EVER since the center of culinary innovation shifted to Spain with the ascent of El Bulli and other like-minded restaurants, New York has been awaiting its own specimen of contemporary Spanish gastronomy. For some reason, it hasn’t happened, at least, not entirely successfully.
José Andrés, a Spanish celebrity chef, has brought his brand of culinary alchemy to American cities as far removed as Washington and Los Angeles, but not to New York. GastroArte near Lincoln Center is better at undermining form than offering flavor, said Sam Sifton, who gave it one star in The New York Times earlier this year, when the restaurant was still known as Graffit. You can eat wonderful traditional Spanish food in New York (vast platters of paella, shrimp sizzling in garlic, Galician-style octopus, the world’s greatest ham) but the practitioners of contemporary Spanish cooking have yet to commit themselves to the challenge.
Luis Bollo, the chef at Salinas, a Spanish restaurant in Chelsea that opened in June, is one who tried. Back in 2000, Mr. Bollo came from San Sebastián to open Meigas, a Spanish restaurant in Lower Manhattan that offered the full range of foams, gels and whiffs of essence. Perhaps the time, or the execution, was not quite right. Mr. Bollo soon abandoned what William Grimes, then The Times’s restaurant critic, called “the hocus-pocus,” and returned to solid, traditional cooking, including a soft succulent suckling pig that I can still taste to this day.
But the restaurant closed in 2001. Mr. Bollo left town for almost a decade, opening restaurants in Connecticut. Now he’s back with Salinas, and New York’s Spanish restaurant culture is the better for it, even if he digs more deeply into traditions of Spanish cooking rather than probing its outward boundaries.
You will not find hocus-pocus at Salinas, but you will find tripe, an ingredient that can make mature adults recoil in childish fear but in Mr. Bollo’s hands achieves a wonderful, belly-warming magic of its own. It is braised with tomato (and, shhh, veal feet, which add richness) to a point of melting tenderness, then served with bits of chorizo, ham, smoked paprika and, as a crowning glory, crisp little chickpeas that offer a perfect crunchy contrast. On a recent chilly night, this dish made me sigh.
Salinas is long and narrow with three rooms. In front is a small bar and lounge. A middle section with a stone wall and long mirror looks vaguely like a split-level den. The rear, a wood-and-stone dining room with a gas fireplace and a nifty retractable roof, is where you want to be. In the warm weather it’s a gorgeous open-air dining room. In the chill, you don’t even know you’re in a courtyard. The dining room is incredibly dim, though. Anyone older than 40 will need an iPhone flashlight app to read the menu.
I can’t remember which financial genius decided that a menu of appetizers and main courses was not enough. The pre-appetizer menu of small plates has made restaurant meals more expensive and more filling, and, in the case of Salinas, somewhat blurs the divisions. Classic, simple tapas like grilled bread spread with fragrant olive oil, garlic and tomato, or slivers of jamón Ibérico glistening with funky ham perfume are mingled with more complex starters like the tripe, or an elemental plate of large shrimp with garlic, white wine and lemon. Delicious, you’ve seen it before, and you can’t go wrong.
Crujiente mahonés, flatbread topped with cheese, honey, thyme and sea salt, is likewise simple and irresistible, the spices combining almost like zaatar, the Middle Eastern seasoning. Not all the tapas selections achieve liftoff, though. Croquettes made of veal cheeks, mushrooms and apples were mushy and monochromatic.
Certain ingredients, like the smoked paprika and all manner of pork, appear repeatedly in different guises, often to great advantage. Mr. Bollo’s pulpo appetizer is about as cutting-edge as anything gets on the menu. Slender coins of octopus (flavored with the paprika) are dropped on puréed potatoes like white pepperoni on a beige pizza, with crisp sautéed greens alongside. Though it has the visual appeal of a manila envelope, it’s an arresting take on the traditional pairing of octopus and potatoes.
Equally lovely, and presented in more familiar form, are pumpkin-and-chicken soup, rich with broccoli rabe, potato and, of course, bacon and chorizo; and tender, earthy quail wrapped in bacon and served with juicy quince.
Of course, we haven’t even gotten to main courses, which, thankfully, include Mr. Bollo’s suckling pig. If it’s not exactly the one I remember, it remains one fine piece of swine, soft and sweetly flavorful against the crisp, crunchy skin. Rosejat rápida is a brilliant dish in which crisp, short strands of fideo pasta are topped with chicken, chorizo, tiny cockles and saffron aioli, a smoky, savory bowl that one can easily inhale. Grilled chicken is served, naturally, with cubes of crisp ham as well as Swiss chard, garlic and a lemon sauce. The dish is moist and delicious in a way that other chicken breasts can only envy.
For all the good that Mr. Bollo offers, his paella negra, in which the rice is turned black with squid ink, is fairly uninteresting. With the usual array of clams, mussels and fish (but no discernible pork), it was a routine rendition, and unaccountably salty on two occasions.
One other criticism I can’t help making is of the wine list, which offers a preponderance of full-bodied, dense, powerfully fruity and oaky Spanish wines that don’t go very well with subtle foods. Easier-drinking options are not obvious, but I would suggest a white and red on the list, Zarate’s refreshing 2010 albariño and the 2006 Pirineos, made from the rarely seen parraleta grape grown in the Pyrenees region of Somontano.
It’s perhaps too much of a concession to mainstream American restaurants that Salinas offers a pastel de chocolate for dessert, the usual molten cake by another name. Yawn, but it is well done. Equally familiar is a crema de vino, essentially a crème brûlée (or a crema Catalana) but flavored with Rioja, also well done. Best of all is the most classic, torrija caramelizada, simply a slender loaf of bread pudding exalted to a plane of high deliciousness, imbued with cinnamon, nutmeg and citrus, served with a scoop of coffee gelato for good measure.
New is exciting, but old can be brilliant.
Salinas
★★
136 Ninth Avenue (19th Street), Chelsea, (212) 776-1990, salinasnyc.com.
ATMOSPHERE Dim and casual, polite and well appointed.
SOUND LEVEL Loud but not boisterous.
RECOMMENDED DISHES Crujiente mahonés, shrimp with garlic, jamón Ibérico, braised tripe, pumpkin-and-chicken soup, poached octopus, rosejat rápida, grilled chicken, suckling pig, torrija caramelizada.
WINE LIST Top-heavy with dense, powerful, modern Spanish wines.
PRICE RANGE Tapas, $7 to $20; appetizers, $12 to $19; main courses, $23 to $44; desserts, $9 to $10.
HOURS Tuesday and Wednesday, 6 to 11 p.m.; Thursday to Saturday, 6 p.m. to midnight; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; closed Mondays.
RESERVATIONS Recommended a week ahead.
CREDIT CARDS All major cards.
WHEELCHAIR ACCESS One step at entrance.
WHAT THE STARS MEAN Ratings range from zero to four stars and reflect the reviewer’s reaction to food, ambience and service, with price taken into consideration. Menu listings and prices are subject to change.
Eric Asimov will review restaurants until a new full-time critic is named.
