Next Wave Korean

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The New York Sun

At D’Or Ahn – named for owner Lannie Ahn and staffed by Rachel Yang, who cooked at Alain Ducasse and Per Se – there is a fancy breed of food that is Korean-inspired if not strictly Korean.

The able kitchen creates slick, interesting fare, influenced by Korean cuisine but using Western techniques and with a very loose interpretation of tradition.

The ambience here is simultaneously cozy and rarefied, thanks to a thick wooden door insulating the restaurant from the street. The painstakingly stylish design takes advantage of the narrow space, lining raw brick walls with futuristic chain-mail panels and secluding a back room behind a glassed-in wine rack. If any rough edges can be found, they’re in the service, which occasionally plods or bumbles, albeit charmingly.

The choice of a dozen or so small plates can comprise a varied meal or serve as appetizers to the scant list of five main-course options. The Korean presence on the menu shows itself more in flavors and ingredients than in recognizable, familiar dishes. There’s an improvisatory rendition of bibimbap ($8) in which the classic bowl of seasoned rice is reduced to a flat rectangle on a plate, topped with strips of mushroom and a yolky poached egg. The traditional malty chili sauce is painted onto the plate, under the food, in a thick stripe. Kimchee shows up in the form of pizza ($10): the housemade, mildly spicy cabbage pickle is layered with Romano cheese on a soft, flat crust with a decidedly down-market appeal. Noodles appear nowhere on the menu; rice is sparse, too, just making a guest appearance in a few miniature side-dish casseroles as well as in a zingy sushi roll ($12) of crisp pear and sesame leaves, wrapped with lush pink sea bream and topped with a dab of uni.

Toro “prosciutto” makes a pricey starter at $18 but justifies itself at the first bite. A gentle salt cure leaves the plump slices of fish lustrous, rimmed with pale fat, and superbly flavorful; it’s a real effort not to order another after polishing off the first plateful, and then another.

Main courses aren’t vastly larger than the smaller dishes and can be shared as well. There’s nothing noticeably Korean about “Korean style” bouillabaisse ($18), a rich orange pool filled with slippery spaetzle and containing a couple of grilled shrimps, a scallop, and a few mussels and clams. Sizewise it feels like a starter, despite its giant serving bowl; perhaps the kitchen still has a little calibrating to do. A rib-eye steak ($30) is far more satisfying: sliced, with a firm crust and hyper-succulent interior. It comes with a doughy mung-bean cake stuffed with savory oxtail ragout that underscores the steak’s beefiness.

Poached black cod ($24) is superior, too. A smallish filet of the fish, prized for its firm but delicate texture, is poached in a salty, faintly spiced soy solution that leaves it pearlescent and softer than usual. Alongside is a sweet-tart bread pudding flavored with mustard, a terrific invention and an excellent earthy complement to the ethereal fish.

The desserts (all $8) sound high-concept but fall back on basics: sweetness and richness. And they’re excellent, especially a pear upside-down cake that crumbles on the plate under its own butteriness, with a fiery-flavored, cheddar-colored butterscotch ice cream playing accompaniment. The cinnamony five-spice in a chocolate souffle is understated, and so is the sesame leaf that’s purportedly in the accompanying ice cream, but both have flavor enough already without Asian influences shoehorned in. A miniature gratin made with four kinds of apple and abundant cream likewise shows the delicious virtue of simplicity.

To drink, the restaurant offers 25 wines, plus six sakes, and a handful of whiskeys. The wine list ranges freely between New and Old Worlds, and includes such nice food partners as a lime-and-honey Selbach riesling ($9/35), a juicy sauvignon blanc from New Zealand’s Cairnbrae Vineyards ($12/$45 – mislisted as Australia’s “Cairnbreae”), and a dense Spanish Juan Gil 2003 ($10/$42). A juvenile Bonnes-Mares grand cru accommodates splurgers at $310. Sakes include the popular, dry Wakatake daiginjyo ($12/$90) as well as the beautifully fragrant and balanced Urakasumi ($96).

D’Or Ahn charges handsomely for its interesting vision; it’s hardly in competition with the city’s existing Korean restaurants, which can be deliciously traditional for a third the price. It might be nice to see a larger dose of tradition in the food here, which, apart from a few tip-offs, could pass for any creative miscellany. But the quality is inarguable, and perhaps, here and at the somewhat more classically minded Bann, we are seeing the first parts of a new nouveau-Korean wave. That would be a fine thing.

D’Or Ahn, 207 Tenth Ave., between 22nd and 23rd streets, 212-627-7777.


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