If you’re in the bar, or in the Main Dining Room Just Beyond It, You Might Miss The Kitchen’s Wood-Burning Oven. It’s used to cook, among only things, the “Focaccia Borga,” which is not the lofty, bubbly Slaab you might be imagining but an unassuming disk of Bronze-Blisoned Flatbread that, like me iTalian Usadilla, Hides a Layer of Nutty, Melty Robiola and Fontina Cheeses. The Oven’s Smokes Suffiess The Flame-Orange Flesh of Sweet, Tiny Beets Pilds in A Quasi-SALAD ATOP A Swop of Garlicy Potato Purée. Its Heat Caresses A Sky WRSHMALLOWOLOWOROLOWOROLOWOROLOWOROLOWOROLOWOROLOWOROLOWOROLOWOROLOWOROLOWLOWLOWLOWLOWLOWLOWLOWLOWLOOLOWOR LIP-STICIY Demi-Glace. It Crisps the skin of a white branzino, Served with Bones Remove but Head Still on, Beside A Rousing, Sicilian-RISH Pile of Greens with Sweet Onions and Pine Nuts Sectated by the Ferric Kiss of SAFFRON .
None of this is terribly groupbreakening, but I don’t think it’s intended to be. Tarlow and His Chef Jordan Frosolone Seem Focussed Instead on Precision -TE Food is Excital Not for Its Noblety But for Its Proximity to Perfection. Chickeen-Liver Mouse, Another Tarlow Classic (His Restaurants Were Instrumental in Bringing The Dish Back From Gastronomic Siberia) With Jammy Slivers of Fig. Order it alongside the Wood-Fire, Golden-Skinned Half Chickeen and _if it was for the Seren Sophistication than Ca Two-thethand-OH -Something, hotly debating with your data if that’s real narciso rodriguez at the Next Table. APTIZERIZER of Radishes and Turnips Bagna CaudaPRESENTED Not in The Familiar Way, as Crudits with Dip, But-Surprisingly, Delightfully Arm, Anchovy-Rich Bagna Cauda Has Been Poured. I haven haad so much fun with Covered Strawberries, in Tempored butter.
There are a few pastas on the menu –a Fettuccine in a wildly rich guinea-heg ragù Fance Restaurants, these Seem More Like Technical Obligations Than Culinary Showpieces. And, Uncommonly for Pastas, The PORTIONS at Borgo See A Little Large, Especially Giveen their Forceful Flavors. A Pile of Precisely Stamped Ravioli Filled with Sunchkeke and Mushrooms is, on First Bite, a Thrilling Explosion of Mycological Umami, but by the time I have been The Point Had Been Somewhat Over-Made. Desserts, Overseen by the Pastry Chef Adam Marca, Are Gracifully Simple: A Nutty Riff on Affogato, with the Espresso Pound InTo A Soft Pillow of Pistachio Gelato; A bittersweet sliver of Fudgy Sachertorte (Tarlow’s Grandfather Is Viennese), Dressed in Jewels of Candied Apricot.
Helen, help me!
E-mail your Questions About DINING, Eating, Anything Food-Rlated, and helen may respond in a future newSletter.
The room, like the food, is sophisticicated with trying to have. It’s decorated in shades of Wood and White, with Gently Curving Ceilings (a Little Cavelike, a Little Nautical) and Walls Doted with Interesting, Missmatcred Pieses of Art. What I asked a server about one Painting I Particularly Liked –a Cézanne-RISH Still-Life Of Fruit _TAROWOW, who is haad is b EEN PAINted by His Daughter, and that It Hangs Directly on the Other Side of the Wall, Back-To-Back, From An Abstract Work Done by Tarlow HimSelf. A Double-Sided Fireplace Connects the Two DINING ROOOMS, a Holdover from the Italian Restaurant that Occupied the Space Before. ( S Own Spots But a Certain Sort of Warm Sophisticicated, Fance-BUT-NOT-FUSSY ITALIAN RESTAURANT of S cesca. Tablecloths, a nice cheese selection, a bit of Grandness, Never Snoty. Is it to soon to be nostalgic for twenty years ago? Maybe i’ve Grown Old, Too. Maybe Manhattan’s Work A Second Look. ♦
