Gastroarte

Note: Gastroarte “closed for renovations” in September 2012. The chef, Jesús Núñez, had already left the restaurant to open a similar place in the West Village called Barraca. The space, still under the same owners, and still Spanish, is now called Andanada 141.

*

I wrote last week about the Spanish moment we’re in: Gastroarte, Salinas, Tertulia, and the extravagant Romera, all open within the last year, and all with ambitious—or in Romera’s case, stratospheric—intentions.

They probably won’t all succeed, but it’s progress in a town that has too many Italian and New Brooklyn restaurants, and not enough of practically everything else.

Gastroarte opened in January 2011 as Graffit, named for the graffiti-clad walls and the chef Jesús Núñez’s artful platings. But a google search on Graffit most often returned another Manhattan restaurant, chef Jehangir Mehta’s Graffiti.

Mehta sued for copyright infringement and Núñez relented, renaming his restaurant Gastroarte. Good move. Even if the suit was baseless (as it almost certainly was), it was dumb to have two such similar names in one city, and Mehta got there first.

It took some chutzpah to put such a restaurant on the Upper West Side, near Lincoln Center, a neighborhood not known for rewarding culinary risk-takers. Of course, the city’s restaurant critics aren’t known for that either. Sam Sifton, Adam Platt, and Steve Cuozzo all gave it just one star apiece.

Those ratings aren’t irksome in themselves: I gave it 1½ stars early on, and frankly, I am not sure if I would have rounded up or down, had I been using a system without half-stars. What is irksome is the lack of respect for the chef’s art and the recognition of its potential, even if its execution, at first, was not consistently enjoyable.

Menu prices have risen: appetizers are now $14–21 (vs. $10–18 in January), entrées $29–32 (vs. $23–27). That’s a fairly substantial increase of around $8–10 per person (before dessert), in under a year. As before, a tapas menu is served only at the bar and at the front walk-in tables—an inexplicable blunder.

I assume Gastroarte is getting the customers to justify those higher prices. Fortunately, it deserves them. Nine months later, Gastroarte is a much more polished restaurant. The service is more reliable, plates arrive at the right temperature, and the balance of flavors seems more sure-handed.

The vegetable stew under “Not-your-average egg” ($17; above left) changes with the season (compare it to the photo last time I had it). This version is less colorful than before, but it remains a triumph. As it was before, the centerpiece is an egg yolk enclosed somehow, miraculously, inside of a cauliflower sphere. It rests on turnip prepared two ways, and underneath that, yogurt and Serrano ham.

Lamb cheeks ($30; above left) were in a stew of lentils, spiced cheese, and asparagus, with a slice of brioche. A cuboid of black rice ($29; above right) was topped with calamari, sobrasada, and snow peas, with a streaks of Idiazábal cheese and red tobiko as garnishes.

Núñez doesn’t splurge on ingredients, but the assembly of these dishes is impressive, and so are the flavors, which blend beautifully. Both of the central proteins, the lamb cheeks and the calamari, were just right.

The difference from January is that the plates are no longer just entrants in an art exhibit: they’re a pleasure to eat, as well. That’s based on a small sample of the menu (plus amuses bouches and petits fours), but Gastroarte today seems far more promising than Graffit did at the beginning of the year.

Early on a Friday evening, before the opera, the dining room was not quite full. I have no idea if the traffic dies, or picks up, after curtain time; however, the restaurant has managed to impose a rather substantial price increase, without any of the usual signs of desperation, so I assume it is not doing badly.

In the competitive Lincoln Center dining market, it’s difficult to remain relevant (just ask Picholine, now an OpenTable 1,000-point fixture), but perhaps Graffit is on its way to becoming essential.

Gastroarte (141 W. 69th St. between Broadway & Columbus Ave., Upper West Side)

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

Salinas

Spanish cuisine is enjoying a resurgence in New York, with newcomer Tertuila as perhaps the most successful example this fall. After two mediocre meals there (which I have not yet written about), I was eager to have another data point.

