Haute cuisine in the hood? You betcha! 71 Clinton delights in the Heart of the Lower East Side.
71 Clinton Fresh Food 71 Clinton St. NY, NY, 10002 (at Rivington St.) 212.694.6960 Average Appetizer/ Entrée ($9/$22) Rating: Very Good (Ratings Scale: Poor, Fair, Good, Very Good, Outstanding)
Deep in the heart of the Lower East Side, Chef Wylie Dufresne has opened 71 Clinton and NY’s citified foodies are flocking from all over town.
To call Chef Dufresne a newcomer is, in truth, hardly accurate. He had been working for the venerable Jean-Georges Vongerichten for a number of years before branching out upon his own. And now, like so many before him, he has set up shop in a once uncharted part of the city, paving the way for others to follow.
71 Clinton is a small minimalistic expression of a restaurant. The interior is intimate/industrial and features white tablecloths topped with brown butcher paper, gray banquettes accented with orange piping, and garage style windows that can, should caution be thrown to the wind, be opened up on to the street. A short bar stands near the entrance and the kitchen can be seen through the bright orange wall in back. These design elements combine to create an atmosphere that is retro yet edgy in a “Brady Bunch meets the bario” kind of way, which does little to prepare you for the high quality of the food to come.
A phenomenal white gazpacho made from a base of pureed almonds, water and bread is so deliciously creamy you’ll be hard pressed to believe it’s dairy free. Drizzled with tomato oil, garnished with fresh clams and thinly sliced scallions it’s a wonderfully complex play of tangy and cool, rich and refreshing. Shrimp stuffed squid accented with candied orange zest, a rubbery disaster at so many lesser joints, are wonderfully tender and show a subtle but deep wealth of flavor, and a crisp potato cake with goat cheese filling and avocado sauce is a terrific teaming of textures - crispy yet melty, creamy yet chewy. But it’s the hamachi topped with cracklings – clean, pristine slices of fresh fish topped with crunchy pillows of salted, crisped duck skin that clearly brings into focus this marriage of cutting-edge cuisine served in a exceedingly ethnic locale. And frankly, it’s about time that haute cuisine hit the hood.
Entrees are for the most part just as good and just as inventive. Scallops seared on the outside but just a bit rare within are paired with crunchy chick pea hash browns and buttery icicle radish. Black sea bass sings high upon a base note of cauliflower puree and granny smith apples, and “candied” shortribs, cut from a solid block and finished in clarified butter are some of the best I’ve ever tasted. Making it such a shame that the accompanying herbed spaetzle was uninteresting and cold.
Service is casual but still maintains an air of precision at least until the tail end of the evening when things get a little lax and the dining room begins to seem unkempt and sloppy. Rockabilly waiters in jeans and black t-shirts coolly care for the trendy, and at times star-studded crowd. Occasionally finishing a sentence with “thanks dude” but always seeing to it that the wine is poured and the tables are marked before dishes are dropped. The wines are a short but manageable affair (about 30 bottles) with a well chosen, food friendly direction that the chef’s father has put together and the staff seems to be well versed in. Current selections include the simple and clean 1999 Franklin Estate Isolation Ridge Riesling from Australia, the stunning 1998 Robert Wiehl Riesling Spatlese Rheingau Kiedrich Grafenberg, the earthy 1997 Allegrini Palazzo della Toro from Italy and the versatile 1999 Glen Fiona Syrah from Walla Walla Washington which had the body and depth to handle the shortribs but enough finesse and dryness not to crush the black sea bass.
The dessert list is quite limited offering the overly ubiquitous molten chocolate cake updated and “homeified” by the delicious addition of creamy peanut butter, and a wonderful banoffee (banana and toffee) pie topped with unsweetened whip cream as well as a small list of eclectic dessert wines available by the glass like the Madeira-esque St. John Commandiaria from Cypress, Greece. The pairing of which makes for an appropriate finish to a meal at 71 Clinton where dining is being reinterpreted and exciting things are happening both inside and outside the doors.
