[Pigging by Wilfrid: January 18, 2011]
Not another tiny LES storefront restaurant-of-the-day? No, no - you couldn't be more wrong. I am sure there are gentlemen involved, who the farmer might be I don't know, but Ivo & Lulu's Karim Nounouh is quietly cooking up a French-American storm on Rivington.
Softly, softly they must have opened too - last September - and I heard not a word until someone recommended the pheasant pâté recently.
I am no expert on Ivo & Lulu. It's in SoHo, and I've seen it called French-Caribbean. It's been there a while, but I've not visited; no, I haven't been everywhere. The menu at this new venture looks more ambitious and prices are higher, but the chef's interest in game persists.
The website calls the space "intimate." This is a bit like calling Radio City Music Hall spacious. It's a tiny splinter of a place, eighteen covers pressed tightly together along the left-hand wall, a by comparison secluded two-top somehow placed against the opposite wall while leaving space for servers to squeeze by.
There is no waiting room, unless you count the temporary winter vestibule. The restaurant does take reservations - remarkable in these casual times - but since there's no flexibility in a space this size, you may wait for a table. Wrap up well. Once inside, your appetite won't be stimulated by challenge of squeezing into your seat or by finding it church-ishly cold and hard when you succeed. Service - charming, multi-national, led by Beverley Prewitt - restores some cheer, as do the hunks of baguette which come with a dish of chopped ratatouille-type vegetables as well as butter.
Anyone who feels the price-range of a wine-list should reflect the cost of dinner is going to be startled here. Yes, there are enough inexpensive selections for anyone, including an $8 house Cabernet which is actually potable, but there are some eye-opening boutique selections too. 1982 "Janus," anyone? Good luck finding that in a store. A Burgundy grand cru here, a serious claret there, and you need to take a look at the opposite wall some three feet away to remember you're not dining at Daniel.
I settled for a reliable Raffault Chinon and debated the menu with my server. Lobster tail, it said, and alluded to white truffles too, but at a cost of only $15. I was skeptical; I was committed to the pâté too. Perhaps both. Would I like the lobster first? Well, if the lobster dish is warm - it was - I thought the pâté first. But the pâté is warm too. Curious.
The lobster, in any case, turned out to be both warm and delightful. Seeing "white truffles" mentioned at that price had my eyebrows dancing about six inches above my head - and rightly so. There may have been some white truffle oil in the sauce, but don't worry about it; the beurre blanc had a slightly sweet, caramel-vanilla aftertaste which had me reflecting - with some shock - that this was better than the disappointing lobster raviolo with vanilla sauce I'd eaten in Paris at Senderens.
No, I'm sorry - worry all you like about whether the lobster was fresh or frozen. Puzzle over whether the nugget of ice-cream-ish solidity at the center of the sauce was intentional, or if the sauce had been not-quite-thawed. Furrow your brows. I was just taken aback by how well everything worked - and the lobster, for once, was tender.
As for the pâté, more surprises. Really a kind of pâté en croute, alluding to the days when the terrines we now call pâtés were generally served under a pastry crust. The crust here, though, is melted Brie - pungent, savory, vegetal - and the pheasant appears more as a stew than a terrine.
Vegetables in there too, and a wise reliance on the bird's dark meat. I could taste the liver worked in with it, the overall effect being a deeply flavored dish, wrung from a game bird often mild enough in flavor to be mistaken for spring chicken. Warming too, and a well spent nine bucks.
Evidence next of how the most is made out of what must be a microscopic kitchen. Ramekins are king, and dishes which blossom when finished in a hot oven are favored (there's a rabbit cassoulet too). Venison in Burgundy fashion, or venison au vin as one might alliteratively call it. No messing around with noodles or potatoes - the meat is what you get, and you can wipe up the sauce with replenished bread. Again, a smartly conceived and executed dish: whichever cut the chef is using is well-marbled, cooked slow, and comes out tender and juicy. The risks of stewing venison to produce dry, liver-ish results are high. A heavy hand on the pepper, but otherwise it's hard to imagine a venison stew coming out much better.
Having worked my way through the Chinon and the Cabernet, I was (full disclosure) gifted a charming Rainwater Madeira with a< crème brûlée dessert. The ramekin again, nice crisp topping.
Easily enough good eating here to overlook the austere discomforts of the room and likely waits to enter it. And if you keep away from the Pesquera, dinner is in the sixty to seventy dollar range, which these days counts as cheap.
Full disclosure: The Madeira and the dessert were comps, but not because I was known to the restaurant. The gesture may have acknowledged my fifteen minute wait to be seated, or the discreet deployment of a camera (impossible truly to conceal in a room this size).
Gentleman Farmer (per the title). Not the greatest name.
Posted by: Wilfrid | January 28, 2011 at 11:22 AM
(It's been a long day): What is the name of the restaurant?
Posted by: John | January 18, 2011 at 08:40 PM