It was brushed with grape must and served with a tangle of mustard greens and some thin slices of radish for textural contrast. Meticulously butchered, it retained a thin layer of juicy fat below a crisp surface the center of the meat was rosy and correctly medium-rare. Pork tenderloin was just impeccably cooked. Unusually, the meat entrée and the dessert were the high points of the meal, much as I enjoyed the appetizers-or starters, or small plates, or whatever we call them now. Sherry with fish soup is classic where I grew up, and this rich, resiny white was perfect with crab and sweetbread. It's described on the list as oxidized (you know, sherry-like), and my server told me too, just in case. I believe them.)įabulous wine with this, a Domaine Rolet from the Arbois. (By the way, everyone tells me the lamb tartare is excellent, so I didn't think I needed to try it to find out. What a good combination it turns out to be, with the sweetbreads well trimmed and cooked crisp, nestled in a rich, foamy crab bisque. You don't see sweetbreads with crab every day-or at least, I don't. I wondered if there was a charge for it (there wasn't). He came back moments later with one slice and some butter.
Rather than just bring it around, my server returned to the table after I'd ordered and inquired if I'd like some. An egg, of course, or maybe some soft cheese.īread service was curious. Just for me, I'd have liked a component with a creamier mouthfeel. That note was balanced by the light maple syrup drizzle, and it was welcome to see some hazelnuts on the plate rather than the more obvious almonds. You can miss the latter in a blink at the greenmarket, so I was pleased to get some of that unusual crunch combined with stickiness (think 0kra, but not as much), and that flavor which borders on bitter. This last winter seemed never-ending, but the season is here at last for spring vegetables, so I had to start with asparagus, tangled up with ramps and fiddleheads. So a glass of Schramsberg, and then we'll really eat.
I drank by the glass and was, for once, delighted with the quality. It's a list on a scale which puts one in mind of Veritas and Cru, and frugal diners will be driven as usual to French regions to find relief from the triple-figure trophy bottles-although there are quite a number of Bordeauxs under $100. It's the labor of Patrick Cappiello, sommelier here and at the smaller Pearl & Ash next door (he and McRill are partners in both ventures). It's vast and leaps into stratospheric price regions. The wine list, in contrast, rivals Hommes de Bonne Volonté. I went on a weeknight evening, and most of the noise pollution came from the muffled music soundtrack, which seemed exclusively to feature artists popular forty or more years ago.īut the crowd was very much of now young and hip and picking its way through an admirably terse menu: three $12 starters, three $15 starters, five $24 mains, and three $8 desserts.
It's a spectacular space, open and industrial, and the brick walls and high ceilings must make it very, very loud when full. Few of my pole dancer friends like to be called strippers, but the ambience is certainly different. "The stripper poles have gone," observed affable GM Branden McRill, showing me around. The back room with a second bar and two stages now offers extra dining space, and a big, modern open kitchen where one of the stages used to be. The long front room, with the very long bar, is still there: it's not the main dining area. I have some memories of R Bar, the big rambling club which has been dramatically converted into Rebelle.
Or have a glass of wine while I ramble on about R Bar. In the radius of a few short blocks, where NoLita and NoHo collide with the Lower East Side, you can classics of la cuisine bourgeois at Le Philosophe or Lafayette, a slightly modern-Morocco version of the same cuisine at Dirty French, and now traditional bistro dishes at La Gamelle (formerly Chez Jef), or cooking redolent (I'll come back to that) of the bistro moderne movement, to say nothing of the solid French menu at DBGB's (already a veteran of some five or six years). French cooking didn't vanish, of course (Benoit opened in the La Côte Basque space), but for a time it seemed profoundly outdated-superseded by various accommodations with ancient cuisine, chefly revivals of every comfort food in the American pantheon, and the Torrisi-led second coming of American-Italian.