Pulino's Bar & Pizzeria - 262 Bowery

[weinoo]

It was Significant Eater's birthday this past Friday, and what better way to celebrate than to have Saturday brunch at the newly opened Keith McNally spot, Pulino's? Well, just so you don't think I'm a classless sort, I did cook late dinner on Friday night, so once the birthday gal arrived home we had Champagne cocktails along with bucatini all'amatriciana...and it was good.

But back to Pulino's...the new McNally spot - well, McNally along with his personally recruited San Francisco chef Nate Appleman; after all, you do need a chef. Breathlessly chronicled from the time the first sledgehammer came down inside the interior at Houston and Bowery, on web sites like eater.com, many grouches in the food community were poking fun of and pre-dissing Pulino's before a bite was to be had.

Now, Nate is a damn good chef (hey, he's won awards), to which both SE and I can attest, having eaten at his SF restaurant A16 any number of times. As a matter of fact, it was there that I remember eating a (my first) miraculous crunchy pig-ear salad, along with delicious pastas and great (for SF, at least) pizza - though what type of pastas and pizza we had are lost somewhere in the back of my brain.

So, how was brunch? First, I'll start by mentioning (as if no one else has) the fact that Pulino's look is practically a carbon copy of the Schiller's look - after all, if something works, why fuck with it? Well, the bottles on the wall are different, but you get the picture. (By the way, on my two walks by Schiller's this past weekend, the place is still packed, 7 years on.) Giant windows open onto the Bowery - and right off the bat that annoys me. Does it really need to be noisier inside a McNally restaurant? All those trucks and buses driving by increase the noise factor a lot, so I'll like those windows better in the summer, when they're closed up for air conditioning.

Plenty of fancy, dressed up people in the crowd. Actually, everyone except me. Or, and more likely, people dressed up by pretending the outfit they threw on came out of a Salvation Army store. And a nice service staff - some with accents even! You could probably bring your parents, though they won't be able to hear you.

The menu is big by brunch standards - but since brunch is my least favorite meal, how do I really know that? Anyway, lots of other stuff on the menu, so I was a happy about that.

So, what'd we have? Started with a couple of salads, and then onto two pizze for our "entrees."

The roasted fennel salad was prepared nicely - a bed of endive, arugula, frisée and red onions complementing the fennel nicely, and dressed right with a mustardy vinaigrette. Groundbreaking? No, not even the currants make it so - but think of how many places screw up your salad with too much vinaigrette, and you'll appreciate this one that much more.

Our second salad (and the only dish I took a picture of all meal) was the astounding Smoked Sablefish. Doesn't sound like much, right? Basically a riff on a Sicilian salad of celery and bottarga, it takes slices of luxurious smoked sable, plops them on a schmear of bottarga agliata, and strews some thinly sliced celery, celery leaves, parsley leaves, dill and capers on top. And the next thing you know, you're hoarding the plate as if you weren't getting fed for another week.

Now, the sable comes from the guys (Acme - beep beep) that supply Russ & Daughters, so even if they're not getting the pick of the litter like Russ and his daughter do, it's gonna be good. But what really puts this dish over the top is the bottarga agliata - sort of an aioli made with bottarga - all I can say is, ask for bread. And you'll be mopping up every last drop off the plate, perhaps even giving each other looks like Significant Eater did to me when I greedily swiped the last crust of bread (Balthazar, as if) out of the basket.

On to the pizze, and, what can I say? I didn't love either of the two we ordered; not the salame piccante nor the Margherita. The crust was just too damn crispy for me. Nothing light and airy about it. The margherita's basil was put on before baking, meaning the basil came out as burnt leaves tasting like, well, burnt and looking worse. In my opinion, it seems as if they make a sauce (rather than use San Marzanos right out of the can) to use on the pizza - that sauce, after baking, comes out tasting like tomato paste - not what I want on my pizza. I do believer that there's pizza potential here (c'mon, Nate, gimme that SF pie - fuck the Bowery), but in the time being when I crave pizza, I'll be going first to Keste, Motorino or Arturo's. Maybe making my own even. Which I'm sure will matter not a whit to the yearning masses.

And brunch wasn't cheap - for the 2 salads and 2 pizze, along with a glass of rosé and a soda, we dropped almost $90. But I am looking forward to trying more of Mr. Appleman's food - and dinner reservations have been secured. After all, he's a damn good chef.