Enter Salinas, with chef Luis Bollo, whose much-admired Soho restaurant Meigas (which I never visited), closed in 2008, a victim of the Great Recession. Bollo decamped to Connecticut for a few years, waiting for the opportunity to return to Manhattan, which he did in July of this year. The Times didn’t review Salinas, but The Post’s Steve Cuozzo filed a rave, and Esquire’s John Mariani pronounced it one of the best new restaurants in America in 2011. New York’s Adam Platt had (predictably) the least reliable review, giving it two stars for the food, but minus one (for a total of one) for “ the pokey, vaguely suburban surroundings.”

I wonder which suburbs have restaurants like this? There’s a small bar up front, leading to two dining rooms with exposed brick and bare, dark-wood tables. The back room has a retractable roof, now closed for the season. Chairs and banquettes are in an understated, plush soft blue.

The menu is in four sections: tapas ($7–20), starters ($11–19), entrées ($24–44), and side dishes ($8–9). In most of those categories, there’s one or two items much more expensive than the others. For instance, all of the entrées are below $30, except for the porcella (roast suckling pig), which is $44.

The menu doesn’t really encourage you to build a meal from tapas alone, as there are only nine of them, several of which are just breads and charcuterie. But all the dishes we had, even the main courses, lent themselves to sharing.

Coles e Coliflor ($9; above left) is a dish that could convert even Brussels sprouts and cauliflower skeptics. They’re served deep fried, with citrus zest, mint yogurt, and pimentón de la vera, the spicy Spanish paprika that polka dots the top edge of the plate. (A second comped plate of this was sent out later.)

We also liked the Chorizo special ($14; above right), sliced thin, with a runny quail egg on top. Puncture the egg, and you have a late breakfast.

A short ribs special ($29; above left) was rather pedestrian. Served on the bone, it was a generic short rib entrée that you’ll find all over town. Pollo Otoñal ($26; above right) was considerably better, a grilled local organic chicken in a Granja bean and green onion sauce, Swiss chard, baby carrots, garlic, and lemon emulsion.

The room is dark, and on the loud side when it fills up. Service was fine once we were seated, but the hostess insisted I wait at the bar until my guest arrived. The sense they’re trying to attract a scene, rather than build a following, slightly undermines the accomplished cooking.

Salinas (136 Ninth Avenue between 18th & 19th Streets, Chelsea)

Food: **
Service: *
Ambiance: *
Overall: *½

Alfama

In the restaurant industry, second chances are rare. The Portuguese restaurant Alfama got one, re-opening in East Midtown in late May after losing their lease in the West Village two years ago.

They’ve done a handsome job of building out their new digs. It’s a bright, comfortable (if casual) space. The small dining room has a West Village-y intimacy, despite a location where restaurateurs tend to build big.

But it’s not on a block that gets a lot of foot traffic, so they’ll need good word-of-mouth to build a following. The restaurant wasn’t busy on a Friday evening, but as it was Fourth of July weekend, I wouldn’t draw any conclusions.

The chef, Francisco Rosa (same as at the previous location), has installed a menu with a mixture of crowd-pleasers and more challenging dishes. No one at my table was willing to share the rabbit meatballs, despite my assurance that they’d taste “just like chicken.” Chicken gizzards anyone?

It’s not terribly expensive: dinner for three was about $120 before beverages, tax, and tip. Appetizers are $4–16 each, entrées $21–32, sides $4–7, desserts $7–10.

The amuse bouche (below left) was a bit of spicy tuna tartare on a spoon.

Both appetizers were very good. Flambéed Portuguese Sausage ($10; above right) arrived literally on fire: the server advised us to let it burn for a couple of minutes before blowing out the flame. We also liked Pulled Lamb crostini ($14; below left).

Grilled Sardines ($19; above right), an announced special, made a good simple entrée.

