Sometimes it takes a while to find your right place in life. Whether it’s a relationship, a job, or a place to call home, it can take a while ‘til you get it right. It’s rare that the first try fits just right. I mean how many relationships do you have to go through to get to that one that works? How many jobs have you had before you’ve found one that challenges and inspires? How many cities do you have to live in until you’ve found one that feels like home? I know. A lot. And working it all out can take time. And that’s a good thing in some ways. I mean getting all the kinks out can be a really important part of life, too. You get to know yourself along the way and hopefully, day after day of putting one foot in front of the other, of taking turns you hope will be the right ones, and ending relationships you know are the wrongs ones, you make it to a place where something’s different. You find a job that stretches your creativity, you find a partner who makes you a better person than you were without them, you find four walls in a city that feel like home. You find yourself in some ways, too. And it’s great when you get there, and I feel like this professional journey is one that chef Amanda Freitag has now completed.

Her early days found her honing her skills with Diana Forely at Verbena. From there, she found impressive gigs as the sous chef at ‘Cesca, the chef at Sette Enoteca e Cucina, and most recently at Gusto. She did fine food at ‘Cesca, but it was Tom Valenti’s menu that she was chasing. She got warm reviews at Gusto, but she was batting in the shadow of Jodi Williams. And at all of these restaurants, she was cooking through an Italian lens and that didn’t really allow her the room to explore what she might do if given a more wide-open canvas. That is until Jimmy Bradley snatched her up to be the chef at The Harrison, his seasonal American restaurant in Tribeca. Here the food feels genuinely her own. It grasps at Mediterranean flavors and favors Italian simplicity. It leans rustic rather than overly refined. It reads bold and gutsy. And at its core it’s a menu that feels like it captures the spirit of a chef who has come home to herself.  

Jamie, Susie, Adrienne and I had dinner at The Harrison, which has a breezy New England-in-the-city vibe and still possesses that warm, confident hospitality that marks the Jimmy Bradley model, last week to celebrate my friend Susie’s birthday and her return to New York City after two years living in Rome. It was a heartwarming reunion that we kicked off with a bottle of rose and slew of appetizers from Amanda’s menu including possibly the best beet salad of my life. Ruby colored beets are barely cooked and then shaved into julienne slices like a crunchy cole slaw, and tossed with pistachios and tangy robiolina cheese ($11) in a bright acidic vinaigrette. The flavors were vivid, the texture was terrific, and the salad was exceptional, as much for its creativity as its taste.

Next came an excellent octopus ($14)—charred and smoky yet tender enough for a suckling newborn, rubbed with olive oil, and seasoned with feta cheese, and fresh mint. It’s tastes like Greece has arrived on Greenwich Street. Susie, who has been living on a steady diet of proscuitto, mozzarella and fresh pasta for years now (poor thing) was going bananas over the food, her eyes wide and thrilled at the sight of a octopus and feta. She was practically in tears. It was hilarious.

Surprisingly, Susie didn’t get up from the table when we ordered the lobster and crawfish raviolini ($16), perhaps because they were more a dish born from New Orleans than Rome. Amanda fills round little pillows of pasta dough with a crawfish and lobster and serves them in a rich brick red Creole butter that’s hot and spicy and tastes like something you might find at a stall during Jazz Fest. For those of you who have been to Jazz Fest, this dish could rival the crawfish sack and the crawfish bread. It’s good. Amanda, get ready for the Fest!

The only mild disappointment was an order of Parmesan fritters ($10), ping pong ball-sized fry babies filled with black forest ham and smoky mozzarella dusted with Parmesan cheese and herbs. While the fritters had a nice kick—there must be some chile flake in that recipe—and my friend Adrienne gobbled them up, they were a bit dense for me, just not as gooey and cheesy as I’d have liked. Her radish salad ($11), sort of like a cold version of bagna cauda with an anchovy vinaigrette that could have been a bit more bracing than it was. I like an anchovy vinaigrette that’s salty and briny and makes my mouth water and this one was, I am sad to say, a bit wimpy. The concept is right on, it just needs a bit more oily fish, please.

Her menu offers a nice selection of entrees that should please everyone in your group given choices like Heirloom roast chicken with roasted lemon, garlic, potato puree ($25), NY strip steak with bone marrow butter crust and Tuscan kale ($36), and American red snapper ($26) with graffiti eggplant, celery, tomato, and fregola.

We started with the tilefish, a plump and moist white fish that reminded me of a cross between Halibut and Monkfish, that’s served with summer’s first corn in a soft herb and green onion sauce. While the fish was lovely, it was sleepy compared to the lamb, which, like the beet salad, was possibly the best lamb I’ve ever had. Amanda serves it “English Cut,” which turns the lamb ($31) into a T-bone steak and then rubs it with olive oil, garlic and rosemary and grills it so it’s tastes like a juicy meaty steak but one made of lamb. The meat was exquisite, and if you’re a lamb person you’d be best served by heading over to The Harrison post haste. My only quibble with this dish is that it’s plated with some green and yellow baby carrots, and I feel like it was not a complete meal. She could do a lamb frites and throw in a side of her (completely lily gilding and, sorry I know this is heresy, unnecessary) duck fat fries ($8, wildly crunchy) or perhaps do a tabouleh, quinoa or cous cous side? To me, the plate felt incomplete.

This was not the case with the pork chop ($24), a gorgeous oversized chop so moist it must have been brined or soaked in milk, and served on a generous bed of creamy white coco beans seasoned with thyme and stewed with shreds of escarole and topped with a shower of crispy pancetta for a welcome layer of texture and smokiness. It’s brilliant.

Desserts by pastry chef Colleen Grapes include a chocolate pretzel tart which could use more salty pretzel ($8), an elegant panna cotta made from tart and creamy Greek yogurt drizzled with Acacia honey and topped with a scoop of celery sorbet ($8) that was very good, and a strawberry lemon tart ($9) which was my favorite, topped with a little soft blaze of heat from pink peppercorns hidden inside fluff of delicate meringue. It’s a sneaky little dessert. I loved it for that.

After dinner, for the first time in two years, Susie took a taxi back to her own apartment, not to a hotel or to my place or Jamie’s to crash on the couch. I know she was happy about this; she’s been aching to get back to New York for a while. But I might have been happier. I’ve really missed having her nearby. I guess at the end of the day, there’s really nothing like coming home—to your friends, to your love, and to yourself.  

The Harrison is located at 355 Greenwich Street, 212-274-9310.

Andrea Strong