

2

"Entered through a painting in a small West Village art gallery, the $124-per-person French tasting-menu restaurant from chef Franco Sampogna and partner Bernardo Silva delivers focused, refined cooking with slinky, sinuous vibes and a nocturnal theatricality. I haven’t been able to get his halibut dish out of my mind: the fish rests on a thin, crisp platform of fried bread shellacked with a dark mushroom marmalade that drinks up the flavor as the halibut goes from raw to just-cooked, its flesh sliding apart into thick, almost fluffy white flakes, and alongside are bulbs of melted fennel whose spiced cooking juices are boiled down to a bittersweet syrup. I also enjoyed the rotating quinoa opener—whether spooned over hummus or dehydrated with black lentils and smoked trout roe—as well as peas with a rich pistachio-tarragon cream and white puffs of coconut mousse. The only hiccup was a snag in the otherwise smooth hospitality in the form of upcharge attempts. I gave it two stars." - Stefanie Tuder