Mariscada Alfama ($32; above left), or seafood stew, is probably the most complex of the entrées. Red Snapper ($25; above right) was of the simpler variety, although I especially liked the crisped skin, along with the tender fish inside.

Abade de Priscos ($10; above left) is one of the stranger desserts I have had in quite some time, described as: “A Mystifyingly dense Custard of Egg Yolks, Sugar, Port Wine and Prosciutto, served with a Prosciutto tuille and Lemon Sorbet.” Prosciutto makes just as bad a dessert ingredient as it sounds. I left this creation half-uneaten. Pasteis de Nata ($9; above right), or traditional Portuguese custard tarts with cinnamon and confectioner’s sugar, were a much better bet.

The restaurant had gained its liquor license only a day or two before our visit, and there were only a handful of bottles on the wine list. The one we had ($39) was unmemorable, but fine enough at the price. In any case, more are coming, and according to The Times, the selection will be heavily Portuguese, as it should be.

It’s nice to see another solid option in a cuisine that is under-represented in Manhattan. To keep the rent affordable, the owners had to settle for a mediocre block. Here’s hoping that diners take a few extra steps out of their way, to give Alfama a try.

Alfama (214 E. 52nd Street, east of Third Avenue, East Midtown)

Food: *½
Service: *½
Ambiance: *½
Overall: *½

Gastroarte née Graffit

Note: Gastroarte was called Graffit when this review was written. As noted below, the name was often mistaken for that of an unrelated restaurant, Graffiti. After the latter sued, Graffit changed its name to Gastroarte. For a more recent review, click here.

*

There isn’t exactly a glut of avant-garde Spanish cuisine in New York. One has to applaud chef Jesús Núñez’s gumption, if nothing else, in putting such a place in one of the city’s most conservative dining neighborhoods, the Upper West Side.

The chef was formerly a graffiti artist, so he chose the name Graffit—an unfortunate error, as a web search confuses it with the better known East Village restaurant, Graffiti. (On a google search for “graffit restaurant new york,” 7 of the first 10 hits, including the first four, were for Graffiti, not Graffit.) The reference isn’t that important anyway: the wall art at Graffit was created with spray paint, but not in a way that resembles the graffiti New Yorkers are familiar with.

There are fumbles in the menu design, as well. Diners seated in the bar area receive a tapas list ($6–14), while those in the dining room get a separate menu with traditional appetizers ($10–18) and entrées ($23–27). The distinction between bar and table dining is blurry these days; offering different menus to two classes of guests just creates confusion.

We were seated in the dining room, and therefore didn’t receive the tapas menu. A Mouthfuls poster who did, said that the tapas are so amply portioned that two of them would be a sufficient snack for four people, which somewhat contradicts the whole point of tapas.

In the dining room, the appetizers are generously portioned, too. We ordered five of them to share: we went home stuffed, and we didn’t even finish them.

Although we liked all but one of our appetizers, they tended to cloy. Normally, appetizers are sized for one person. Most of these dishes were just too heavy or too monotonic for that: you wouldn’t want to finish them.

However, you get plenty for your money: the food bill for two was just $62, and that included a dual amuse bouche (above right) and petits fours (bottom right) at the end.

“Not Your Average Egg” ($13; above left) is a seasonal vegetable stew. This was one of our favorites, although it ought to have been a shade warmer. The “Egg” in the middle is actually cauliflower molded around a runny egg yolk.

Carrot “Cake” ($11.50; above right) is a savory carrot dish with cheese and asparagus. This was one of those dishes that started out well, but was too overwhelming for even two people to finish.

Oxtail Ravioli ($13.50; above left) with apple and sunchoke cream sounded promising, but it came to the table lukewarm. Fried Squid Spheres ($12; above right) with roasted pepper, lemon, and saffron mayonaise are a wonderful idea, but it’s another dish that I was glad to be sharing. Two spheres per person was enough, and the dish had five.

