Cactus Wren on the Lower East Side Mixes Michelin Pedigree With Laid-Back Dining | Eater NY
"Opened earlier this year on a prime corner of Rivington and Ludlow (also known as Beastie Boys Square), this more casual offshoot sits in a main dining room with big windows and an unadorned exterior that keeps you connected to the Lower East Side, with oasis-like touches — especially the front tables with high-backed throne-chairs — and a domed-shaped wood-fired oven perpendicular to the back bar; downstairs is a more sedate dining area that filled up by nightfall the evening I visited. The succinct menu intentionally gathers creative takes on dishes that have personal meaning: “A lot of inspiration here comes from things in our past, from memories of things we grew up with, or things we remember eating after service at places we’ve worked,” Clonts said. “So there are different ways to go about the menu. You can come in and create your own experience.” The wine list is multi-page and chosen by director Michael Tran (sommelier Alessandro Milio can also guide you through the “young, sustainable producers and unexplored regions” on the multi-page list), and cocktails include whimsically named drinks like Creme Depeche Mode and Hilarity Ensues. The bar makes for a friendly perch to chat and people-watch over something bubbly while grazing from plates such as the fruit de mer ($38), presented on a platter like a giant oyster shell and built as six separate bites — two hot, four cold — that one night included a pair of oysters, a bay scallop, a razor clam, a Jonah crab claw, and a raw tuna gilda sheathed in shiso. Smoked eel tarts ($14), especially when lavished with caviar (another $14), and a big greenmarket salad ($25) provide bracing acidity, while Clonts’s chicken wings ($20) — juicy, crackly, punched-up with jalapeno, gloppy with green goddess — are described as absolutely delicious and among the best wings in town. The wood-burning oven turns out three pizzas ($24 each); while there’s a morel-and-pesto pie, the signature is a “sticky-ass, aged Comte, honey-drizzled beast.” For shareable, celebratory eats, the seven-layer bean dip ($75) is topped with an enormous blob of caviar and arrives with warm flour tortillas; Trinh explains the dish’s provenance: “Back at Chef’s Table, on Saturday nights at the end of a long week we would make a crazy seven-layer dip and we’d all sit around with chef Cesar (now with his own two-Michelin-starrednamesake restaurant) and celebrate,” said Trinh. “This is kind of a homage to those times.” Two standout preparations in the meat-forward realm are a mortadella tartine starter ($16) featuring funky layers of meat on chewy bread slathered in chimichurri and something called “egg yolk jam,” and Berkshire short ribs ($42) — fatty, bone-in pork, grilled and glazed with a red chile salsa that, thanks to some mustard and vinegar, reads like barbecue sauce — served with pureed white beans and two cactus-shaped cornbreads, what Clonts calls “Southwestern flair.” Other tempting options include a crab omelet ($36) plated like Japanese omurice and enlivened with Thai green curry, plus wood ear mushrooms with chili crisp; finish with a slab of sticky toffee banana cake that’s the sort of dessert you’ll savor to the last bite." - Scott Lynch
