If there’s one factor worse than an excessive amount of of a superb factor, it’s too little of it. That was the knock on Ha’s Snack Bar, which opened final yr to such instantaneous acclaim that phrase unfold the proprietors have been instantly on the lookout for a bigger second location. The Snack Bar was nice, however with two dozen seats, most of them not particularly snug at that, it could possibly be a deal with on the palate and a ache within the ass. Anthony Ha and Sadie Mae Burns’s dishes — a turbocharged tackle Franco-Vietnamese cooking with escargots in tamarind butter and flaky pockets of vermicelli-studded pâté chaud — have been among the many most scrumptious issues I ate final yr, however once I was rounding up town’s finest eating places this winter, I left Ha’s off the checklist as a result of it appeared like malpractice to ship readers someplace that’s so onerous to get into.
The promised follow-up is right here, and the crowds have once more descended on Bistrot Ha — with the terminal t, because the French would have it. Lower than 300 ft from its predecessor, Bistrot Ha is a extra totally fledged restaurant with a correct eating room (45 seats to the Snack Bar’s 24) and a correct kitchen (to the Snack Bar’s induction burner). Ha now has an actual oven during which to bake a night’s value of beef Wellingtons and a fryer for the frites, which any bistrot value its t should serve with the steak.
For all that’s modified, the brand new Ha’s retains a lot the identical. The identify on the shingle however, it’s nonetheless a joint effort by Ha and Burns, who collaborates on the menu, oversees baking, runs dishes between the kitchen and eating room, and finds time to conceptualize new variations of the ice cream bombes that dot most tables at meal’s finish, their meringue domes as flowered and frothy as Esther Williams’s swim cap. The house matches the primary Ha’s, moodily darkish and dimly brightened by James Cherry’s parchment-skin lighting fixtures. The bar is larger, although, the higher to toss again the home martini, the place the spirit is drinker’s selection however the salt-lick savor of fish sauce and sea salt is just not. An entire oyster floats on the backside of each glass.
Whereas it delighted most of my friends, I might take or go away the oyster — downing it felt akin to the previous frat-hazing ritual of chugging a goldfish — however there’s no taking or leaving the fish sauce, and let or not it’s stated: When you’d choose to go away it, Ha’s is just not for you. Fish sauce is the ichor in Anthony Ha’s veins, and it options in every thing from the preprandial martinis to the examine. (“There’s fish sauce in every thing” is printed on the backside.) Fish sauce’s force-multiplying powers of funk and salt imply every thing at Ha’s can really feel amped as much as 11. “Transfer over, Man Fieri,” gasped a fanboy at my desk. “That is the actual Flavortown.”
The brand new house is noticeably bigger than the unique Ha’s. Dishes embody leeks French dressing with Maggi and a pork chop with dried shrimp and chile paste. Hugo Yu.
The brand new house is noticeably bigger than the unique Ha’s. Dishes embody leeks French dressing with Maggi and a pork chop with dried shrimp and chile pas… extra
The brand new house is noticeably bigger than the unique Ha’s. Dishes embody leeks French dressing with Maggi and a pork chop with dried shrimp and chile paste. Hugo Yu.
This isn’t refined consuming; it’s seasoning by sledgehammer. I’m completely satisfied to be bludgeoned. The French-pastry supply materials might take delicacy as one in all its tenets, however this bistrot reveres different texts. Try the icon by the kitchen: a framed placard promoting Maggi, the Swiss umami-booster sauce that’s form of like a wedding of soy and Worcestershire and that right here dollops vinegared leeks alongside mayo and a few pickled mussels.
One senses there’s little or no Ha wouldn’t topic to his muscular imaginative and prescient. “We’ve given up a bit on the authenticity pipeline,” Burns advised me as she dropped off an omelet filled with rice and snails one night time. The related query, she stated, isn’t “Is it real?” however reasonably “Is it scrumptious?”
If there’s any knock on the brand new Ha’s, it’s that this sort of relentless curiosity can hold issues altering at too quick a clip. Throughout repeat visits, almost your complete menu overhauled: previous favorites banished, new experiments ushered in. There’s typically a vol-au-vent, a form of crammed puff-pastry tart, and a model with curried lobster and monkfish liver curled inside gave strategy to one with Vietnamese shaking beef (the higher choice to this point). In any other case, don’t get too connected. One night time, the menu leaned on offal: beef coronary heart with peanuts (good however not terribly distinctive) and schnitzel-fried brains. The following, it listed towards Italy with a zippy tackle vitello tonnato: skinny slices of chilly pork loin in a tuna-mayo dressing spiked with chile crisp and frizzled fried capers. I hoovered it and ready to return for extra. The revisionist tonnato, too, has already moved alongside.
This new Ha’s had its speedy acolytes, simply because the final spot did, but in addition a number of early experiences from the greasy trenches that the second coming was wobbling a bit. I can’t converse for these trenchermen, however I’m wondering if the difficulty was this frantic tempo of discovery, an incapacity to iterate sufficient on a dish for it to search out its ultimate type. Chef’s prerogative, in fact, however should the folks actually be teased with the promise of Basic Ha’s trotter — excessive gloss, excessive influence, a feat of foot — just for it to be snatched away? Time comes for us all, although isn’t the promise of the bistrot, with its codes and its standards, one thing that’s reassuringly reliable?
Prime Decide
Bistrot Ha
Across the Nook…
The Snack Bar is evolving into extra of a bar: Some seating has been swapped out for standing tables.
Skip the Steak
They’ve gotta provide it, however a $225 Ha’s particular “huge steak” is hardly essentially the most particular factor on the menu.
Cosmos Incoming
A nouveau cosmopolitan — it’s litchi flavored — joins others I’ve seen at buzzy spots. I sense a revival.
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When you favor to learn in print, it’s also possible to discover this text within the February 23, 2026, difficulty of
New York Journal.
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When you favor to learn in print, it’s also possible to discover this text within the February 23, 2026, difficulty of
New York Journal.
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