Mackerel escabeche is a rich choice, bracketed by Iberian ham. (Zandy Mangold)
“Adventurous dining” can mean a departure culinary or geographical. New Riverpark’s location is farther-out than its modern-American menu. But can food really be this good at the Queens-bound end of East 29th Street, in the lonely gulch between NYU Medical Center and Bellevue?
Big, beautiful Riverpark is worth the schlep for the spirited cooking of Sisha Ortuzar, a Tom Colicchio disciple whom TV’s “Top Chef” generously gave free rein in the kitchen. Getting there isn’t half the fun (see box).
But alight at the institutional-looking Alexandria Life Sciences Center overlooking the FDR Drive, traipse through a sterile-looking lobby and behold! — a striking and airy, nearly 200-seat eatery steeped in burnished bronze, oak, limestone and leather. It looks something like Colicchio & Sons (formerly Craftsteak), but with windows facing the East River and the mushrooming new apartment towers of Long Island City, Queens.
Restaurants tucked into trade locations, like Astra in the D&D Building, usually have a grafted-on feel. Not Riverpark, which fields an army on the floor and bustles with diners at 10 p.m. on frigid nights.
I don’t know where they’re coming from, but it’s clear what they’re coming for. Ortuzar has worked with Colicchio for years. He attempts no daring experiments, but most everything is nicely executed, and many dishes come with enough twists and riffs to make them new. (Appetizers and pasta are $11 to $24, most less than $20; mains are $24 to $29.)
Chilean-born Ortuzar has professed his love for Indian, Korean and Szechwanese cooking. But his menu’s 100 percent Asian-free, tinted instead with Latin accents. Well-sourced and perfectly turned-out lamb, pork chop and duck breast deliver on the wintry promise of their rugged sauces and jus, heartened with the likes of the North African grain freekeh, black trumpet and hen of the woods mushrooms and smoked eggplant.
“So what’s it gonna be?” the waiter asked. The diner-style greeting wasn’t the way to introduce strong dishes such as juicy, peppery roast chicken wrapped in candy-crackling skin. Normally poised service can slide when there’s a party in the huge adjacent private room, throwing off the biggest racket you’ll ever likely hear in a hospital zone.
Ortuzar’s more original spins show up in first courses. Indistinct, “burnt” fettucine, which was burnt to no good end, was mercifully dropped in favor of compelling burnt-flour cavatelli with cauliflower ragu, aromatic with rosemary and pepperoncini. Pickled chilies and the citric kiss of lemon deftly offset the oily heft of squid-ink pasta.
Rich-tasting mackerel escabeche was bracketed by Iberian ham and a crackling round of “crisp paella.” Luscious squab mole was our repeat favorite, fired with chilies, complexioned with coriander and orange.
Pastry chef Victoria Nguyen’s desserts are rich, sweet and to the point: love that hazelnut financier! They’ll send you out happily fortified to make your way home.
MAP YOUR COURSE
Getting to and from Riverpark can be a pain. The nearest subway’s at Lexington and 33rd Street. So take the M15 bus on First or Second Avenue to 30th Street, and walk east on 29th Street.
By taxi, persuade the driver it’s really OK to make a right turn from First Avenue onto a new, two-way block of East 29th Street, which elsewhere runs westbound only. But come by cab and you’ll have to leave that way too — which means trudging back to First Avenue to find one.
So — usually insane in Manhattan — drive. There’s a garage in the building and parking is free with validation at the host stand. To find it, turn right from First Avenue onto 30th Street (not 29th). Proceed to the stop sign at 26th Street (which strangely parallels 30th Street) and make a hard right, avoiding the FDR entrance ramp. Look for the Five-Star garage on the right.