Girl Eats City: Whitehall (New York, NY)

Grilled Mackerel with Pickled Red Onion and Potato Salad

Manhattan is blessed with a Little India (actually we have two!), Little Italy, Chinatown, Koreatown, Little Ukraine, Little Brazil, and Little Senegal. And now, we seem to have something of a Little England here in the West Village -- colonial history of the entire eastern seaboard aside. Greenwich Avenue is already home to that punny old neighborhood standby for fish & chips and all things battered and fried, A Salt & Battery; the quintessentially English Tea and Sympathy; and a nominally British pub called Elephant & Castle (whose Dublin branch Justin and I stumbled into at 3 a.m., once). A few blocks away, Myers of Keswick purveys mincemeat pies, various pasties, bangers, digestive biscuits, Branston pickles and many other harder-to-find British specialties. And of course, there's the much lauded Spotted Pig, one of New York City's gastropub pioneers. Now, there's also Whitehall.

Whitehall is a new effort by Brian McGrory and chef Chris Rendell of The Highlands and Mary Queen of Scots. Clearly these two have some British Isles street cred. I can't comment on MQS other than to note that our friends speak highly of it, but Justin and I have been happy patrons of The Highlands since it first opened. (The braised lamb leg, which used to be offered on the Highlands dinner menu, was very good and the kitchen remains solid, if not stellar. And the bartenders mix one helluva Blood and Sand.)

Where McGrory and Rendell's previous efforts were Scottish and Scotch centric, Whitehall is English in theme and the libation of choice is gin. I wasn't able to sample more than a sip of Justin's gin cocktails, but the bartenders and wait staff clearly know this spirit well. Our friendly waiter happily answered our questions about infused gins and regional gins for a good five minutes.

The real draw for me, though, was the food. It is good. Very good. Not just good for a pub, but good by any NYC standard. Whitehall has only been open since November 2, so it's still on honeymoon, but if the kitchen remains this strong, Whitehall could easily become one of our neighborhood favorites (which currently include heavyweights like Recette, Annisa and Kin Shop).

A starter of spiced butternut squash salad with toasted almonds, lemon feta and watercress was surprisingly excellent. Fresh, juicy watercress played gorgeously off the crisp almonds and soft squash. And all of these components came together beautifully when united by a perfect amount of the spicy, acidic dressing. I haven't had such a perfect salad in a while.

Spiced Butternut Squash Salad

Another appetizer of pressed duck, crackling, frisee, homemade mustard was equally stellar. The pressed duck was essentially a generous and mind-blowingly delicious slice of terrine made of tender duck meat layered with greens that tasted to me like parsley and garlic scapes (though I doubt they were scapes, since those are not anywhere near being in season, now) and aspic. This came with a bit of crisp, duck skin crackling, fresh frisee, tiny little mild gherkins, toasted flatbread and a lovely, fresh, potent homemade mustard. The crackling was slightly burnt, but one would be hard pressed (hoho) to find a better duck terrine in the city.

Pressed Duck, Crackling, Frisee, Gherkins

Homemade Mustard, Toasted Flatbread

Our two mains were thoughtful and balanced, each with acidic elements to cut the richness. [Actually, come to think of it, all the dishes we tried included a refreshing hint of acid. Maybe it's a (chef-owner) Chris Rendell thing.] The rabbit and sage sausage, champ, cranberry chutney, pickled fennel and mustard gravy dish included fabulously juicy, tender sausage, served in a small crater in a small hill of champ (scallion mashed potatoes). On their own, the sausage and champ may have been too rich, but the pickled fennel and gravy offset the heavier components very nicely.

Rabbit and Sage Sausage

Grilled mackerel, pickled red onion and potato salad, butter lettuce, lemon and mustard dressing (pictured at the top of this post) came with two very generous pieces of very fresh, non-"fishy" mackerel. The skin of the fish had been gorgeously seared, even while the flesh was moist and not a smidgen overcooked. As perfectly cooked as it was, the fish, alone, may have been a bit bland and unidimensional were it not for the lovely, sweet and sour pickled onions, mustard dressing and tender butter lettuce. The few coins of boiled fingerling potatoes were great for nutritional balance, but for me, they didn't add that much to the flavor profile of the dish.

We were pretty full -- especially after Justin's two excellent gin cocktails -- but the dessert menu looked so enticing, we had to try something. Our pick, the bitter chocolate fondant, whiskey hot fudge and gingerbread ice cream, was the kind of oozy, gooey chocolate dessert that could either read as puerile or, if done right, as grown-up, but approachable. Whitehall's version is the latter. What I think was the fondant component seemed more akin to a chocolate souffle (when I read "fondant", I think of that smooth frosting used on wedding cakes), with a crisp shell dusted with powdered sugar and a rich, moist center. It didn't really need the whiskey hot fudge. The hot souffle was lovely with just the intensely gingerbready ice cream.

Chocolate Fondant

Final notes: The bread basket came with two mini brioche rolls -- one for each of us -- with sweet cream butter. It's hard to go wrong with warm rolls and soft, room temperature butter. Justin declared the rolls excellent.