Food & Drink

Thrills down to the Marrow

The star of the show is a single enormous, meaty hen-of-the-woods mushroom.

The star of the show is a single enormous, meaty hen-of-the-woods mushroom. (Gabi Porter )

“Top Chef” Harold Dieterle has scored in the West Village with this spacious eatery with a wide-ranging menu of Italian and German dishes inspired by his heritage and imagination. (
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The city’s best new dish is a mushroom. That’s singular: exactly one whole hen o’ the woods at The Marrow, where the mammoth specimen resembles the moon but seems to draw flavor from deepest Middle Earth.

Yup — a vegetarian choice steals the show even from the blood-rich delicacy that gives the place its name. If you think you know this fungus from steakhouse side-dish permutations, get your silly self to 99 Bank St., home to a fully realized and original new restaurant masquerading as a modest corner bistro.

The Marrow, “Top Chef” hero Harold Dieterle’s winning take on modern German and Italian styles, is his third and most ambitious eatery: larger than Asian-esque Perilla and Kin Shop, a bit more spacious and a lot more dressed up.

Large windows on two sides frame the cheerful, L-shaped corner confines of what was once Paris Commune. A cluster of party-style front booths gives way to an orderly corridor of leather banquettes and butcher-block tables. The kitchen peeps through a cutout in a frosted mirrored wall that reflects faces like the surface of a lake.

The comfortable setting belies the ruggedly hewn menu. The Marrow’s contemporary and seasonal riffs “inspired by” Dieterle’s parents’ heritages aren’t fusion: Dishes are listed separately under “Famiglia Chiarelli,” the chef’s mother’s name, and “Familie Dieterle.”

All are driven by Dieterle’s disciplined imagination. Many choices — starters $12 to $16, mains $24 to $33 — are dense with butter and fat, but the heft is skillfully offset by spices, herbs and judicious application of unusual sweet accents. Irresistible little charcuterie plates ($6 to $14) cue the approach: green-apple mustard with dreamy duck liverwurst, black pepper agrodulce (sweet and sour sauce) for cotechino and black lentils.

The mighty mushroom, a forest-primeval fantasy grown on a Pennsylvania farm, blows away cauliflower “steak” efforts. Roasted to an arresting crunch on top and adorned with frisee, it looms over a lush micro-habitat of white truffle butter, cardoons and butter-braised kale. Have it with Forstreiter St. Laurent Reserve 2008, a berry- and chocolate-complexioned red from Austria that’s one of many affordable, cuisine-appropriate wines.

Proceed if you dare to The Bone Marrow, a prehistoric-looking trenchful of fatty beef tissue. Dieterle qualifies its every essence with another: Meyer lemon juice to lighten the load, sea urchin on top for a contrasting oceanic brand of steroid, and ground fried potatoes for welcome crackle.

The floor team knows its manners; I heard nary a cursed “enjoy.” They know their dishes, too. “Notice it’s in quotation marks,” our waitress chuckled over sauteed stone bass “vitello tonnato.” Tuna belly sauce under the brown-crisped fish laughs at the insipid mayo of the standard article.

In another brave tuna twist in Italian, the fish’s belly, bottarga (roe) and marrow mingle and merge along the ribbed face of garganelli pasta. The result — sweetened and spiced with tomatoes, red pepper, shallots and caperberries, and textured with breadcrumbs — is as compelling as it is new.

I’d score German over Italian by a hair. Teutonic triumphs included soup of velvety braised rabbit and adorable baby pretzel dumplings; melting-from-the-bone, juniper-braised lamb neck; and 100 percent greaseless duck schnitzel. The last looks as organized on the plate as a 1950s TV dinner, but Swanson fans didn’t get quark spaetzle, hazelnuts and stewed wolfberries.

The few duds were on the Italian side. Cuttlefish came in white wine sauce more like a butter bath. Beef short rib “pizzaiola” lost moisture while braising, leaving the meat disappointingly parched.

Among Ginger Fisher’s desserts ($10), our loyalties lay especially with Berliners (doughnuts) attended by Goldschläger cream and gooey melted chocolate, and ricotta cheesecake on blood orange marmalade and candied pistachios.

But only one dessert puts both cuisines on the same plate: “dolci küsse,” an assortment of delectable German and Italian cookies. It’s the closest The Marrow comes to fusion, and one step closer to heaven.