Just when I’d written off Upper West Side dining north of 72nd Street, up popped Bustan. The new “pan-Mediterranean” bistro, where most everything passes through a dome-shaped taboon oven, brings welcome exotic fire to boozy Amsterdam Avenue, Manhattan’s most pitiable culinary boulevard.
If Bustan were in the Village or Chelsea, bloggers in droves would be badgering publicists for free meals. But who needs downtown when the house is full every night with the best-looking crowd north of Boulud Sud? I even saw a few guys in jackets and ties!
Bustan’s 74 seats flow through the most colorful new venue west of Central Park. A deco-accented bar precedes a sunny roll of blue, green, pink and earth-tone dining nooks. Have fun sorting out all the spiraling ceiling fixtures, gold-glowing wall installations and sexy, pleated banquettes. Tchotchkes and showbiz images are too many to count after killer cocktails like bourbon-based, blood orange pop. A just-opened rear outdoor garden adds 30 more seats in an oasis-like setting.
Although modern Israeli cuisine is influenced by tastes and raw materials of many regions, it might be a stretch for an Israeli-born chef to tap Italy, France, Spain, Morocco, Lebanon, Greece and Turkey in a single Manhattan menu. But Efi Nahon, who’s a partner with owner Tuvia Feldman and managing partner Guy Goldstein, has the game down. While his “Mediterranean” menu hosts as many national accents as a 24-hour diner at midnight, his virtuoso hand with the taboon lends it unity.
In amateur hands, a taboon — like Indian tandoor ovens or barbecue pit smokers — can dry out everything. But Nahon uses gas to complement the wood fire, as well as a rotating base, nontraditional methods meant to keep the temperature at a uniform 650 degrees and prevent overcooking.
A hint of olive tree chips added to the fire subtly smokes its way through the lineup. So that’s where squid grilled a la plancha, surprisingly served with challah bread, gets its barbecue mood!
Piping hot taboon bread starts every meal: a runway-length loaf that’s sweet and crunchy, creamy and doughy, olive oily and kissed with rosemary and sage. Use the carving knife to lop off a small chunk and set the rest aside or you might be too full for anything more.
Oddly, baroque-topped “flatbreads” are the menu’s weak link — overcrowded, doughy pizzas. While it was fun watching a couple struggle to dismantle pastrami carbonara with egg yolk and kale, your appetite’s better indulged elsewhere. (Most small plates are $7.95 to $13.95; entrees $18.50 to $28.50).
Bold seasoning brings a wharf-full of herbs and spices to dish after dish. Tahini and pickled mango dips politely exoticize crisp-fried falafel. We recognized cilantro, but what other herbs are blended with the chickpeas? “I wish we knew,” the waiter grinned. “The chef keeps it secret.”
Finishing in the taboon imparts a crisp char to octopus lilted with fennel, orange, lemon and coriander. Nazareth tahini and green harissa lend sparkle to crunchy white, purple and green cauliflower.
Ultra-supple beef cheeks are braised with root vegetables and wine, and topped with angel hair pasta and crackling Parmesan cheese. Lamb terra cotta is a Middle Eastern pot pie. The waiter rolled the crust back like a rug, revealing a steaming stew anchored by three fervently spiced lamb kebabs.
Delicately poached Moroccan halibut graced with cilantro foam, Berber seasoning and garbanzo beans, and adorned with black squid ink fettuccine, “is not what we normally find around here,” marveled a friend who lives two blocks away.
For dessert, go with silan, a many-layered, sundae-like affair crowned with shredded halvah that’s spun like cotton candy atop vanilla ice cream, puffed rice and roasted hazelnuts. Avoid at all costs raspberry-red pepper ice cream. And what in Athena’s name is sticky toffee pudding doing in a Mediterranean restaurant?
“I don’t know but I’m just so glad it’s there,” laughed our friendly British-born waiter. Be glad Bustan, with all its paradoxes and puzzles, is with us, too.