($26; above right), or duck leg and confit, was nicely done, but the duck egg on top was overdone. We assume the idea was to puncture the yoke and let it run through the shredded duck confit, but the poor yolk had been cooked through.

The carefully prepared cocktails deserve all of the acclaim they’ve received. I especially liked the Turnpike (rye, applejack, and lemon). Another was served with a single large block of ice nearly the size of a Rubik’s cube.

Although the restaurant was mostly empty when we arrived, the hostess seated us at practically the worst table, right next to a serving station. A manager noticed the error, and moved us to a banquette. After that, the service was just fine. The room has been spiffed up a bit, but the atmosphere is decidedly casual.

I wouldn’t send you out of your way to visit Yerba Buena Perry, but if you’re in the area it has terrific cocktails and mostly enjoyable nueva Latina cuisine.

Yerba Buena Perry (1 Perry Street at Greenwich Avenue, West Village)

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