On a quiet stretch of the West Village, Bartolo echoes the inviting sound of vino blanco toasted amongst buddies, cazuelas of suckling pig being set on tables and a sultry tempo of Spanish jazz into the neighborhood. The second restaurant from the crew that introduced Ernesto’s and its Basque nation delicacies to the Decrease East Aspect, Bartolo is ready just a few steps beneath road stage—and some steps again in time to the outdated world tavernas of Madrid.
From the sidewalk, the restaurant beckons passersby to descend into its three-room sanctuary, divided solely by a curved, cavernous hallway, to attempt suckling pig cazuelas, vino blanco and porcelain platters of salted tomatoes. The entrance, 20-seat eating room is small but ethereal and opens onto a petite patio of three extra bistro tables. The white stucco partitions glow with classic glass sconces even because the early night solar beats down. A deep inexperienced, low ceiling with hand-painted wooden beams enhances the viridescent leather-based cubicles. A luxurious bar takes up a lot of the entryway, whereas an extra, windowless pink eating room with partitions of Spanish artwork is outfitted with simply six tables.
“We needed a spot the place you could possibly shut your eyes and really feel such as you’re in Madrid,” chef Ryan Bartlow, who opened Bartolo together with his spouse, Davitta Niakani-Bartlow, and her sister and working associate, Alexandra Niakani, instructed Observer. They aimed to create an area that weaved Madrid’s tradition right into a New York neighborhood that has housed historic Spanish eating places for the reason that Nineteen Twenties, together with El Faro, which shuttered in 2012, and Sevilla. To make Bartolo look as if it had been handed down from technology to technology, design agency Coseen Assortment targeted on sourcing a mixture of outdated and new supplies and decor from Spain, whereas Bartlow focused on the meals.
My evening in Bartlow’s Madrid begins on a Sunday night when my server, Joe, a 20-something from St. Louis who thinks butter is nice for the soul (I wholeheartedly agree), describes his favourite dishes intimately. His understanding of the ever-changing menu displays a rigorous coaching, through which half the employees served and half dined on rotation for 2 weeks earlier than opening. I order two of his suggestions, partly due to his enthusiasm and partly as a result of I possess a deep reverence for anchovy butter and chilly soup in August.
The anchoa y mantequilla, served on a small but weighty speckled auburn plate, gives a mouthful of umami. Two skinny, rectangular toasts, every crisp and delicately doughy, are lined by a thick, creamy layer of butter and topped with complete Calabrian anchovy. The welcomed saltiness and wealthy fats sink into my tongue as a metropolis breeze blows via the patio and, for the seconds it takes me to chew, I really feel transported throughout the Atlantic.
Tomates aliñados is a simple dish made with brilliant and juicy tomatoes sourced from Nicewicz Household Farm on the Union Sq. Market. Salted and swimming in a piquant pool of olive oil that begs to be sopped up with heat, crusty bread, a fantastically ripe tomato does all of the work—and Bartlow lets it.
For so long as it stays on this season’s menu, the ajo blanco con melón is Bartlow’s rising star. It not solely represents the excellence between Ernesto’s strictly Basque fare and the extra regionally-infused, artistic delicacies that comes out of a various Spanish metropolis like Madrid, but in addition gives the feeling of being spoon-fed iced fruit whereas napping below a sculpted cypress tree in El Retiro park.
“In Madrid, kitchens are tiny, rooms are tiny. [A taverna] might be 30 years outdated or 200. Cooking is wise and intentional, with refined nuances. You must get ingenious,” Bartlow mentioned. For his conventional white gazpacho (and in response to the 100-degree days throughout menu planning), he acquired artistic. He made a honeydew sorbet and macerated ice-cold melons to high the chilled soup of creamy pulverized almonds, vinegar, and salt. The bottom was easy and ever-so-slightly earthy, with an accentuated sweetness. The feel and temperature created a palate cleanser earlier than the platos principales.
For the principle course, I attempted the rabo de toro, a radically tender oxtail braised in pink wine with a Spanish (not American-sized) portion of thick-cut, pub-style patatas fritas. The dish was aromatic and sticky, nearly too heavy for a summer time dine, however true to the hearty meats that come from Madrid.
The menu additionally has a pair gentle fish dishes, such because the Galician turbot. For $45, it has a tepid style and a quite simple pisto manchego that will have benefited from some spice. It’s one of some entrée selections for a pescetarian (plus, one vegetarian-friendly eggplant dish), however pales compared to the recent appetizers that preceded it. Bartlow additionally gives a roasted suckling pig or lamb that should be ordered two weeks prematurely at market worth—the 2 dishes are paying homage to his time falling in love with Spain.
A Chicago native, Bartlow was captivated by Spanish tradition and cooking early on in his profession. From 2003 to 2005, earlier than shifting again to Chicago to assist open Alinea, he labored below chef Pedro Subijana on the Michelin-starred Akelarre in San Sebastian. He lived above a taverna within the seaside metropolis’s hilly Basque nation, the place his roommate’s Andalusian mom taught him to make Salmorejo, a thick chilled tomato soup that Bartlow says will seem on Bartolo’s menu infrequently.
On his days off, Bartlow traveled to different areas with a gaggle of younger kitchen employees. One evening, they visited a pal’s campo and adopted a winding path to a tempered cave, the place the household aged cheeses and fermented grapes. They gathered by a fireplace, chugging wine from a leather-based sack and devouring suckling milk-fed lamb from a clay vessel and forkfuls of patatas panaderas and bitter greens with olive oil and heaps of uncooked onion.
“The folks, the meals—I’ll in all probability by no means have that once more. It was the most effective meal I’ve ever had in my life. I’m at all times making an attempt to chase that prime, that feeling, that sensation,” Bartlow instructed Observer. “That’s the type of second when meals connects you to different cultures and folks in a method that’s nearly ceremonial. It’s what eating places must be about: Taking the second to take pleasure in life.”
Whereas Bartlow can’t recreate an historic Spanish collapse downtown Manhattan, he does domesticate a collection of moments that really feel so wealthy I can chunk, as I did my oxtail slipping off its bone, tenderly into them. It’s what distinguishes Bartolo as extra than simply one other good neighborhood restaurant. It’s a narrative—and one price re-reading.
