While oxtail sopa seca is a delicious starter, layering earthy flavors one on top of the other (strong sheep’s-milk cheese, succulent shredded meat, olive-oil croutons, toothsome white beans, an intense beefy broth) and baby squid seared la plancha are beautifully tender and simply topped with toasted garlic bread crumbs, a suckling-pig entre is simply wan.
#PATINA AT MIDTOWN FULL#
Though the shrimp, along with the full tapas menu, are also available up a short flight of stairs in the more somber dining room-a foil to the madhouse lounge, with burgundy carpets and wood-paneled walls-the focus there is on serious food at serious prices.īut the menu inconsistencies are, sadly, echoed in both rooms. His garlic shrimp cazuelita is a top-notch tapa featuring half a dozen crustaceans in straightforward blistering-hot garlic oil. The chef is on more solid footing when he embraces traditional Spanish cuisine. His croquettes stuffed with shredded veal are similarly lacking, the bland breaded nubs served with overkill truffled aioli. His chicken wings-deboned, panfried and served in a chunky tomato-and-olive rag-are far too upscale and skimpy (four scrawny specimens for $9) to be much fun. DeChellis has a fine palate-I was an early fan of his work at Sumile-but he too often trips up on his own pretensions. Probably a good thing, given how unsatisfying I found so many of the bar snacks to be. Though there’s a full tapas menu, cocktails, not food, appear to be the draw in the front lounge. The restaurant’s prime locale next to Grand Central Terminal ensures there’s a solid stream of commuter suits funneling toward the bar after work (“What time is your train?” is a frequently overheard snippet). The retro front lounge-with its portraits of matadors, bright orange chairs, and black-and-white tiled floors-could’ve been a set piece in Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can (only the stewardesses are missing). Version 2.0, which occupies two sprawling rooms of the MetLife Building, takes a solid stab at recapturing the glitter of its forebear. Though it pains me to say it, it’s one that mostly doesn’t pay off. Which makes the choice by the Patina Restaurant Group (Brasserie 8) to have him helm the redux of this once fabled institution-the original La Fonda del Sol, serving Latin American food, was a stylish icon in the age of Mad Men-a significant gamble. The chef, who has had a rough time of it lately-his last two restaurants barely survived the first round of reviews-is like an unfocused undergrad, dabbling in a dozen majors but settling on none. Josh DeChellis, the ultimate culinary generalist, has made a career out of hopping from one cuisine to the next-veering from Japan (Sumile, BarFry) to Italy (Jovia) and now over to Spain, as top man at La Fonda del Sol. In food, there’s something to be said for specialization.