Beef Tongue ($12; above left) was an ample enough portion to be an entrée, with two hefty pieces of tongue—deep fried, I believe. It’s another good dish that I wouldn’t have wanted to finish alone.

The restaurant occupies the lower level of an Upper West Side townhouse. The layout resembles a railroad apartment, with four thematically distinct spaces: communal tables up front for walk-ins, a bar, a dining room, and a rear atrium with skylights that can be opened in good weather. With exposed brick walls and no tablecloths or curtains to absorb sound, the space gets a bit noisy when full.

Despite some errors of concepion and execution, there is obvious potential in this cuisine. The menu is not static, as there were several announced specials (including the tongue dish). With some refinement, Graffit could make the leap to compelling from merely promising. Located just three blocks north of Lincoln Center, it’s a welcome addition to the pre-concert dining scene. The only question is whether this traditionally conservative neighborhood will embrace it.

Graffit (141 W. 69th St. between Broadway and Columbus Ave., Upper West Side)

Food: *½
Service: *½
Ambiance: *½
Overall: *½

Bar Basque

Note: Bar Basque closed in April 2012: yet another Jeffrey Chodorow place that folded after a brief, undistinguished run. At some point, you’d think the guy would stop wasting his money.

*

For a Thursday evening dinner with out-of-town friends whom I hadn’t seen in a year, I took a grave risk: I booked a Jeffrey Chodorow restaurant, sight unseen, which has (as yet) been reviewed by no one.

Bar Basque’s concept intrigued me. Basque cuisine is not exactly over-represented in Manhattan, and the chef, Yuhi Fujinaga, has worked at some serious places, including Eighty One, Alain Ducasse, Lespinasse—and of course, in Spain. But this is a Chodorow restaurant, so you know it will be weighed down with gimmicks, the service will be terrible, and in all likelihood it’ll be irrelevant or closed within a couple of years.

I took a shot anyway, and my predictions were right on most counts. The food wasn’t bad (nor was it great); the concept is weighed down with gimmicks, and the service is terrible. For the record, the Chod himself was in attendance, entertaining guests at a six-top.

Bar Basque is in the Eventi Hotel, which is home to another Chodorow gimmick-fest, FoodParc—basically, a shopping mall food court with the mall omitted—which the Village Voice has already slammed with a scathing review.

Both FoodParc and Bar Basque were designed by futurist Syd Mead, who is supposed to have “called science fiction ‘reality ahead of schedule’.” He is best known for such films as Blade Runner, Tron, Aliens, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Mead’s all-red vision of the future looks like it could have been designed ten years ago. Given the crimson overload at The Lambs Club and and Nuela, both recently opened, Bar Basque is like the third girl showing up to party in the same dress.

More importantly, what does it have to do with the Basque theme? Answer: nothing. If this restaurant fails (as most Chodorow restaurants do), he can quickly substitute the cuisine of some other nation, and re-open with the same, equally irrelevant décor.

Even the name, Bar Basque, seems passé. A couple of years ago, every other restaurant was Bar This or Bar That, even without being bars in the strictest sense. “Bar Basque” is so 2008. Then again, look across Chodorow’s portfolio, past and present: Hudson Cafeteria wasn’t a cafeteria; Kobe Club wasn’t a club; Tanuki Tavern isn’t a tavern.

The service was Chodorrific, meaning not great. I arrived five minutes early; naturally, the hostess would not seat me, even though (at 6:00 p.m.) the restaurant was practically empty, and at no point in the evening would it be full. I ordered a cocktail, and just moments later my friends (who do not drink) arrived. Naturally (this being a Chodorow place) they would not transfer it to the table. That would make too much sense.

