Hip Concept
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Bar Tonno’s facade on sleepy Cleveland Place is so unassuming I walked past it twice. Then I noticed the 8-foot-high aquarium in the window sporting live sharks and stingrays. Given the name, which means “tuna” in Italian and “king” in Japanese, the predatory-piscatory theme seemed apropos.
Inside, the room is lit beautifully. Slender blue lights cast a cool glow over the ultra-white space, in which white brick and white subway tiles abound. Behind the 28-seat bar, which runs the length of this tableless establishment, an accordion-paneled wall sports hundreds of backlit bottles of wine suspended horizontally by their necks. The overall effect is stunning, and lifts the best elements from two sibling restaurants: The white zen of L’Impero, from which both chef Scott Conant and his partner, Chris Cannon, hail, and the levitating bottles of Bar Veloce, which Mr. Cannon owns with Fred Twomey, who’s also a partner here.
Speaking of those bottles, Mr. Cannon crafted Bar Tonno’s eclectic list of 100 wines, of which 14 are served by the glass. It’s worth mentioning that most of them are priced below $50, including esoteric beauties such as the 2003 Abbazia di Vovacella Kerner ($32), made with the unusual kerner grape, a fusion between the riesling and the red Trollinger grape that was created in Germany in the last century.
The overall concept of the restaurant, however, comes entirely from Mr. Conant, who says he was inspired to explore the little-known canon of Italian fish non-cookery at Il Clandestino, a raw seafood eatery in the village of Porto Novo in Italy’s Marche region. It was there, tasting chef Moreno Cedroni’s masterfully simple, refined plates of crudo, carefully combined with clean, distinctively Italian ingredients, that Mr. Conant decided to open Bar Tonno.
Except there’s a twist at Bar Tonno: The staff is almost entirely Japanese, led by chef de cuisine Kyohei Fukushi. Mr. Fukushi’s skill and technique with raw fish is grafted upon Mr. Conant’s predilection for Italian ingredients, merging two great cuisines into a pretty hip concept. Bar Tonno feels more like a sushi bar than an American restaurant, and that has everything to do with its counter-only seating, which, I might add, makes dining with more than one person a challenge conversationally.
The handwritten menu of a dozen or so items resembles a purchasing order at a seafood market, replete with the headers “item description” and “unit price.” The prices, ranging from $4 to $14, are quite fair, given the quality and craftsmanship of the dishes. If you think that raw fish is easier to prepare than an elaborate cooked recipe, consider that the naked fish have little to hide behind except the minimal ingredients used to dress them.
On my visit, silky, opaque diver scallops were tossed with lemon juice, Ligurian olive oil, and fresh chives, then sprinkled with crunchy sea salt ($10). They practically dissolved on my tongue as I savored their briny sweetness. Mediterranean Orata, a small, fleshy white sea bream, was served “Sicilian style,” with a splash of citrus and a heady dusting of pulverized pepper ($13). The effect was bittersweet, and surprisingly complementary to the delicate fish, given the power of the pepper. A slender, silver anchovy ($5) was butterflied and marinated sott’olio, under oil, a flavorful emulsion infused with earthy marinated eggplant to form a new riff on surf ‘n’ turf. I wasn’t as impressed with the saltier olive oil-cured sardine served with a bread salad panzanella made with artichokes and vegetables instead of the usual tomatoes; few things pair well with artichokes, and this was no exception ($5).
I loved the Kanpachi, a young yellowtail tuna ($14), dressed with a mouthwatering ginger and shallot oil. I wanted to love the ruby red tuna with sea-urchin emulsion, cucumber, and tomatoes, but the sauce totally overwhelmed the fish, which was unfortunate because separately each component would have been perfect, the tuna by itself and the sea-urchin emulsion tossed with pasta, as they do in my wife’s ancestral hometown of Terme Vigliatore in Sicily’s Messina province. Lobster susci, the Italian spelling for sushi ($13), is a brilliant lesson in balance, measuring sweet, raw crustacean against salty, caper-infused concentrated tomatoes. A similar comparison could be drawn between the mild, sweet-but-firm fluke ($12) paired with baby chanterelles, leeks, and seaweed.
A squid ink “shot,” served in a 50-milliliter Pyrex beaker with mussels and calamari ($4), was definitely “out there” conceptually, but our server explained that it was based on a recipe from Chef Conant’s mother’s repertoire. It exemplified Mr. Conant’s skill for interpreting classic Italian flavors in modern, ambitious concoctions.
In lieu of dessert we were offered complimentary shots of apple juice infused with fresh ginger. It was totally unusual, but perfectly in step with this restaurant.
Bar Tonno, 17 Cleveland Place (between Spring and Kenmare streets), 212-966-7334.