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“BLT Fish”

Occasion:	Cuisine:	Area:	Cost:	Rating:
Night Out	Seafood	Flatiron	Moderate	Great

Don’t you just hate people with a lot of talent? People, for instance, like Laurent Tourondel. I mean, first he wowed me at Cello (serious serenity and amazing waves of fish), then he opens BLT Steak and has me considering slabs of beef, onion rings, and creamed spinach for breakfast, and now he’s gone back to the sea with BLT Fish. (And I loved his book, GO FISH, recently out from Wiley with co-author Andrew Friedman). Okay, so I guess I like the guy, and I was very fired up to check out his latest restaurant, BLT Fish, located in the old AZ space.

I went over on Saturday night with Susie and Steven and we found a restaurant like something out of a movie set for Gidget or Blue Crush—the place has been completely transformed into a cheery cottage-style, Oceanside fish shack, with worn wide-planked floors, wainscoted walls hung with giant shellacked swordfish, nautical maps and black and whites of fisherman, blue and white awning striped banquettes, and solid wood tables dressed with kitschy paper lobster placemats and caddies filled with old bay seasoning, hot sauce, and assorted necessary shack condiments. The place was a buzz—the bar was three deep, crowded with a happy mix of dolled up babes and their coiffed boyfriends, and teams of men and woman staked out in their respective corners of the bar, glancing at each other, and then turning away, like the teenagers we all really are inside.

Snaking their way through the shyly flirting masses were fresh-faced waitresses in pigtails, and waiters in GO FISH tees, who all had the glow of kids on summer break. As they navigated the crowds, carrying oversized trays piled high with plastic baskets overstuffed with fries, slaw and lobster rolls, red and white gingham paper cones packed with assorted fried critters of the sea (clams, incredible calamari with a killer curry mayo), and massive three-tiered shellfish platters, they looked like carefree teenagers who might have their surf boards outside leaning against the shack in the sand, and parents somewhere a bike ride away, waiting for them to come home.

That’s the way it is at BLT Fish. The place has this air of sea-salted innocence to it. Indeed, once you enter, you are no longer a jaded New Yorker dining on a dark stretch of 17th Street. You are in your twenties, and just coming off the beach. The sun is hot and the sky is clear, and your shoulders are stinging slightly from too much sun and not eno ... [more, click below]

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Posted: January 16, 2005

Other restaurants in Flatiron :
+ Suenos   + Amuse-- Closed   + Dos Caminos   + Lucy-- Closed   + Gramercy Taver   + Veritas   + Fleur De Sel   + Bolo -- CLosed   + City Bakery   + Shake Shack   + Kalustyan's Cafe   + Devi   + BLT Fish   + Sugarcane   + BLT Prime   + Barca 18-- CLOSED   + Beppe   + Barbounia   + Boqueria   + Eleven Madison   + Lonesome Dove-- CLOSED   + Hill Country   + Olana   + Wildwood   + Primehouse   + Allegretti   + Bar Breton   + Aldea   + SD26 by Bao Ong   + ABC Kitchen   + Ciano   + The NoMad   

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