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“The Dutch”

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

To name a restaurant "The Dutch," is to assume the risk of explaining your concept again and again. I imagine the reservationists are plagued with questions like, "What's with the name?" "Who's the genius who thought of that one?" "Are you a Dutch restaurant?" "Do you only allow people to go Dutch?" She or he will reply, in a very kind manner, while breathing deeply and counting to ten, "The Dutch is an American Restaurant, Bar and Oyster Room inspired by local cafés, country inns, corner taverns, neighborhood bistros, seaside shacks, roadside joints, old school dining halls and the same mix of cultural influences that make New York City great."

Let me tell you what The Dutch means to me: utterly fantastic food, the kind that you want to eat with friends, but that you'd be just as happy to devour in solitary enjoyment; the kind that will stick to your fingers, and more probably your waistline; the kind that will have you marveling, after all you've eaten in your life of eating, at how it's possible for food to be this thrilling; the kind that will sneak into your memory and show up later in the week, curling itself lovingly around your mind until you can no longer refuse its call. Don't bother resisting. You will go back. Again and again. The frequency of your visits will have you considering the economic sense of a pied-a-terre on Sullivan Street. Seriously.

You will go back even though the room is so uncomfortably hot that the backs of your legs will feel as though they may melt into the banquettes (perhaps an effective new cellulite treatment?), even though your throat will ache from screaming over the deafening roar of the leggy suntanned crowd at the bar and the red-faced, happy-go-lucky masses (all in matching straw fedoras, of course), poured into their tightly-spaced tables; even though your shirt, wet from hours in this sauna-as-restaurant, has now turned from dry and pressed to wrinkled and soggy. If this be the price of eating at the Dutch, I am prepared to pay.  

Of the delirious treats in store for you at The Dutch, which occupies the space that for decades was The Cub Room, are Chef Andrew Carmellini's tidy little oyster sandwiches. Think mini Po boys: Parker House rolls stuffed with fat fried oysters, as crispy-crunchy on the outside as they are briny-juicy on the in. At $5 a pop, these are by far one of the best cheap ea ... [more, click below]

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Posted: July 18, 2011

Other restaurants in Soho :
+ Balthazar   + Savoy   + Blue Ribbon   + Lupa   + Public   + Kittichai   + Lure Fishbar   + Barmarche   + Porcupine-- CLOSED   + Ama   + La Esquina   + Jerry's- Closed Now   + The Tasting Room   + Papatzul   + Shorty's.32   + The Monday Room   + Ed's Lobster Bar   + Aurora   + Provence   + Tailor   + Hundred Acres   + Delicatessen, By Guest Reviewer Julie Besonen   + The Mott   + The Dutch   + Cherrywood, by Guest Reviewer Dara Pollak   

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