Images by Danny Kim
Maria Loi’s eponymous Greek restaurant seems to be at first like one other within the lengthy string of doomed culinary ideas which were tried over time in what’s recognized in restaurant circles because the Compass area, on seventieth Road off Amsterdam Avenue. There’s a brand new signal over the door, in fact, adorned with what seems to be a unexpectedly rendered brand that includes crazy script and white leaves towards a bright-purple background. The flatly lit, sparsely populated bar space within the entrance of the home seems the best way it did throughout earlier incarnations (“Just like the stateroom of a Slovenian cruise ship” was how one eating companion described it to me way back), and if you happen to really feel like lingering there lately, the marginally haunted-looking bartenders will serve you cocktails with hokey cruise-ship names like Style of Greece and Hearth of Patras, which is made with Knob Creek, candy Greek wine, and a contact of honey.
As soon as you progress into the principle eating room, nevertheless, the sense of foreboding lifts a bit of and the temper begins to vary. The partitions of the endlessly redesigned room at the moment are trimmed in white and adorned with soothing pictures depicting the inexperienced Nafpaktos coast. There’s a tray of contemporary pomegranates by the doorway, together with bottles of Greek wine and loaves of bread. The backs of the chairs are coated in elegant striped satin, and the tables are organized in neat rows and set with crisp white linens. Not like previously, they’re truly crammed with diners, merrily tucking into sizzling baked spinach pies threaded with feta, platters of keftedakia meatballs, and dainty cheese croquettes garnished with a fig compote. Some nights, you may even see Loi herself—the self-proclaimed Martha Stewart of Greece—bustling across the room, greeting prospects along with her practiced laser-beam smile.
Like her American doppelgänger, Loi radiates a way of centered, virtually terminal cheeriness, and he or she’s made a profession as a cookbook creator and TV hostess out of taking the fundamental on a regular basis components of Greek delicacies and repackaging them along with her signature model of quirky, crowd-pleasing type. There are 4 sorts of salad on her basic taverna menu (get the horiatiki, with feta, chunks of tomato, and Loi’s French dressing) and if you happen to order the ahini sea-urchin appetizer, the dabs of contemporary urchin are served in porcelain spoons pooled with olive oil, with buttery triangles of toasted pita on the aspect. The grilled shrimp at Loi are wrapped in crunchy strands of shredded wheat, the calamari are minimize in little twirls and soaked in a wealthy pistachio sauce, and the excellent charred octopus was sprinkled with fried chickpeas and shavings of almond on the night I loved it, and had the comfortable consistency of a contemporary plum.
As is usually the case when eating in Greece, among the extra commonplace entrées at Loi weren’t as profitable as these basic seafood dishes. Ms. Platt had nothing however form issues to say about Maria’s “conventional” moussaka (daintily sized and capped with a light-weight béchamel), however my lemonato hen was flabby-skinned and drenched in an excessive amount of gooey lemon sauce. The grilled branzino was a brisker, extra satisfying dish than the frighteningly giant braised lamb shank (arni), and if it’s a must to select between the elegantly ready salt-baked fish for 2 (crimson snapper with roasted backyard greens, say) and the leaden brick of macaroni pastitsio, select the fish. Its contemporary lightness is an ideal complement to Loi’s sturdy, home-style desserts, the very best of which—candy galaktoboureco (made with semolina and honey), comfortable wedges of walnut cake, and crumbly crusted Greek cheesecake poured with preserved cherries—style like they’ve been baked in one of many higher house kitchens in Athens.
Saxon + Parole, which opened 4 months in the past within the East Village, is one other restaurant in an outdated, oft-occupied area. The marginally disjointed room on the nook of Bleecker and the Bowery used to accommodate Double Crown, which served a seize bag of fusion dishes oriented towards the outdated British Empire and featured a wonderful speakeasy-style gin bar. The bar continues to be intact, however the house owners have scrapped the outdated teak-heavy Colonial motif in favor of a cleaner, extra typical fashionable brasserie look (whitewashed brick, a number of wooden rafters) by the well-known design agency AvroKO. The restaurant’s identify is a reference to 2 well-known racehorses, and the brand new menu options grilled meats and “aquatic delights,” which is a flowery method of describing the type of bankable, run-of-the mill surf-and-turf specialties (grilled lobster, steak for 2, a pork chop) which you’ll discover in bistros throughout this stolid, meat-and-potatoes-soaked city.
“Why are these eating places all the identical?” exclaimed one of many weary gourmands at my desk as we contemplated the “S + P Dry Aged Angus Burger,” which was served with a mass of soggy fries and topped, in a useless try at haute-burger originality, with melted Havarti and a fried egg. You may complement your S + P Burger with pots of clean chicken-liver mousse (served, predictably, in Weck pots), or marrow bones slathered, not unpleasantly, with miso. Along with the de rigueur pork chop (with applesauce and quince right here), I’ve obscure reminiscences of a fatty quick rib braised to a tarry blackness in Guinness and a pleasant however dear minimize of New York strip ($49) with a pot of tired-looking béarnaise on the aspect. The desserts are professionally cooked, however like most issues at this stylishly generic restaurant, there isn’t one in every of them—crème caramel, chocolate soufflé, doughnuts served in a bit of steel bucket—that you just haven’t seen a thousand instances earlier than.
Loi
208 W. seventieth St., nr. Amsterdam Ave.; 212-875-8600
Hours: Dinner day by day 5 to 11 p.m.
Costs: Appetizers, $7 to $19; entrées,
$19 to $38.
Ultimate Meal: Sea-urchin ahini, grilled octopus, market fish for 2, galaktoboureco.
Be aware: The bourbon-based Hearth of Patras cocktail is definitely fairly palatable, supplied you get pleasure from it within the eating room, not on the
bar.
Scratchpad: One star for the dining-room renovation and one other for the up to date genuine Greek cooking.
Saxon + Parole
316 Bowery, at Bleecker St.; 212-254-0350
Hours: Dinner Sunday by Thursday 6 to 11 p.m., Friday and Saturday to midnight. Brunch Saturday and Sunday 10:30 a.m.
to 4:30 p.m.
Costs: Appetizers, $10 to $18; entrees, $20 to $49.
Ultimate Meal: Rooster-liver mousse or bone marrow with miso, New York strip steak, chocolate soufflé.
Be aware: The bespoke “drinks program” contains one of many extra genuine retro martinis on the town.
Scratchpad: Half a star for the cocktails, and one other half for the steak.
Loi Picture: Danny Kim
Loi Picture: Danny Kim
LoiPhoto: Danny Kim
LoiPhoto: Danny Kim
LoiPhoto: Danny Kim
Loi Picture: Danny Kim
Loi Picture: Danny Kim
Loi Picture: Danny Kim