Aldea

6/26/2009
Flatiron: 31 West 17th Street (btwn 5th Ave and 6th Ave) - (212) 675-7223
Price Range: High End
Rating (1-10): 9


Aldea is a sleek, contemporary yet comfortable restaurant serving refined, artistic dishes at a relatively affordable price. The food is a Mediterranean, which means you’ll find seafood and olive oil, but also a variety of vegetables and surf and turf. The food is thoughtfully constructed, well seasoned, and full of interesting flavors; not only that, the dishes are fun to look at, especially when seated at the sushi counter-style bar looking into the open kitchen. The service is attentive and refreshingly friendly, conversational, and personable – which seems to be a theme at Aldea: proper, professional, and high-end but simultaneously relaxing. In short, the restaurant leaves little to be desired except a second trip. Whether you’re alone, in a big group, or anywhere in between, this place would be a good choice for a nice meal in Manhattan.

Beyond the narrow bar area at the entrance in the back dining area of the restaurant, there’s a calm, relaxing oasis-like feel that betrays the unremarkable surrounding neighborhood on West 17th Street. The design of the restaurant is impeccable and manages to make this small and low-ceilinged space feel light, airy, and open. While some establishments sacrifice comfort for contemporary, Aldea strikes that delicate balance between hip, sheik and clean but not sterile, cold, or up tight. And in fact, the surroundings match remarkably well, the food itself, which is elegant and pretty but deeply satisfying and un-kitschy.

The menu is really fun to read and it’s not easy to make your picks – everything looks and sounds delicious. The selections are focused and carefully selected to provide a great balance of seafood, meats, and vegetable dishes. Chef George Mendes really seems to have a command of what he’s doing. Having worked under a star-studded cast of internationally famous Michelin-starred chefs in Spain, France, and the US (Berasategui, Passard, Verge, Ducasse, Bouley), it’s not surprising.

Our meal began with sea urchin toast, which comes as a thin strip of toast topped with sea urchin, lime zest and juice, cauliflower cream, and a litany of other tiny ingredients painstakingly layered on by the cooks. Despite its array of ingredients, the end product still has a nice, clean simplicity. The creamy urchin flavor is nice but it’s warmed and I’ve never liked raw seafood warm – so pick according to your preference. The Shrimp Alhinho appetizer features fat shrimp hot off the griddle, very juicy and tender in the middle, and served in a peppery, savory oil-based sauce. Even after the shrimp are gone, it’s something you can dip your bread into and eat til the plate is totally clean.

There’s a balanced selection of both seafood and land animals for main courses but if you’re like me and you’re a fan of loins and/or slow-cooked meats, the Niman Ranch Pork Loin or the Pennsylvania Baby Goat should do you well. The pork is served as juicy slices of the meat sitting on a bed of “smoked corn” with a light sauce and some clams. The meat was well-cooked with a bold salty exterior – and complemented well by the corn. Kind of like a farm-inspired meal with a little pizzazz. The clams were a bit gummy and were sort of like the guy at the party who didn’t do or say anything. And as far as, the sauce, it was a bit off but it wasn’t the focal point, so it didn’t detract from the dish (though it could have potentially added even more).

The baby goat dish featured three different cuts – loin (the best part and incredibly soft texture), belly (fatty but not that much flavor and too thin), and braised meat (intense gamy goat flavor and slow cooked to falling-apart tenderness). To soak up the sauce, a side of buckwheat is served, and indeed it’s great with the sauces around the meat. It’s an interesting dish and if you’re up for gamier flavored meats, then this would be a great opportunity to get at that baby goat.

The service, from the hostesses to the servers to even the cooks that we spoke to, was warm and engaging. They all seemed to have a passion for service but also an air of modesty and not-taking-themselves-too-seriously. In other words, it’s cordial and unpretentious, and the result is a truly pleasant experience.

Sometimes, it’s the little things that make an impression and for me, it was this extra thoughtfulness that I liked most. Aldea is a restaurant that reaches out to its patrons through gestures both subtle and substantial. The wine list, for example, has an array of surprisingly affordable bottles – parties with limited budgets (like me) can enjoy a bottle of delicious, crisp Austrian white wine for $25. It’s an uncommonly inviting move for an upscale place of this caliber. I also appreciate a nice bathroom and this classy, blue tiled room features an awesome playlist of rock tunes, and soft cotton towels for hand drying. I also tend to admire an open kitchen – it’s a bold move to open up the workplace to an audience in this manner, especially when you consider how harried, dirty, and foul-mouthed the back of the house can get. Here, it’s quiet, efficient, and calm; and it’s an added level of entertainment to observe and occasionally ask questions of the cooks over the counter. For my money, this is the way to experience Aldea.

Aldea is likely to be one of my favorite new restaurants of the year –quality of food, aesthetic, and hospitality taken together, this is a standout. It isn’t a place to pop into casually, as it’s still a high-end price range – and also because you might not appreciate the experience without a little anticipation. So perhaps save it for a special occasion of sorts – date, family dinner, or celebration. But either way, you should go.