I’m a sucker for marketing, so when I noticed that Absinthe, a small plates restaurant on First Avenue just south of Seventh Street listed “Sliders of Elegance” on its menu, I was going to find my way inside sooner or later. Think of them as iPatties, or Crystal Pepsi Burgers. Alas, they won’t be called “Sliders of Elegance” for much longer—no one else liked the name but me. So much for marketing. That’s not the only thing that will be renamed; the moniker of the whole restaurant will change soon, too. “Too many Absinthes,” the owner told me, “so we’re going to change the name to La Boheme”. As long as they don’t call it Rent, they should be fine.
The restaurant, whatever the name, is still in the early stages of sorting things out. Conceptually, it’s great. They are on target for the times and neighborhood: small plates, low prices, and some of the least expensive glasses and bottles of wine I’ve ever encountered in Manhattan. Dishes runs from $6 to $14, depending on what you order; goat cheese stuffed with brie is cheaper than the grilled quail, of course.
I tried three plates and a dessert, enough for a deuce. It’s the wrong season for corn, but the raviolo with corn and ricotta was suitably spring-like, sauced with a pink tomato sauce and topped with shaved parmesan.
Two seared sea scallops are paired with fried cauliflower and a horseradish mayonnaise; the scallops were fat and juicy, but a bit tougher than I’d like.
My coveted “Sliders of Elegance” were two small patties, one made with lamb and garnished with red onion compote, the other with Kobe beef and a shaved Parmesan. The sweetbread slider on the menu was swapped for the Kobe. The owner said he pulled the sweetbread from the menu because “it wasn’t very good”. Very well, then.
So are these truly sliders of elegance? I confess, I had no desire to do soft-shoe after I ate them, and I still don’t own a tux. To me, elegant implies staid, and that was the case here: great ingredients with a so-so execution. At least amaretto bread pudding was a winning note to end on, dense and drizzled with crème anglaise.
Then there’s the wine list, which features about 100 varieties. The price for bottles here is stunningly low; many bottles are in the mid-to-low twenties. In a way, it makes the spotty quality of the dishes coming out of the kitchen that much more forgivable. Who cares about a dud or two at that kind of price point? Besides, the quality will up as they sort out some of those misses themselves--no matter what they are named.