About that cocktail, by the way: there’s a Gin & Tonic section of the menu, offering half-a-dozen versions of the classic with different gins, a multiplicity of tonics, and various additives. I can’t really complain, since I’m a G&T guy from the dark ages, but it isn’t exactly a fashionable drink, so I couldn’t help but laugh to see a cocktail menu with six of them. The server pours tonic water from a screw-top bottle on top of gin already in the glass, so I cannot say they are being carefully measured and mixed.

We were seated and menus arrived. They’re in folders nearly big enough to be cheap bathmats. You can’t open them comfortably without knocking something over. We were still studying them, and the server arrived, intent on upselling us into Pintxos (tapas) to start. No menu for these had been supplied, but the server knew which ones we ought to have (hint: the most expensive), and “I’d be happy to put in an order right away.” We demured. Having checked the website afterwards, it appears she was trying to add another sixty bucks to the bill.

When we placed our order a few minutes later, she seemed quite dismayed: “So, you’ve decided not to order the Pinxtos?” Negatory.

Upselling quite this brazen is not a characteristic of New York restaurants, in general. It has to be carefully taught—in this case, at the University of Chod, where the first required course is how to upsell, deny seating to incomplete parties, and refuse to transfer the bar tab—all mandatory subjects in the practicum before graduation. Successful students are guaranteed placement in one Choddy restaurant or another.

Bread service came after a delay, but at least it was fresh.

All of this, mind you, was in the first fifteen minutes, whereupon we were feeling foul about Bar Basque, no matter how good the food might be. While we waited for our food, I narrated for my out-of-town friends the legend of the Man Named Chod, all of his failed restaurants, and how there is invariably something crass about them, even when the food is successful.

The menu is on the expensive side. Sharing plates come in a wide range, $4–34 (the high end being the Iberian ham); appetizers $12–19; entrées $28–39; side dishes $7–9. More than half of the twenty entrées are in a sub-section captioned “From the Grill,” a distinction that (one quickly learns) means they come with no accompaniments, and you will need a side dish if you want more than just protein on a plate.

I started with the Crispy Farm Egg ($12; above left), with olive oil crushed potatoes, peppers, Serrano ham, and cheese broth. It is hard to go wrong with a runny egg and Serrano ham, although I thought the egg was slightly over-cooked.

The restaurant plans to feature the menus of guest chefs every other month. Through the end of October, Daniel Garcia of Zortziko in Bilbao, Spain, is on hand. His entire six-course meal is $89 (it’s a special insert to the menu), but the components are also available à la carte. I couldn’t resist trying the Squab Five Ways (above right), although it will be offered for only another week. The breast was very good (a bit like duck in miniature), but the other four ways were forgettable, particularly a mousse (right-hand edge of the photo) that was served without anything to spread it on. I believe the squab was supposed to be $32, but I didn’t realize until I got home that it was left off the bill. I am fairly certain that it was not a deliberate comp.

I didn’t photograph or taste my friends’ choices, which they found underwhelming: beet salad, monkfish, cod, a side of grilled vegetables.

The main dining room is on a terrace with a retractable roof (it was closed on this occasion) and a view onto a courtyard, with a jumbotron screen that displays soothing graphics having nothing at all to do with, really, anything. But that terrace is actually a very nice place, with tables widely spaced, and mercifully free of the overbearing all-read décor inside. If the whole restaurant had been designed with the same taste, it might have been a lot better than it is.

Perhaps I’ll return in a couple of years, on a nice summer day, when the roof is open. By then, Bar Basque will probably be Swedish. Or something.

Bar Basque (839 Sixth Avenue at 29th Street, in the Eventi Hotel, Chelsea)

Food: Satisfactory
Service: Chodorrific
Ambiance: Ten Years Too Late
Overall: Satisfactory

Mercat

Note: Mercat closed as of August 2012.

*

Mercat is one of those intriguing—but not quite compelling—restaurants that I missed the first time around. Frank Bruni gave it a star three years ago, finding the “wonderful … but uneven” food somewhat undercut by the oppressively loud surroundings.