[weinoo]

A one-star from Sifton - click. Almost reads like a 2-star review, but he's kinda hard to figure out.

[The Food Doc]

I agree...mostly raves for both the food and the space; should have been a two-star. One of the better written reviews by Mr. Sifton; most of his observations were spot-on.

[oakapple]

I agree...mostly raves for both the food and the space; should have been a two-star. One of the better written reviews by Mr. Sifton; most of his observations were spot-on.

Well, I don't take it as a rave for the space. He notes that McNally is working from a template, and that it "can be punishingly loud." He had various complaints about at least five dishes:

Too bad, though, that baked ricotta is dry and underflavored, and that the nduja, a house-made sausage paste, has none of the bang-pow flavor and fattiness that it calls for in its Calabrian ideal. (Both dishes are better ordered at A Voce.) Hen-of-the-woods mushrooms, at their best almost sausagelike in intensity and texture, need a little more butter or more time in the oven, or both. (Semolina gnocchi, in a Roman-style tomato sauce, with braised chicken, needs less.)

And a section of pinwheel sausage reminiscent of the sort sold at Faiccos on Bleecker Street will elicit shrugs from any New Yorker who has spent 45 minutes waiting for a table here, delicious as it is. Coulda made it at home.

Add all that up, and one star was more than justified. Remember that, in the New York Times system, one star means "good". Frank Bruni drifted away from that: most of his one-star reviews sounded "not good". His one-star review of McNally's Morandi is a perfect example. Unfortunately, it created a perception that if a restaurant got one star, there must be an awful lot wrong with it.

One of Sifton's contributions has been restoring the "good" to a one-star review. The vast majority of his one-star places actually sound good. Like this one. There's nothing wrong with that.

Edited May 5, 2010 by oakapple (log)

[Sneakeater]

When you consider that Sifton said (not incorrectly) that you can only comfortably go to this place for a very early dinner or very late at night -- otherwise it's too noisy and crowded -- you can understand why he'd say it's a one-star place.

[weinoo]

When you consider that Sifton said (not incorrectly) that you can only comfortably go to this place for a very early dinner or very late at night -- otherwise it's too noisy and crowded -- you can understand why he'd say it's a one-star place.

But that's bullshit. What about a Monday or Tuesday at 9? Is it going to be that long of a wait for a table? Or a space at the bar? I doubt it. Especially after a one-star review .

And isn't "too noisy" getting a little picky? Other than Per Se and Daniel and a few others, what restaurant in Manhattan isn't "too noisy?" Christ, he's starting to sound like some other reviewers who complain about the noise at every place they dine.

[LPShanet]

When you consider that Sifton said (not incorrectly) that you can only comfortably go to this place for a very early dinner or very late at night -- otherwise it's too noisy and crowded -- you can understand why he'd say it's a one-star place.

But that's bullshit. What about a Monday or Tuesday at 9? Is it going to be that long of a wait for a table? Or a space at the bar? I doubt it. Especially after a one-star review .

And isn't "too noisy" getting a little picky? Other than Per Se and Daniel and a few others, what restaurant in Manhattan isn't "too noisy?" Christ, he's starting to sound like some other reviewers who complain about the noise at every place they dine.

In my observation, Sifton is no stranger to picking nits. Whether these are to provide justification for the star levels he's chosen to give, a way of adding some color or his personal imprint on the writing, or just his nature, I don't know. It also remains to be seen whether he continues in this vein. But, for example, I thought his review of SHO Shaun Hergatt read like a review that might have garnered an additional star, if you were to only take into account his reaction to the food and service. But he picked on assorted things that one could argue don't matter (such as the fact that there may have been an error in describing the place of origin of some fish in an email from the restaurant, or that the place "seemed" expensive, even though it wasn't...which would usually be a plus), almost as if he had a chip on his shoulder or was trying to "explain" why he gave it the star rating he did.

[weinoo]

But he picked on assorted things that one could argue don't matter (such as the fact that there may have been an error in describing the place of origin of some fish in an email from the restaurant, or that the place "seemed" expensive, even though it wasn't...which would usually be a plus), almost as if he had a chip on his shoulder or was trying to "explain" why he gave it the star rating he did.

i certainly have no problem with factoring decor and pricing into a reviewer's star rating. Maybe even noise. But the fact that you can't get in on a busy night without a rating? Makes little sense to me. Almost as if he's saying this restaurant shouldn't be so popular so I can give it a higher rating.

