Monday, February 4, 2013

Day 968 : The Marrow

Location : The old Paris Commune space on Bank Street.

What : Harold Dieterle's new joint that plays homage to his roots -- a blend of his father's Germanic background and his mother's Italian heritage.

Walking into the space this past Saturday, the restaurant was crowded, full of groups of friends enjoying lively conversation and couples on dates. Although definitely still the skeleton of the old Paris Commune space, the front room had been transformed by a move of the bar, warm and rustic wood paneling and patterned wallpaper.

The menu surely had a meat centric focus with plenty of people raving about the restaurant's namesake dish, the Bone Marrow, but there were plenty of other items for those of us non-carnivores to choose from. For those carnivores out there, this is a restaurant with your name written all over it! Rabbit leg or foie gras or pork or baby chicken or well a plethora of other meat options are on offer. So what did we have?

We started with their Baby red oak and lady apple salad topped with Cambozola blue cheese and spiced pumpkin seed vinaigrette. A simple and rustic yet crisp and bright salad perfect for a cold winter's night with a glass of Blaufränkisch. Next up was their cured Arctic Char served with roasted baby beets, horseradish cream, pistachios, and baby arugula. The beets were roasted to perfection here and I'm not even the world's biggest fan of beets but these were sweet and earthy and bright.

Next up we split their whole roasted hen of the woods mushroom with cardoon creamed kale, frisee salad, and truffled mushroom jus. Earthy, rustic and warming, this was a bold dish as a main and it turned out well. We also split their side of grilled baby romaine topped with pecorino and warm lemon-anchovy vinaigrette. This felt like their riff on a Caesar salad but warm and without a unifying flavor element.

The Marrow is probably best for the meat eaters of us but I was pleased to have tried Dieterle's new joint. It was refreshing to see the unique European cheese selections on their cheese menu which brought a smile to my face.

Go for a drink, for the scene, or for a meat centric dish. I applaud Dieterle for being able to so seamlessly move from contemporary American to Thai to German-Italian restaurants.

The Marrow
99 Bank Street
NYC




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