Nerai
Sunday, April 13, 2014 at 09:06AM 
In what other age could one of the best high-end Greek restaurants in New York, open and go almost totally unnoticed?
That is the perplexing question at Nerai, which opened in May 2013 in the old Oceana space, and has attracted no professional reviews that I can find, except from John Mariani in Huffington Post, who posted a rave three months ago.
The opening certainly was publicized, although perhaps not as well as it could be. Did it begin so poorly that the first critics to visit found it not worth writing about? Or did they just assume that a white tablecloth restaurant on East 54th Street is unimportant by default? I fear it could be the latter.
I am not going to pronounce Nerai the best modern Greek restaurant in New York. That judgment would require more visits and deeper exploration than my time and money will allow. But after one visit I can certainly pronounce it a candidate.
Admittedly, there’s not a lot of competition since Michael Psilakis’s Anthos bit the dust. Molyvos is reliable, but not the standout it once was, although it has the city’s best Greek wine list. Milos could be better, but I’ve never been (GQ’s Alan Richman posted a rave in 2010). Thalassa is an old favorite of mine, but it gets very little critical attention; it is still very good, but below its peak.
Which brings us back to Nerai, which feels immediately cozy and elegant. A series of rooms in the bi-level space is decked out in soothing, vaguely nautical themes. In the room we were in, on the ground floor, the walls are lined with white muslin gauzes, pleated to resemble sails.
You won’t get out cheaply. Starters and salads range from $15–27, composed entrées $26–56 (just one dish under $30), sides $10. There’s also whole fish and seafood, $33–60 per pound, a notoriously tricky format, as you don’t quite know what you’re paying until the bill arrives.
