I finally got to eat at Red Rooster Harlem, Marcus Samuelsson's newest restaurant. I called around noon to secure a reservation for that same evening and was told the earliest time they had available was 10pm but that they did accept walk-ins. So at 7:45pm, ready to wait an hour or more, I met my friend Derek at the bar.The front bar area is separated from the dining room by a beautifully
back-lit bar that reached the ceiling. There is a DJ tucked away in the
corner spinning tunes from all eras but is there more for ambiance then
to create some sort of club feel and it works. Blink and you could even
miss him there in the corner of the room. I was the first to arrive and went straight to the hostess to leave my name and see how long the wait was gonna be. The hostess informed me that unless both people in the party were there she could not give me a wait time. So I left my name and waited for Derek at the bar. When he arrived, 5 minutes later, he let the hostess know that both people in the party were there. As I mentioned earlier, I was prepared to wait at least an hour for a table so I was surprised when only half an hour passed and we were sat at the communal Chef's table. A table situated in front of the open kitchen.
The first thing I noticed about the space is how jovial and electric the energy in the room is. Every person sitting at the bar was dressed up. Not dressed up the way one does when dining at a place like Le Cirque or Le Bernardin where it is required but dressed up like dining at Red Rooster was an affair. It felt like New York circa 1919 when Prohibition was still only a rumor and the Cotton Club was a place where you laughed in the face of those rumors. I was impressed that Mr Samuelsson was able to achieve that kind of feel. Not because I didn't think him capable but because no one has been able to. Where dinner is an event to be shared with the entire room. Where people say hello to one another from opposite sides of the dining room. Where Mr Samuelsson works the room stopping to say hi to every table seated in his dining room not cuddled in some corner booth with a pseudo-celebrity as I have seen too often.
The first thing I noticed about the space is how jovial and electric the energy in the room is. Every person sitting at the bar was dressed up. Not dressed up the way one does when dining at a place like Le Cirque or Le Bernardin where it is required but dressed up like dining at Red Rooster was an affair. It felt like New York circa 1919 when Prohibition was still only a rumor and the Cotton Club was a place where you laughed in the face of those rumors. I was impressed that Mr Samuelsson was able to achieve that kind of feel. Not because I didn't think him capable but because no one has been able to. Where dinner is an event to be shared with the entire room. Where people say hello to one another from opposite sides of the dining room. Where Mr Samuelsson works the room stopping to say hi to every table seated in his dining room not cuddled in some corner booth with a pseudo-celebrity as I have seen too often.
Derek and I sat at the end of our table with 2 couples next to us. Our server came to our table about 3 minutes after we sat down, not to introduce himself or ask if we wanted a cocktail but to immediately go into his very rehearsed diatribe about the 2 entrees meant to be shared. We heard him give the same exact spiel, verbatim, to the other diners at our table. Granted he was just doing his job but for a place so jovial it felt impersonal.
To start we ordered the dirty rice with shrimp, the jalapeno corn bread with honey butter and the crab cakes as per our servers suggestion. All 3 items came out about 5 minutes after ordering them. The dirty rice and shrimp was served in a small skillet which should have been piping hot, but was lukewarm when tasted, in fact all of our food was served tepid. The crab cakes were good but had little too much going on. The plate came with 2 smallish crab cakes with a spiced mayo on the plate and were topped with grapefruit sections, arugula and pomegranate seeds. For our entrees we had the fried yard bird with mashed potatoes and gravy and the meatballs with lingonberries and dill stewed potatoes. As I mentioned before all of the flavor was there it was just served at the wrong temperature. My meatballs could have been amazing, you can't go wrong ordering a traditional Swedish dish at a place with a Swedish chef I just wish it was served hot. The dessert we had isn't even worth mentioning because I found it to be lackluster. We shared the chocolate tart with red velvet ice cream and peanut brittle. Boring, not sweet enough and not memorable.
All in all the atmosphere is definitely something worth going back for and I would eat here again too and just hope the food was hot this time.
To start we ordered the dirty rice with shrimp, the jalapeno corn bread with honey butter and the crab cakes as per our servers suggestion. All 3 items came out about 5 minutes after ordering them. The dirty rice and shrimp was served in a small skillet which should have been piping hot, but was lukewarm when tasted, in fact all of our food was served tepid. The crab cakes were good but had little too much going on. The plate came with 2 smallish crab cakes with a spiced mayo on the plate and were topped with grapefruit sections, arugula and pomegranate seeds. For our entrees we had the fried yard bird with mashed potatoes and gravy and the meatballs with lingonberries and dill stewed potatoes. As I mentioned before all of the flavor was there it was just served at the wrong temperature. My meatballs could have been amazing, you can't go wrong ordering a traditional Swedish dish at a place with a Swedish chef I just wish it was served hot. The dessert we had isn't even worth mentioning because I found it to be lackluster. We shared the chocolate tart with red velvet ice cream and peanut brittle. Boring, not sweet enough and not memorable.
All in all the atmosphere is definitely something worth going back for and I would eat here again too and just hope the food was hot this time.
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