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“Merkato 55”

Occasion:	Cuisine:	Area:	Cost:	Rating:
Night Out	New American	MeatPacking	Moderate	Great

now it’s his turn to bring us up to speed on the cuisine of his birthplace. The menu at Merkato 55 is the result of months of travel and research in connection with Samuelsson’s recent cookbook, The Soul of a New Cuisine: A Discovery of the Foods and Flavors of Africa. His restaurant—which takes its name from the largest market of African foods in Ethiopia—harnesses the lessons of that journey and channels them into a pan-African menu that celebrates the vibrancy and diversity of the culture and foods of the African continent, from Cape Town to Cairo and everywhere in between.

Samuelsson accomplishes this first with the arresting design of the duplex space, which is credited to Dutch architect Menno Schmitz. There are maps of Africa hand-painted on the facing wall as you enter, and you’ll find African proverbs etched into ebony table tops, poetry written in wrought iron script and formed into banquette dividers, photos of the Merkato (taken by Samuelsson’s friend Andrew Chapman) blown up into mural-sized panels that splash color onto walls, windows hung with floor to ceiling linen curtains etched faces of the continent, and chairs upholstered in different Kiln patterns.

Your African immersion continues with a list of spirited cocktails named for African dances like the Yabara—Bacardi 8 and Lillet Rouge with hibiscus, mango tea, and lime named for the West African dance of welcome, and the Agbekor ($14), named for the Warrior Dance of the Foh and Ewe people. It combines Grey Goose L’Citron and Drambuie with chilies, saffron, and grapefruit, for a drink that’s balanced so it’s as sweet and tart as it is spicy. When I visited last week with a big group of my food-writing students, we paired a collection of these dance-inspired cocktails with a few selections from the Kidogo Bar, which is a sort of African smorgasbord (Kidogo is Swahili for small plates).

We started with ping pong sized falafel balls ($7) dunked in bowls of creamy lemony hummus, a stellar beef tartar topped with feta spiced up and warmed slightly with a hot chile butter ($11), and a bread basket ($6) stocked with Benne, Za’atar, and Meali—seeded and spice-rubbed house-baked breads, and hunks of moist and peppery cornbread. The breads were wonderful on their own, but they were not left that way. They were slathered with apricot blatjang ($4, a ... [more, click below]

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Posted: March 2, 2008

Other restaurants in MeatPacking :
+ Paradou   + Florent   + One   + Bivio   + Spice Market   + Ono   + 5 Ninth   + Fatty Crab   + Del Posto   + Morimoto   + Los Dados   + 5 Ninth   + Merkato 55   + Scarpetta   + The John Dory   + The Standard Grill   + Bill's Bar & Burger   

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