Telephone: (00 1) 212 924 9700
Address: 775 Washington St, New York, NY 10014
Rating: 16.5/20
Open: Mon-Fri, 12 noon-3pm and 6-11pm; Sat, 2-11pm; Sun, 4-11pm.
All major credit cards.
It was something of a relief to discover that the antennae were still functioning in spite of jet lag and language differences. We were walking through Greenwich Village, NYC, Mrs Fort, Ms Fort and I, looking for somewhere to eat. Fatigue levels were dangerously high. Sugar levels dangerously low. What made it worse was that there were eating opportunities roughly every 25 paces. There was talk of mutiny.
"Look," I said, "For what it's worth, my gut tells me that that place with the open bit on to the street was the best bet." It didn't help that it was the first restaurant we had passed some 25 minutes earlier. And then we couldn't find it. And then we did, and yes, they had a table for us but they would like it back in an hour and a quarter or so. I very nearly said, "Now, look here young woman, do you know who I am?" But natural modesty and a sense of self-preservation stopped me. I said, "Oh, absolutely", just so she would know I was English.
And that was how we found Barbuto, the latest venture of legendary chef/restaurateur Jonathan Waxman.
His last venture, Washington Park, was known for its high style, high prices and haute cuisine. Barbuto has the high style all right, but not the prices or the haute cuisine. It's what you might call bistro Italian or metro-trat. It's Italian in the same way that our own, dear River Cafe is Italian, but not so pricey. First courses such as gamberi al salto (shrimps with roasted fava, or broad beans, and chile oil) and insalata di asparagi e prosciutto cotto (asparagus, ham and pecorino salad) ran between $8 and $12. Mains such as maccheroni con rugola (macaroni with rocket, peperoncino and salted ricotta); capesante ai ferri (grilled scallops with shaved fennel, chilli and aioli); pollo al forno (chicken roasted in a wood-fired oven, with fiddlehead ferns and pine nuts); and manzo ai ferri (wood-grilled steak with roasted chillis) cost between $14 and $19.
There is a lot of grilling and wood-roasting work going on at Barbuto. It may be a technique driven by fashion as much as anything else, but it does produce some fine food. Mrs Fort had a substantial slab of halibut with coarsely chopped lucques olives, green garlic and parsley. The fish was meticulously roasted, bringing out its fresh lustre, chunky firmness and sweetness. The green stuff, more a salsa than a sauce or a vegetable, sat with this perfectly, interesting and distinct without clobbering the fish. At this point I had already had crostini di baccala, a rather fine fish cake of salt cod on grilled bread (or toast, as the menu put it).
Fegato alla milanese (grilled Pennsylvania calf's liver with peas, charred onions and marjoram) arrived at the same time as Mrs Fort's halibut, two healthy slivers of liver about 1.5cm thick branded with the marks of the grill. It was thin enough not to be intimidating, but it was thick enough to give variations in texture without becoming dried out and leathery. The peas were just the starchy side of genuine sweetness, but the wonderfully unctuous onion, marjoram, white wine and stock-rich goo that oozed about the plate was just tip-top. On the side were some of what they called pan-roasted fingerling potatoes, a particular favourite of Mrs Fort.
Ms Fort was suffering from a bit of a bug, not enough to take her out of action altogether, but enough to restrict her appetite severely. However, she was advised to have a lemon sorbet to cheer her up, which it did, while Mrs Fort and I shared an affogato - vanilla ice cream with a shot of espresso poured over it. The lemon sorbet was scintillating, and the affogato indulgent and sophisticated at the same time.
Up to this point I had been pretty disappointed with the food in New York: great quantities of not very good food are somehow more offensive than smaller amounts of not very good food that you will probably find in London, even if the cost is marginally less. To be honest, I am not sure that there is a great deal between the two cities gastronomically, but London has yet to have something with the wit, energy and sheer panache of Barbuto.