[oakapple]

i certainly have no problem with factoring decor and pricing into a reviewer's star rating. Maybe even noise. But the fact that you can't get in on a busy night without a rating? Makes little sense to me. Almost as if he's saying this restaurant shouldn't be so popular so I can give it a higher rating.

Although that was Sneakeater's spin (upthread), I don't think it was Sifton's. In the review, I see no evidence that he criticized the restaurant for being popular. That would indeed be a perverse criticism, but Sifton didn't do that.

[weinoo]

Platt files.

One star and fairly hostile. A McNally backlash or a too pizza based review...and he didn't even appear to try some of my favorite things.

[oakapple]

Platt files.

One star and fairly hostile. A McNally backlash or a too pizza based review...and he didn't even appear to try some of my favorite things.

Even the Times doesn't comment on every dish—only on those that the critic finds most interesting, or most supportive of his/her thesis—and NYM devotes less space to its reviews than the Times.

The only McNally backlash I've sensed is in the undeniable assertion that McNally seems to be fabricating these places out of a pre-fab template. He has mined remarkable success out of remarkably few original ideas.

[Sneakeater]

But he picked on assorted things that one could argue don't matter (such as the fact that there may have been an error in describing the place of origin of some fish in an email from the restaurant, or that the place "seemed" expensive, even though it wasn't...which would usually be a plus), almost as if he had a chip on his shoulder or was trying to "explain" why he gave it the star rating he did.

i certainly have no problem with factoring decor and pricing into a reviewer's star rating. Maybe even noise. But the fact that you can't get in on a busy night without a rating? Makes little sense to me. Almost as if he's saying this restaurant shouldn't be so popular so I can give it a higher rating.

I wasn't clear. I didn't say you couldn't go during normal dining hours -- I said you couldn't COMFORTABLY go. I think that if a restaurant is too noisy and crowded to enjoy during normal hours, that's something you can hold against it.

Note that this is more a matter of how a place is set up than how popular it is. If you manage to get into Minetta Tavern during prime dining hours, it's a blast: the way the room is configured, the crowd and the bustle is energizing and fun. Places like Schiller's and Pulino's, OTOH, are just unpleasant. (And remember, I LIKE Schiller's and Pulino's: I'm not saying this makes the restaurants bad -- only that it could prevent them from getting more than a one-star "good" rating.)

In other words, I was trying to say the same thing as oakapple, but failed.

Edited May 10, 2010 by Sneakeater (log)

[weinoo]

McNally is interviewed in Eater. And has this to say about the pizza, which is (has) evidently changing...

I don't think the pizzas were ever right, either. That's one big thing, a big change. They were sort of cracker-like, they were too thin, and we couldn't use the mozzarella that I maybe liked. But now we changed it. The proofing is different and we turned up the oven. It was between five and six hundred degrees, and now it's between like six and seven hundred degrees, and now we use wood.

Lots of other changes have taken place over the past year. Including a new chef (old news). Maybe it's time to give it another try?

[kathryn]

Serious Eats did, but that was essentially 5-6 months ago:

http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/11/nate-appleman-leaves-pulinos-pizza-changes-crust-bowery-manhattan-nyc.html

[weinoo]

Serious Eats did, but that was essentially 5-6 months ago:

http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/11/nate-appleman-leaves-pulinos-pizza-changes-crust-bowery-manhattan-nyc.html

I guess no one else ever has to go since he's such the expert and has the only opinion that counts .

Of course, not everyone agrees with Slice, and I wrote this after trying the "original" pizza:

On to the pizze, and, what can I say? I didn't love either of the two we ordered; not the salame piccante nor the Margherita. The crust was just too damn crispy for me. Nothing light and airy about it. The margherita's basil was put on before baking, meaning the basil came out as burnt leaves tasting like, well, burnt and looking worse. In my opinion, it seems as if they make a sauce (rather than use San Marzanos right out of the can) to use on the pizza - that sauce, after baking, comes out tasting like tomato paste - not what I want on my pizza.

And what about the rest of the food? The drinks? And everything else that McNally talks about that has changed?

[weinoo]

Wow - our pizza at Pulino's last night was very good. We only ordered 1 pie, as an appetizer. The rest of the food was fine, for what it is.