La Boca at the new, High Line-neighboring Faena Hotel brings the Manhattan\u00a0restaurant scene what it needed \u2014\u00a0adult-friendly live music without a cover charge in a sophisticated, supper club-like setting. A sextet, Orquesta La Boca, performs tango, bolero and \u201cclassic Sinatra\u201d seven nights a week from 8 to11 p.m. It\u2019s one of the most welcome surprises far-west 18th Street ever saw.<\/p>\n
The romantic strains by tuxedoed instrumentalists and a sweet-throated vocalist directed by Emiliano Messiez are far removed from the background\u00a0noise\u00a0of \u201cjazz\u201d brunches. The band renders \u201cLa Cumprasita\u201d and \u201cBesame Mucho\u201d at a reasonable decibel level. (No dancing!) The moody, jazz-and-blues soundtrack that plays while they\u2019re on a break is loud enough to enjoy but not intrusive. The music is perfectly attuned to La Boca\u2019s colorful, sexy design and its culinary pedigree.<\/p>\n
The Orquesta La Boca is one of the restaurant\u2019s most welcome surprises. La Boca\/Joe Schildhorn\/BFA.com<\/p>\n
One section of the 163-seat dining room is dominated by a 20-foot long mural of a sexy black cat lounging on a bed of pink roses, the other by a mural of happy monkeys clad in\u00a0those same roses \u2014\u00a0a \u00a0motif that adorns the rims of plates. Both areas boast floral-patterned rugs, shell-shaped red velvet booths and banquettes, burled wood tables, fanciful\u00a0contemporary chandeliers and Deco-style table lamps. The lighting makes everyone in the overwhelmingly stylish crowd look their best, even guys in untucked shirts who clearly missed\u00a0the \u201csmart, elegant attire\u201d advisory. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Celebrated Buenos Aires chef Francis Mallmann is behind La Boca, but NYC fire laws prevent the restaurant from cooking with the open fires he\u2019s known for. No matter. It achieves similar flavors and textures with powerful gas-powered planchas. Almost everything I had on my three visits was worth the trek on bitter winter nights.<\/p>\n
Elevated empanadas start the meal on a high note. Tamara Beckwith<\/p>\n
The kitchen has moved past an early-days blooper stage and now turns out Mallmann\u2019s crowd-pleasing lineup with confidence and consistency. It\u2019s served by a crack floor team recruited from top places from Daniel Boulud, Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Danny Meyer. They know the menu inside-out but don\u2019t use their smarts to oversell customers.<\/p>\n
Mallmann\u2019s dishes, which borrow judiciously from the Italian and South American playbooks, would be at home in many other Big Apple\u00a0places that mix-and-match\u00a0sauces and garnishes from all compass points.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The beautiful dining room features rose and monkey imagery. Tamara Beckwith<\/p>\n
Among starters, cheese empanada ($12) elevated the typically mediocre, mushy food truck staple to heaven. The turnovers are oven-roasted to a mouth-pleasing tactility, concealing a hearty filling of salut, mozzarella and gouda.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Granny Smith and Honeycrisp apple slices and sparkling apple cider vinaigrette brightened\u00a0an austere, wintry tossed salad\u00a0of bitter chicory and radicchio ($25).<\/p>\n
The only first-course clunker\u00a0was \u201cFrancis\u2019 Minestrone\u201d ($18), an ill-advised, creamy take on the classic soup as thick as chicken pot pie.<\/p>\n
Granny Smith and Honeycrisp apple slices and sparkling apple cider vinaigrette brightened\u00a0an austere, wintry tossed salad\u00a0of bitter chicory and radicchio ($25). Tamara Beckwith<\/p>\n
The menu soars with the main courses. High prices can be misleading. Most dishes are substantial enough to share, not that they suggest it. \u201cThick Milanesa\u201d ($95) was an 8-ounce veal filet breaded with egg, garlic, breadcrumbs and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. Finished in clarified butter and garnished with Dijon mustard, it was more tender and deeper-flavored\u00a0than many\u00a0iterations around town.<\/p>\n
Although I found meat disappointingly dry at Mallman\u2019s famous Miami Beach Faena restaurant,\u00a0there was no such issue at La Boca. The white meat was as supple as the dark in a brined and\u00a0pan-roasted chicken ($46), a deboned half-bird unashamedly oozing natural jus and\u00a0attended by chanterelle mushrooms, roasted potatoes and baby carrots. <\/p>\n
The tender, flavorful Milanesa easily feeds two. Tamara Beckwith<\/p>\n
Snake River Farms Wagyu strip steak delivered most of the blood-and-mineral pleasure of a 32-oz. ribeye at a fraction of the cost ($105 vs. $275). \u00a0<\/p>\n
Pasta was excellent, especially al dente tagliolini in\u00a0Provencale sauce with a generous complement of luscious Montauk Royal Red Shrimp ($39). Firm-and-flaky, plancha-seared branzino\u00a0($55) wore crisp skin like a hat atop mushroom escabeche and crispy sunchokes \u2014 a delight for palate and eye.<\/p>\n
Desserts, like a lovely pavlova, end things on a sweet note. Tamara Beckwith<\/p>\n
But a quartet of Colorado lamb chops\u00a0landed with a thud. They\u00a0arrived way past the requested medium-rare, sinewy and resistant to a serrated knife. Overcooking drained them of whatever flavor they once had.\u00a0And they were $105!<\/p>\n
Splendid desserts highlighted by dolce de leche profiteroles with a touch \u00a0of cinnamon helped get us over it. I look forward to going back for more of them \u2014 and to tango strains deep into the night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"La Boca at the new, High Line-neighboring Faena Hotel brings the Manhattan\u00a0restaurant scene what it needed \u2014\u00a0adult-friendly live…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":504330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,8364,2961,1165,224,5337,5249,75526,988],"class_list":{"0":"post-504329","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-food-drink","11":"tag-la","12":"tag-lifestyle","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-losangeles","15":"tag-manhattan","16":"tag-restaurant-review","17":"tag-restaurants"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115866599745188894","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}