http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/10/dining/restaurant-review-barchetta-in-chelsea.html 2014-09-15 23:22:34 Restaurant Review: Barchetta in Chelsea Barchetta in Chelsea could turn out to be the seafood restaurant that downtown needs. === You can count on one hand the chefs in New York who serve bluefish. Narrow the list to those with the confidence to serve it raw, and you’re probably down to one finger and one name: Dave Pasternack. The Of course I had to have it when I spotted it under the crudo section of the In 14 years as the chef at Inconsistency in a seafood restaurant presents a quandary. Great ones are rare enough that seafood lovers will feel a strong tug to check out I knew I was in the hands of one of those chefs on my first and second meals at Barchetta. Monkfish liver was treated like foie gras, darkly seared on the outside but as wobbly as pudding within. On the side were figs roasted into a jam-jar sweetness. The idea was both obvious and inspired. The crudi were just the way I remembered them from Esca. Each fish was carved with a sushi chef’s sensitivity to fish anatomy, then given only as much added flavor as it could handle. To bring out the minerality and sweetness of pink snapper, there were plum-red grains of sea salt blended with Long Island merlot. Subtle, supple halibut belly was splashed with sunflower oil that was so mild it almost wasn’t there. Golden spotted bass, slightly more forceful, was given a light application of olive oil and lemon, while bluefish got a similar treatment but in the stronger dose that it needed. Main courses like wonderfully rich grilled kingfish steak, a roasted whole black sea bass and a bread-crumb-crusted hunk of pumpkin swordfish were pulled from the heat precisely at the moment their thickest sections had firmed, before they had a chance to seize up into a tough fist that would chase away their sweet oceanic juices. On the night when the kitchen seemed to fall behind the beat, though, the skin on a grilled Spanish mackerel was too severely charred and the flesh had been heated a few degrees beyond the ideal. Toasted cracked hazelnuts and orange sections helped make up for it, and the dish wouldn’t have raised eyebrows in most other restaurants, but it lacked the finesse that I knew by then Barchetta is capable of. A handsome, thick cut of cobia had been left on the grill until it had the first signs of squeaky overdoneness and the grate had burned the bread-crumb coating. Raw blackfish dotted with pine-bud syrup was tougher than the crudi had been on other nights. Some greens in a relentlessly dull salad were showing their age. A bowl of pasta with mullet bottarga was swimming in olive oil that took the crunch right out of the toasted bread crumbs. A few excellent dishes surfaced from the murk, like the gently fried spearing and the appetizer of velvety marinated herring with raisins and cauliflower. The evening’s most memorable dish was a grilled lamb porterhouse, though, which says less about the lamb than about the kitchen’s struggles landing its catch. When dinner is less than transfixing, you have time to notice how incoherent Barchetta’s dining room is. Gone are the nightclub intimacy of On good nights, you’re more likely to notice how thoughtful the service is. Setting the tone is the outstanding rosemary focaccia that shows up while you’re still scanning the menu. Assistance with the wine list, about half Italian and priced to sell, is quick to arrive, too, and unusually perceptive. The general manager and wine director, George Hock, always seemed to know what my table wanted, translating a few vague adjectives and a not-so-vague price limit into a bottle that was just what we were looking for and then some. At a fairly casual restaurant like Barchetta, wine service of this caliber is a gift. The total check, of course, is no gift, but it is very fair for fish at a place that never stoops to flabby farmed salmon. Barchetta could still turn out to be the seafood restaurant that downtown needs. If a nautical flag were flying over Barchetta’s door on West 23rd Street, it would be the one that means “Proceed, but exercise caution.”