THE BIG TICKETS
You don’t normally talk about food in a restaurant in terms of it being ‘perfect’—you talk about it being ‘wonderful,’ or ‘brilliant,’ or ‘exquisite,’ or ‘vibrant,’ or ‘exciting.’ There is something that feels even reductive about the word, like the refusal to probe, or to elucidate, as though the subject mattered little in the first place. At the other end of the spectrum, you’ve also been taught that among human beings, perfection belongs to God and God alone.
And yet I can’t think of any other word to describe the food at this much beloved NYC institution. There is that initial thrill, of course, of going through the haute motions of being greeted at the front-of-house, swept past the non-reserving tavern area and ushered to your table at the prix-fixe main dining room, along with Harvey Weinstein and other venerable names, but once you’re there you won’t mind if some parts of the dining room looks like a place your aging parents might go to for a special night out, or if the lighting and art make you long for a stroll at MOMA, or if some of the waitstaff might be too annoyingly formal. You will be completely captive to the food.
Over the years, Michael Anthony’s cooking has attained something of the scientist’s precision and the alchemist’s grace in it: his dishes, like those of Dan Barber’s at Blue Hill, where he once worked, are at once complex, subtle, disciplined, and magical. Take that chilled peach soup, so silky and sturdy and rounded an opening salvo, or the palate-brightening spaghetti with roasted peppers and tomatillos in which every strand mattered.
These are dishes that clearly belonged to a class of their own—a class in which taste resides in the pure and pared down. But theirs is a sophistication that is far from high brow; instead it appeals to many. And it doesn’t stop: like the best of omakase, the pleasures are gradual, each dish taking the previous one to a higher level. There was a lovely gentleness to the lamb loin. There was no clutter, no stray note.
The pasture raised chicken and sausage is somewhat of a recurring theme—the chef likes to present his bird or his mammal two ways, sometimes it’s pork sometimes it’s venison, and almost always with sausage—and on the day of our visit was tender as could be amid the unobtrusive accompaniment of Romano beans, carrots and smoked onion.
Desserts struck me as competent but far from cutting edge, or even particularly special, their charm coming mainly from the way our waitstaff, attentive to my constant waffling, served me both of what I wanted, the blueberry corn ice cream sundae toffee popcorn AND the brown butter cake with ginger ice cream, hazelnuts and sumac. Again, it is such touches that elevate, bold gestures that are delivered ever so gently, that make Gramercy Tavern one of my favorite restaurants in the world
