OCEANA
(four stars)
55 E. 54TH ST. AT MADISON AVENUE (212) 759-5941
CORNELIUS Gallagher, executive chef at Oceana, is the new master and commander of the deep. In the past year, he’s stealthily turned this longtime favorite into the city’s best seafood restaurant and one of its top dining destinations – period.
Bronx-born Gallagher, 31, previously worked for David Bouley, Gray Kunz and Daniel Boulud. Their genius rubbed off: He’s cooking at a rare 31/2-star clip. And we’ll spot Oceana an extra half-star for its amazingly affordable prices.
The $68 prix-fixe dinner (no à la carte) is less costly than at any restaurant remotely in its class. At lunch, the whole three-course menu is a miraculous $45, which also buys you the pleasure of warm service in the famously soothing dining room, playfully appointed like a luxury yacht.
What more can be said about a place that’s long been popular with customers and critics?
Simply this: I haven’t been so dazzled since Atelier revitalized modern French cuisine almost two years ago. I could have every meal for a month at Oceana and not get bored.
Gallagher refreshingly told New York magazine that his first thought in creating a dish is whether it will be “tasty.” What, nothing about artisanal heirloom polycultural fusion?
His style blends intuition and inspiration, disciplined by classical technique. He combs the globe for raw materials – Japan for scallops, Canada for steelhead trout, an Ohio farm for stone-ground grits.
He chooses “accents” from Asia, Europe and America’s South. Who knew Australian sea bass would find its soul mate in buttered collared greens?
Some dishes are as simple as thyme-scented, pan-roasted Carabinero shrimp from Spain with a unusually sweet essence. A ladylike delicacy graces sparkling yellowtail tartare prettily encircled with daikon radishes; horseradish sorbet on top crumbles into the fish and sets off fireworks.
Other choices look maybe too busy until you taste them. Gallagher interweaves and counterpoints flavors, textures and moods with protean dexterity. Things would fall apart if the execution weren’t so precise.
His combinations are not for the sauce-on-the-side crowd. Grits, the best I’ve had in New York, make a cozy, truffled quilt for woodsy hen o’ the woods mushrooms and tiny Brussels sprouts flanking New Zealand John Dory; the brawny filet gets an added testosterone shot from foie gras and chicken liver jus.
Only the finest catch can stand up to such lascivious treatment. How about pastrami sandwiched between supple Maine skate wings in Devonshire mustard emulsion? Pastrami on ray? It tastes like heaven.
Sometimes Gallagher looks to Asia: Loup de mer, topped with a crackling crouton, is set on a bed of basmati rice, coconut and glazed bok choy, ringed with light wasabi foam, and punctuated with the sweet-sour note of concentrated tamarind juice.
Or he’ll turn to the French countryside, elevating beefy swordfish rounds to rustic bliss with autumnal potage cultivateur – a traditional bouillon of vegetables with smoked country bacon and chives. A drizzle of lovage oil lends a spicy herbal exclamation point.
Pastry chef David Carmichael’s lengthy lineup keeps the glory going with gravity-defying Sicilian pistachio semi-freddo in a cone stood on its tip. It arrives sooner than I’d like: Oceana’s only flaw is that its service is almost too efficient.
To savor cooking this phenomenal, I want the more stately pace of classic French restaurants. But no French restaurant in town beats Gallagher’s way with fish. Vive La Bronx!
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