Sweet fragrances mingle at Claudette, sexily ensconced in a long-jinxed space at Fifth Avenue and Ninth Street. Soft, West Village air wafts through open sidewalk windows on a summer afternoon or evening, rife with North African scents as might drift from a Port Said wharf.
Claudette is owned by Carlos Suarez and Mark Barak, the same duo behind nearby Rosemary’s, the too-popular Italian spot known for long waits. But Claudette is as orderly as it is pretty. A sunny palette of white walls, barn-wood floors and colorful tiles strikes a feminine, but not frilly, chord.
With large new windows on two sides — and minus the enclosed sidewalk cafe that was the bane of its predecessors — it’s hard to believe it’s the same location as the last victim, dark and ugly Lotus of Siam.
It’s seductive despite — or because of? — the cramped intimacy of closely spaced tables and banquettes. The sweaty British couple next to us at lunch, cooing over French lentils and rosé, seemed on a break between morning and afternoon delights.
Executive chef Wade Moises and chef de cuisine Koren Grieveson came up with a French-Mediterranean menu as persuasively near-exotic as it is crowd-pleasing. Soft, warm flatbread, offered with powerful pistou and tapenade spreads, cues simple but well-executed pleasures to come. Dijon mint vinaigrette refreshingly tints Corsican salad with hearts of palm, arugula and quinoa.
I wished bouillabaisse “en croute” were less creamy beneath a puff pastry lid that pops off like a hat, but shellfish and octopus delivered the goods. Tagine chicken boasted more moist, dark meat than is standard inside a clay pot, amidst a fervent stew of couscous, zucchini, eggplant, dates and oranges.
Pasta disappointed, like chitarra with sardines and broccoli lost in a monochromatic, buttery blur. Cheerful desserts include a two-layer pistachio cake “sandwich” filled with whipped mascarpone, sour cream and honey.
Claudette has one clumsy feature: Throw pillows behind banquettes make you squirm to find your groove. But otherwise, Claudette soothes you like a gentle Riviera breeze.
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The dining room of Antonioni’s (177 Chrystie St., at Rivington Street; 646-998-3407) pitch-perfectly evokes old-time Italian-American dining room style: Think restaurant Louis of “The Godfather,” where Al Pacino guns down his rivals, morphed with Lexington Avenue’s recently departed Gino’s.
The latter’s famous zebra wallpaper is trumped by Antonioni’s elephants, giraffes and big cats. Everything else, too, from 1940s-like window signs to maroon banquettes, lovingly evokes a lost era with neither kitsch nor Carbone-like overkill.
But last week, the kitchen murdered the cuisine with capricci puttanesca that tasted reheated and a scallopine of monkfish, cut from the tail’s scrawny end, that barely justified its $21 tab. Garlic shrimp tasted old enough to inspire pre-bed dread (but no harm done).
You broke my heart, Fredo.