Nostalgia with a Twist, at Gage & Tollner | The New Yorker

"I dined at Gage & Tollner on clams and crabmeat beneath light as romantic as gas, if decidedly electric, and found a lovingly restored chophouse that honors its long history: opened in 1879 (its oyster-fry cook John Anderson reportedly shucked sixty-six million oysters over forty-nine years), closed in 2004, then brought back to life with William Morris wallpaper and a 2021 reopening by Sohui Kim, Ben Schneider, and St. John Frizell. The menu still centers on oysters and other shellfish on ice, wedge and Caesar salads, and classic cuts of beef, with sides like creamed spinach and a butter-roasted hash brown presented as an incredibly precise Hasselbacked rectangle; my crab was molded into a crisp, salty disk, airy yet full of sweet meat, served with frisée, lemon aioli, and a soft-boiled egg. Kim and Adam Shepard have re-created old favorites (including Edna Lewis–polished items like she-crab soup finished tableside with sherry, and the restaurant’s historic fried chicken and cornmeal fritters) while subtly folding in Kim’s Korean American sensibility—the clams I had were “Kimsino,” with pats of bacon-kimchi butter bubbling beneath crispy breadcrumbs. The bar leans classic (seven varieties of martinis; a server recommended the Perfect—gin with equal parts sweet and dry vermouth, up with a twist), and the beef offerings include T-bone sirloin and bone-in rib eye priced by the ounce (an example rate noted was $4.55 an ounce) alongside a juicy $63 veal chop topped with roasted-shallot-porcini verjus. Desserts from Caroline Schiff are showstoppers too: a creamy dairy-free roasted-pineapple sorbet, a delicate coconut layer cake with lime curd and cashew–pink-peppercorn brittle, and a Baked Alaska for Two with torched Swiss meringue revealing layers of fresh-mint, dark-chocolate, and Amarena-cherry ice creams atop a bedrock of crumbled chocolate cookie. Between the ancient mahogany tables, deep-waxed surfaces, red Turkey carpet, and dim mirrored walls, the place captures the same nostalgia that drew generations of customers back through the decades." - Hannah Goldfield