Fast forward to 2010. Mercat is still busy, but it’s no longer packed—at least not at 7:30 p.m. on a Friday. At that early hour, at least we could leave the earplugs and migraine medicine at home. I realize that, by downtown standards, the evening had not yet begun.

The menu offers Barcelona-style tapas: “Mercat” means “market” in Catalan. The concise bi-fold menu offers shareable plates ranging from $7 to $18. Five of these set us back $59—a very good deal given the quality, and that the portions were ample.

Bombes ($9; above left) are meatballs with chicken, pork, and beaf, with rice and a potato crust used as binders, and an aioli sauce. It’s remarkable how often these plate-sharing places serve three meatballs to a portion. Mercat solves this by serving two very large ones.

Espinacs ($7; above center), or spinach with golden raisins and toasted pine nuts, is less memorable. Botifara ($9; above right), or house-made sausage, was the only real dud: the meat was dry, and the casing was a bit tough.

Chickpea stew ($12; above left) was remarkably good. Who’d have thought so much could be done with chickpeas? Arros Amb Anec ($15; above right), or bomba rice with duck and orange zest, is a terrific and amply portioned paella-like dish, but with the rice more moist, and less crusty.

Plates came out at a decent pace, neither too fast nor too slow. However, we made the mistake of ordering wine at the same time as the food, and the bottle didn’t come out quite quickly enough. Plates weren’t replaced as often as they should be.

Minor complaints aside, Mercat is a terrific tapas restaurant, especially given the prices and the portions. I wouldn’t want to be there when it’s crowded, though.

Mercat (45 Bond Street between Lafayette Street and Bowery, NoHo)

Food: *½
Service: *
Ambiance: *
Overall: *½

The Tangled Vine

The Tangled Vine is a cute restaurant and wine bar that opened about two months ago, about a block from the Museum of Natural History.

If the Upper West Side is always a bit risky for a new restaurant, this is the place to be, as the residential community is upscale, subway access is good, and the area has been hospitable to the right kind of destination dining.

The Tangled Vine ought to fit in well here. It’s pretty, without being fancy; intelligent, without being snooty; inexpensive without being cheap.

The focus is on Old World wines that are organic, sustainable, and/or biodynamic. I suspect there are aren’t many customers who can explain the difference between those three terms. They are explained on the menu, and even then I keep forgetting. Do patrons choose their wine bars based on that?

Fortunately, the wine list is very approachable, with dozens of bottles below $75, and plenty below $50. If you order by the glass, as I did, the pours are generous.

The Spanish-themed menu is by David Seigel, who earned one star at Mercat in 2007. Frank Bruni found the space insufferably loud, implying that the food alone might have been closer to two stars. Several dishes Bruni liked, and others resembling them, make their way onto the menu at the Tangled Vine.

The menu is dominated by cheese, crostini, and charcuterie—the kind of snacks you’d expect to order at a wine bar. There are also about a dozen larger plates, ranging from $9–23, with most under $20. Cauliflower Crostini ($6; below left) were a perfect start.

The menu offers several “trios”—generous two-ounce pours of thematically related wines with paired food. An excellent Sherry and Madeira trio ($19) came with the Chickpea crostini (above right), an addictive concoction with morcilla (blood sausage) and apricots.

The Pinot Noir trio ($21) came with a Montadito (left), or pork belly slider, here served in a pita pocket with pickled radish and garlic dijonaise. This was my favorite of the three dishes.

I came here on a publicist’s suggestion, and although I paid fully for my meal, it did seem that I got a bit more attention after I’d introduced myself. For the first half-hour, I felt a bit neglected, even though plenty of staff were on hand, and the room was nowhere near full. As it was early, perhaps they were still setting up.

When you order a single glass, most wine bars first offer a taste before a full pour. That wasn’t done here. I don’t think I have ever declined a wine, and I don’t think many customers do, but it’s a nice touch that the Tangled Vine might want to consider.

