East Side Social Club
Posted by bellastraniera - 12/01/10 at 02:01 pm When somebody asks you to recommend a “cool new restaurant,” you’re liable to start ticking off names by neighborhood – usually in the Meatpacking District, West Village, Noho, Williamsburg or someplace with similar caché. But it’s time to radically adjust your thinking, because the new hot neighborhood is… the East 50s.
If anyone could reinvigorate formerly sleepy Turtle Bay, it would be powerhouses like Graydon Carter at Monkey Bar and now Billy Gilroy, of Macao, Employees Only and now East Side Social Club. (Le Relais de L’Entrecote and the newly reopened Mia Dona are other noteworthy additions to the neighborhood.) Though restauranteurs have come and gone since Gilroy first opened Page-Six favorite Match in the ‘90s, he still has a following, and the boldfaced names have followed him here.
East Side Social Club scales it back a bit—the atmosphere may be sceney, but there’s an old-school vibe, with red-checked tablecloths, cane chairs, deep red walls, a capacious bar and two dining areas. The A tables are in back—and that’s where Patrick McMullan was holding court with Brooke Shields, Jay McInerney and other New York fixtures on a recent night. Think of it as the love child of Monkey Bar and P.J. Clarke’s.
On the night Marie Fromage and I visited, the large bar area was filled with bankers and corporate types, many of whom seemed oblivious to the who’s-who of diners heading towards the back. The mix of corporate types and New York glitterati is somewhat disconcerting. One guy in a tie actually left the bar area and walked up to Brooke Shields’ table to get a closer look at her, much to our horror. She survived unscathed.
While the bar is turning out classic cocktails like the Brooklyn, a mix of Rittenhouse rye with maraschino, amaro and dry vermouth, the food takes a backseat to the scene here. Let’s hope no one alerts Bloomberg to the salt content in many of the dishes, because they would certainly qualify for government monitoring. The grilled octopus ($18) is super tender and meaty, dressed with a salsa verde and plated on an oddly redundant chickpea puree with chickpeas alongside. At first bite it’s quite good, but by the end your lips start to pucker—that’s the saltiness of the herb dressing getting to you.
On the other hand, the stuffed eggplant ($12) is excellent, like eggplant involtini from a true Italian-American take-out shop out in Jersey. (Michael’s Salumeria in Lyndhurst, NJ comes to mind.) The eggplant is sliced thin as a sheet of pasta and filled with intense mix of roasted red peppers, sharp Pecorino and Taggiashce olives.
Of course one of the best tests of an Italian restaurant is the pastas, and East Side Social Club’s falter a little. I wish I could taste the ricotta in the ricotta gnocchi ($17) or the meatiness of the Bolognese sauce, but they’re overwhelmed by the saltiness of it all.
The same affliction hits the pork chops with chanterelle mushrooms ($28).
“Now here’s where salt really works,” Marie Fromage said of the caramel tarte ($9) sprinkled with sea salt. One reason we ordered it was that we weren’t ready to go—this place is a lot of fun. More recent reports have it that the restaurant is still tweaking the food, which is now less salty. If they can hit their stride in the kitchen, it will really be a keeper, but either way, East Side Social Club is worth a visit.
East Side Social Club
230 East 51st Street, between Second and Third Avenues
New York, NY
212-355-9442
esscnyc.com
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bellastraniera
a.k.a. Marcy Swingle - obsessed with food and fashion.
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