I was lucky enough to hop into someone's unable-to-be-used seat at Foxface Natural** earlier this week, so off a friend and I went, on up through/around the maddening throngs of the lower east side, for a nice 30-minute pre-dinner passeggiata to Avenue A and E. 12th.
I've got to start by saying the consistency of the cooking here, by Chef Dave Santos and team, is pretty amazing; maybe even moreso than my first couple of visits over FN's first months. Needless to say, the consistency and excellence of the raw material sourcing has been and is great.
Both my friend and I wanted to eat lightly...HAH! While we did stick with the lighter dishes on the menu (has the menu grown a bit over time in number of offerings?), we ordered a lot of food. Because you can't come here and not order the bread/pickles/butter to start, right?
Glidden Points were on point; I have to give a shout out to the mignonette, which is not an afterthought as it is on so, so many oyster platters...here, it's delicious. But my move is a dab of the proprietary E. Village hot sauce, and a squirt of lemon...all that I need.
Told you we went light...
What makes this salad so good? Toasted hazelnuts, crispy sourdough croutons, shavings of Garrotxa, the dressing? Or the fact that you can be sure no one is sticking their hand into a box of mesclun and plopping it onto a plate; this salad is almost still alive - and it contains my favorite of the beautiful radicchios.
The Montauk yellowfin tuna confit in that spectacular chraime sauce; served alongside (unpictured) is a splendid hunk of brioche with a squirt of fiery harissa. Taken together, quite a lovely dish.
Here's the saffron malloreddus with Maine uni. Maybe (or maybe not) a paean to the late, great La Ciccia's uni pasta dish - it's been mastered, and it's probably better, here. There's more uni, and the house-made malloreddus is insanely good. Great dish.
How could we not have the Montauk fluke? We couldn't, so we did...have the smaller one. Fuck - it's delicious. You see that collar at the bottom of the pic...MINE! The fish. The potatoes. The cooking. The olive oil and herbs. Wow.
The s/b classic Timut pepper and buttermilk gelato dish. Possibly with roasted plum (memory gets hazy by now).
Watermelon gelato and I'm thinking whipped feta and compressed watermelon. Thinking?
The service here is so lovely and genuine. The music isn't too loud. The ingredients and cooking are just what they need to be with said ingredients. Oh - the seasoning (i.e. salt) is spot on. What's not to like? (Well, try getting in?)
One more thing...the wine list is offering wines at more reasonable prices than any other restaurant in our fair city. A big shout out to that.
COMP DISCLOSURE: Those desserts. Some wine.
ON our walk back down Avenue A, we stopped here...
For a digestif...Amar y Amargo.
** Foxface Natural was reviewed by Pete Wells this week; this is why it will be quite difficult to get in for the foreseeable future.