I’m not really qualified to write about the wines themselves, but I loved the sherries, and the Pinot Noir trio included a reserve Givry that normally sells for about $20 a glass that was absolutely terrific. After you’ve had that, it’s hard to move on to anything else, but after I gave them the challenge, the server recommended a smooth Montalcino that ended the evening on a strong note.

Great wine bars have sprung up all over town, so it’s hard to recommend the Tangled Vine as a destination. Personally, I think its affordable Old World theme and great Spanish tapas-style cuisine make a more compelling story than the organic spin, which you tend to forget after the first sip of a wonderful Pinot Noir.

The Tangled Vine (434 Amsterdam Avenue at 81st Street, Upper West Side)

Socarrat Paella Bar

We’ve had our eye on Socarrat Paella Bar ever since Frank Bruni awarded an enthusiastic star in October 2008. A pesky no-reservations policy gave us pause. When we plan an evening out, we generally want to count on a table at a time-certain. Many a restaurant that we’d love to patronize is buried well down the list for that reason, and that alone.

Socarrat Paella Bar closed the sale when it added a wine bar this spring in the adjacent storefront. We’d still have to wait for a seat, but at least we’d wait in comparative comfort, well fed and well lubricated. But be forewarned: even after effectively doubling their space, the wine bar, empty at 6:00 p.m., was standing-room-only by 8:00 on a Friday evening.

The wine bar serves mainly tapas, though you can order paella for parties of five or more. While we waited for two of the prized stools next door, we had the cheese plate ($15; above left) and the empanadas gallega ($8; above right), both very good.

Where most Spanish restaurants might have two or three versions of paella, Socarrat has eight, ranging from $22–24 per person (minimum of two people). The one shown above, Paella de Carne, was first-rate, with chunks of pork, chicken, duck, chorizo, and mushroom soffrito.

Socarrat, by the way, is the word for the burnt, sticky, but irresistible clumps of right that cling to the bottom of the pan. Near the end of your meal, a server comes along and helps you scoop it up (it takes some elbow grease, but is well worth it).

As the name implies, Socarrat Paella Bar is a bar, and a narrow one at that. You won’t have much room, and this isn’t the place for an intimate conversation. But sometimes it pays to be great at just one thing.

Socarrat Paella Bar (259 W. 19th Street between Sixth & Seventh Avenues, Chelsea)

Food: ★★
Service: ★
Ambiance: ★
Overall: ★★

Aldea

Note: Click here for a more recent review of Aldea.

*

George Mendes and his investors must have the patience of saints. After a build-out of nearly two years, their restaurant Aldea has just opened in the Flatiron District. Luckily for them, it is worth the wait. Aldea may be the best restaurant that has opened this year.

Mendes certainly has the pedigree to turn out excellent food. His New York background alone includes stints at Bouley, Lespinasse, Wallsé, and most recently, Tocqueville, where he was chef de cuisine. He also staged at several Michelin-starred places in Europe.

The build-out is flat-out gorgeous, with a design by Stephanie Goto. The bi-level space is not as elegant as Corton (nor is it intended to be), but it has a similar quiet elegance. The shimmering glass walls inside and at the doorway are especially striking.

You can sit at a bar facing the open kitchen, but we sat at one of the tables, which are both comfortable and quiet.

The menu is loosely inspired by Mendes’s Portuguese heritage (the restaurant is named for the village his family comes from). It is not a long menu, and we appreciate that. We’d rather choose from the handful of things the chef is convinced he can do well, especially when he is breaking in a new kitchen

There are just four Petiscos, or small bites ($6–9), five Charcuterie ($8–15), six appetizers ($10–15), and eight entrées ($19–27). The chef would probably have been serving $34 entrées last year (and we wouldn’t have minded), but he has wisely adjusted to reality.

The wine list is realistic too. It’s just two succinct pages, most of it pitched at $50 and under.

