Time and Tide

"Season 21 Top Chef winner Danny Garcia and Saga have rolled out this steakhouse format that specializes in seafood in often whimsical renditions of classic seafood preparations. Get the seafood platter, perhaps some nori fries, and don’t miss the giant goldfish for starters. The full dinner menu is divided by raw fish, small fish, and big fish, while sides range from seared sweet plantains to charred cabbage. A word of advice is to order all the sauces (au povre, vin jaune cream, salsa macha, cilantro cape). The full menu is available at the bar as well as the dining room." - Melissa McCart

"Time and Tide is a fancy steakhouse-style restaurant for seafood-lovers, and, depending on the dinner option you choose, your guests could leave with seashell-shaped macarons as souvenirs. Before that they’ll eat things like lobster skewers with whipped miso brown butter and fluke croquettes with lemon relish, for around $190 per guest." - neha talreja, bryan kim, hannah albertine, will hartman

"Top Chef season 21 winner Danny Garcia helms Flatiron seafood restaurant Time and Tide, which opened under the Kent Hospitality Group soon after its restaurateur, Jamal James Kent, died in the summer of 2024. The menu has described itself as a steakhouse but with seafood: from cacio e pepe squid to those Goldfish cracker dupes that have become synonymous with the restaurant." - Nadia Chaudhury

"A sleek and sophisticated bar serving a giant Goldfish cracker, evoking childhood snack memories." - Jaya Saxena

"There's a wall of white cinder blocks at the heart of Time And Tide. Backlit with an orange-pink glow, it transports the restaurant into a permanent state of sunset, like the night’s always just beginning. Good. You'll want to linger as long as possible over the thoughtful, beautiful seafood dishes at this spot from the Crown Shy and Saga team. Conceived as a steakhouse for fish, this Nomad restaurant is without a doubt a special occasion destination, with a dining room that’s cool but not cold, dancing candle flames projecting onto white walls, occasional bundles of dried grass, and sleek furniture in ambergris shades of gray and brown. It's sprawled across the ground floor of a luxury building—not uncommon in an area where extravagant restaurants like Café Carmellini and La Tête d’Or are proliferating. But it’s also much more playful—and ambitious—than your average splash-out spot in wealthy lower Midtown. photo credit: Kate Previte photo credit: Kate Previte photo credit: Kate Previte The Cheddar Gold Fish looks like a kaiju-scale version of the ubiquitous cracker, and tastes like a crumbly cheddar shortbread. It sits at the fine-dining intersection of a Red Lobster biscuit and a Taco Bell Big Cheez-It, and is especially good when spread with chive-topped Old Bay butter. The cocktail menu includes a shot of mezcal with an uni bump. Then there’s the 15g caviar supplement ($57), which arrives in a clamshell, to be deployed wherever and whenever you’d like. Caviar is a condiment, your server explains. But for all its wholehearted embrace of grabby concepts and flashy ingredients, Time and Tide's kitchen also knows when more subtle choices will have the biggest impact—when restraint and focus make the fish shine brightest. We almost skipped the mackerel escabeche, which doesn’t sound quite as showstopping as some of the other dishes. But the silky, fatty fish was all we could talk about on the way home, to the increasing boredom of both our dining partners and our Uber driver. photo credit: Kate Previte photo credit: Kate Previte photo credit: Kate Previte Likewise, the house au poivre might look like any other, but what the menu doesn’t mention is that it’s made with fish bones. The sauce is so deeply flavorful, it’s like you’re tasting the fish’s memories of swimming upstream to spawn. The same understatedness shows up for dessert, in a pitch-perfect, yet wholly traditional, banana split. And a halibut pithivier appears almost rustic—until it's sliced open to reveal an artistic cross-section of white fish and spinach duxelles. You’ll be able to hear the person across from you gasp, even above the thumping bass of the vibey music, heavy on R&B. That soundtrack is one of a few ways Time And Tide reminds us of Tatiana, where fine dining feels anything but staid, and a meal isn’t necessarily a prelude to a night out, but a lively event in and of itself. (Like Tatiana's Kwame Onwuachi, head chef Danny Garcia is also a young Top Chef alum who grew up in New York City.) The music is loud but not overwhelming, and the rhythm is lulling, a little like the crashing of waves. Like the tide, we'll return. Food Rundown Wine An intriguing wine list is divided in two: wines of time (classics), and wines of tide, from small producers near water. Ask questions when the sommelier comes around, because he has some fun stories—for example, about a crisp natural wine from Anafi, a Greek island near Santorini with a population of about 300 people. photo credit: Kate Previte Mackerel Escabeche Our favorite dish at Time And Tide. The fish is brined in sherry vinegar, lightly torched, and electrified with aji lemon and a meyer lemon marmalade. The fatty mackerel is a perfect match for all that acid—it’s bright, silky, and gorgeous. photo credit: Kate Previte Oyster Pan Roast (For Two) In homage to a dish served at Grand Central Oyster Bar for more than a century, a sweet, paprika-spiked soup is spooned over puffy, crunchy crackers. It’s luscious and comforting. photo credit: Kate Previte Fluke Milanese A masterclass in crispiness, and a wonderful addition to the interspecies family of cutlets. We love the little floral side salad with watercress and shiso, too. photo credit: Kate Previte Halibut Pithivier The showpiece dish at Time And Tide is a photogenic halibut pithivier: an undersea wellington in burnished puff pastry. It’s good, and technically impressive, but its true purpose in life is to serve as a canvas for the restaurant's excellent sauces, particularly the vin jaune cream and the au poivre. (Each main comes with your choice of one of four sauces, though you can order more for $6 each.) photo credit: Kate Previte Longfin Squid The neatly sliced rings remind us of the ribs of a dinosaur skeleton on display at a museum. The combination of squid-as-pasta and cacio e pepe might sound far-fetched, but it’s beautiful. The bouncy grilled squid has a nice char that counterbalances the creamy sauce. photo credit: Evan Sung Grand Plateau You definitely don’t need the Grand Plateau. Then again, you don’t need a bouquet of flowers, or a toothless smile from a baby in a stranger’s arms on the subway. This rotating selection of five bites might include aged hiramasa or a sweet scallop leveled up with the funky heat of XO sauce. It’s $47 per person and, though it would be completely against the spirit of a fancy seafood on ice, two not-so-hungry diners could theoretically share an order for one—as long as a selfless hero is prepared to forgo the single oyster. photo credit: Kate Previte Crispy Black Rice This must-order, tahdig-adjacent side looks like a Jackson Pollock, and tastes like savory cereal for grownups. Toasty, crispy, crunchy, and chewy, it’s a textural playground. Seared Strip Steak The only meat dish on the menu, this is the kind of representation that the edible creatures of the land can collectively be proud of. It’s a pleasantly fatty and nicely seared strip, though arguably outshined by the three fluffy onion rings that come riding on top. (If you want to order more onion rings a la carte, you’re out of luck—they only serve them with the steak.) photo credit: Kate Previte Banana Split We also love the citrusy olive oil cake with coconut sorbet, but Time And Tide’s banana split might be a pinnacle of the form. Rather than subbing in out-there flavors or post-modern accouterments, they’ve perfected the classic, topping it with roasted strawberries, candied pineapple, and roasted peanuts. The ice cream is excellent, with a wonderfully stretchy, mastic-like texture, and the strawberry flavor tastes like the genuine springtime article, tart and jammy. The caramelized surface of the brûléed banana is a pleasure to shatter with your spoon, as is the thin, crispy waffle tucked behind it." - Molly Fitzpatrick