[Pigging by Wilfrid: October 26, 2007]
It's very fancy, on old Delancey Street, you know..." mused Lorenz Hart to Richard Rodger's jaunty melody. But that was back in 1925.
The LES has emerged from some hard years, but who expected a raviolo of sweetbreads on this still dark, abandoned and ratty corner?
In fact, a narrow and fashionably non-descript facade on this dark block of Allen Street, on the way to nowhere except maybe the Bowery Ballroom, conceals a moderately bright, busy bar; beyond that, two dining rooms, the first of which is markedly darker.
On entering, I feel I'm back on the Manhattan '07, standard issue downtown restaurant treadmill. Dim wall sconces, glass-walled libraries of wine, conversation-bouncing bare brick walls. The crowd is mainly young, and I learnt to my dismay that hipsters will keep their hipster hats on their heads right through a three-course meal.
Thank god or Curnonsky, but at least Neil Ferguson doesn't plague us with yet another list of small plates, tapas, bar bites, or intermezzi. Despite the fact that the menu and wine and cocktail lists are - Public-style - pinned to little clipboards (meaning you have to sort out the pages, reject the duplicates, find the missing ones), Ferguson actually offers what is recognizably a three course dinner menu. This is so unusual in any restaurant created below 42nd Street these days, that it's worthy of remark.
Add to this the worthy fact that the cuisine is of mainstream Anglo-French origin - it reveals no compulsion to fuse with anything else - and that the cooking displays some classic technical skills, and we have sufficient reason to make the best of the high noise level, dim lighting and rock-hard chairs.
Ferguson, of course, has a long run with the classic and finicky Gordon Ramsay behind him - an association which came to an abrupt halt when Ferguson carried the can for Frankula's drubbing of Ramsay's first New York venture, Gordon Ramsay at the London.
Having praised the organization of the menu, startlingly divided into appetizers, entrées and desserts, I should also say that it slavishly includes ingredients in the absence of which no downtown dinner can truly be said to be served. Am I the only one getting a little tired of pork belly; it's a terrific cut, but I don't need to eat it every week (and didn't eat it here). I was lured into the realm of bone marrow, though; sweetbreads too.
I guess I just assumed that Mr Marrow would show up, as usual, wearing his big, singed bone. That's the classic European brasserie presentation, reproduced in New York at Prune and elsewhere. Here he's nude as a de-shelled turtle, and improbably garnished with paddlefish caviar.
Here's where photos can mislead: the caviar is much more apparent under the flash than it was to the naked eye, and it took some tasting and pondering before I remembered that, yes, there were fish eggs in this dish. I suppose a textural contrast to the gelatinous ooze of the marrow is intended, but I have to admit I craved the traditional presence of some crunchy salt instead.
The tart but well-controlled gastrique sauce forms, perhaps, too large a part of the dish, but there's a delicious pale yellow shallot purée supporting the marrow too; its sweetness balances the dish nicely. The toast points were rather nicer than the very oily little baguettes which had arrived with some good unsalted butter.
The traditionally layered terrine of guinea-hen, foie gras and ham hock looked prettier before a stray fork hit it. Served with frisée and some strips of beet, it was the kind of competently executed piece of charcuterie readily found in France (and indeed in the United Kingdom), but rarely seen in New York. This didn't mean it knocked me out; in fact, I found the smoked hock a little al dente, but I guess to a palate bred in Europe this is swanky comfort food, and therefore, well, comforting.
The sweetbread raviolo, on a pedestal of Savoy cabbage, didn't quite hit the mark. Not that it was remotely unpleasant; but the pasta casing was just slightly chewy, and I'm not convinced it's a good idea to mince the sweetbreads which filled it. At least, they seemed finely chopped if not actually ground. There is more ground meat lapping the cabbage - lamb, I think, although essentially, as the menu says, it's a helping of "bolognese". For me, also, the carrot garnish could have been less lavish.
The dourade was enjoyable, quickly roast with a crisp skin. An eggplant purée with some caramelized onions provided a light accent.
More technically complicated, if not necessarily more satisfying, was the delightfully named "Cabbage, Beef and Onion." I think you have to be a Brit to lead with "cabbage"; indeed the bluntness of the description reminded me of that relentless minimalist Fergus Henderson (of the St John restaurant, London).
The food was much fancier than its name. The two "balls" - if I may - are delicate constructions; one a soft cabbage leaf encasing tender braised beef, the other a sweet cippolini onion shell enclosing tasty Savoy cabbage. One rectangle is a neat potato gratin dauphinoise (and when did you last see that in Manhattan?), the other a piece of medium-rare sirloin.
I thought the server described the braised beef as "flank", although I've also seen it referred to as shoulder, which seems more likely. In any case, each element of the plate was delightful, down to the melting onions topping the gratin - with the unfortunate exception of the piece of beef itself. I may have been unlucky and got the only dud, but it was fairly dry and chewy. Assuming that's an aberration, this was very nicely conceived.
Dessert, undeservedly unphotographed, was a well balanced sweet-sour selection of macerated "sautéed" fall fruits, with a Catalan cream. A light finish.
Wines were taken by the glass. Appalled at the suggestion I should pay $20 for a flute of NV Nicholas Feuillatte - a champagne readily available at twenty-something the bottle - I ordered a cava from Penedes which had a rather rubbery nose I didn't much like. A Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, Terrace Heights Estate, was much more successful, the smooth Juan Gil Monastrell just a fair eight buck food wine. The list of bottles is brief, international and unpretentious.
For once, I just don't have a strong hunch to share. Allen and Delancey may be off the beaten track, and simply too Spartan, for those who would enjoy pared-down Ramsay-school classicism. Then again, the cooking may be too calm, the menu too conventional, for those young people who would wear hats to dinner, and like to study menus for Basque and Kampuchean inflections. How about: I didn't fail to enjoy it? Will surely go again.
A characteristically sober web-site can be found here. This article can be discussed at MouthfulsFood.