I started with a snack of Pickled Ramp Bulbs ($7; above), with cripsy pig ears, apple, and a spalsh of cumin yogurt. If you haven’t tried pig ears, this is the dish that could turn you into a convert.

For the appetizer course, we had two of the charcuterie selections, the Rustic Pork Terrine ($8; above left) and the Foie Gras Terrine ($15; above right), both technically excellent, though neither as memorable as the pig ear salad or the entrées to come.

Pork Belly ($19; above left) comes from Bev Eggleston’s reknowned herd, and Mendes nails it. Arroz de Pato ($20; above right) is Mendes’s take on paella, with three kinds of duck (confit, chorizo and duck cracklins) on a bed of rice.

The kitchen’s execution seemed to us absolutely flawless. We suspect that Mendes has dialed down his ambitions here—an entirely understandable strategy in these price-conscious times. This is still a deeply impressive restaurant. We can only hope that his achievement will get the recognition that it deserves.

Aldea (31 W. 17th Street between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, Flatiron District)

Food: **½
Service: **
Ambiance: **½
Overall: **½

Boqueria

Note: This is a review under chef Seamus Mullen, who left the restaurant in July 2010. Marc Vidal is his replacement.

*

Boqueria is one of those insanely busy restaurants that can make its own rules without impairing the demand for its product—in this case, Spanish tapas. Since it opened three years ago in the Flatiron District, the tiny space has been perpetually packed. A second Boqueria opened in Soho, and apparently it’s just as busy.

So Boqueria doesn’t take reservations and forces all of its patrons to sit on bar stools, many at communal tables where the adjacent party is just inches away.

When I arrived at 6:15 p.m. on a Friday night, I snagged one of the few vacant bar tables, but it was missing a stool. Could this be rectified when my girlfriend arrived?

The hostess shrugged. “If we have one,” she said. Otherwise, we’d be advised to cram ourselves onto the banquette side by side.

It turned out that a spare stool was hidden in the coat-check room. Disaster averted. At the very least, her fall-back suggestion would have been awfully cramped, as we observed at other tables not so lucky.

Boqueria can get away with this, as the waves of eager diners just keep coming and coming, as they’ve done since Frank Bruni awarded the unassuming place two stars in November 2006.

The concise menu offers just north of a dozen tapas ($5–12), just three entrées ($17–29), a broad selection of cheeses ($5–6) and a half-dozen cured meats, called Embutidos ($5–6 each). There’s a list of daily specials (mercifully, in print), often including suckling pig, though alas not when we visited.

I was too hungry to wait, so I started with a plate of three Embutidos—the Serrano ham, the spiced pork sausage, and the Catalan hard pork sausage, paired with a Spanish cider practically as alcoholic as a dry martini. The meats were all good, but probably would have worked better as a shared order.

After my girlfriend arrived, we started with the seared octopus ($9) and the seared lamb ($8), both served on skewers (above left). An order of Croquetas ($10; not pictured) offered lightly breaded, creamy helpings of mushroom, salt cod, and suckling pig. Surprisingly, the mushroom croquetas tasted best, whereas the pig had almost no discernable flavor at all.

Paella ($29; above right) is the only item above $20, but it’s still a good deal, as the portion is massive. The two of us finished all of the seafood, but left quite a bit of the rice behind. I found the rice over-cooked. Two huge langoustines were plated lazily on top, and not properly integrated into the dish. The clams were perfectly done.

For a place this busy, the server was reasonably attentive. Then again, turning tables is the name of the game. After we got up to leave, it took all of ten milliseconds for another party to grab our table.

I was less impressed with Boqueria than I’d expected to be. The food was mostly good, but I wouldn’t go out of my way for it. I’d love to return for one of the trademark pork entrées that folks rave about, but you never know when they’re on the menu.

Boqueria (53 West 19th Street between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, Flatiron District)

Food: *
Service: *
Ambiance: no stars
Overall: *