Socarrat Takes a Secure Attitude Toward Tapas

The popularity of tapas has led to an escalation of sorts, with “pan-Asian tapas” and the like on the one hand, and ever more strenuously authentic Spanish tapas on the other hand. To judge by the press releases, New York chefs are endlessly, tirelessly junketing to the farthest reaches of Andalusia to learn the real, truest way of stewing a cuttlefish in its own ink, or olive-oiling a white anchovy.Socarrat, on West 19th Street, feels like a pleasant step off the more-authentic-than-thou merry-go-round of tapas. Not that it’s lacking in Spanishness — every bite is one you might take in Barcelona — but it lacks the frantically aspirational feeling one gets at, say, nearby Boqueria, where the implication of the well-researched menu is that if you don’t like a particular dish, it’s your own fault for having a parochial palate. Nothing at the restaurant is startling or gimmicky: Every dish is straightforward and calculated to please rather than to impress.A vegetable soup ($9) comes piled high in its bowl with soft shreds of tomato and pretty al dente green fava beans, asparagus spears, sliced pea pods, and sweet corn, each freshly doing what it does best, and all brought together in vibrant harmony by salty folds of Serrano ham. A monochromatic salad ($8) of toothsome white beans and large, meaty flakes of salt cod likewise has the pure taste of its ingredients and the oil that dresses them, uncomplicated and effective.A plain plate of fried, breaded artichoke chunks ($9) comes with just a lemon wedge, and the crisp and tender morsels hardly even need that. The salty, deep-gold coating and the earthiness of the vegetable combine to exert a strange power that kept me ordering more and more of them.Rarely does a dish at Socarrat contain more than the essential ingredients. The brandada ($8), piping hot potatoes and salt cod beaten together with olive oil and then broiled until the top is faintly browned, could scarcely be simpler, or more satisfying. The same goes for a platter of roasted vegetables ($9), thin scallions, leeks, and juicy, bitter endive wedges, charred and floppy and delicious on their own or with a dollop of rich red pepper-and-almond romesco sauce.After a couple of pages of these excellent tapas, the menu gets to the real heart of Socarrat: the paellas. They even bleed into the starters — one evening, the croquettes of the day ($8) were golden-fried balls filled with saffrony, seafood-studded rice, bite-size paella nuggets.Paellas proper, at the restaurant, must be ordered to share by two people at minimum. A blackened pan heaping with the rice (how high the heap depends on how widely the dish is to be shared) is placed at nose level, on a stand in the middle of the table. There are a few choices, offering different combinations of meats, fishes, and vegetables. The Valenciana ($22 a person) swirls escargots and bony hunks of pork rib into the beautifully plump rice, along with just a few deliciously sweet pieces of rabbit and asparagus; a paella de carne ($23 a person) skips the rabbit but replaces it with bites of chorizo, duck, pork, and chicken, of which the last is dryish, but the rest are very good.There’s one ($23) with all sorts of sea life — cuttlefish, clams, scallops — and a garden paella ($21) of tomatoes, artichokes, peas, and the like. The restaurant’s name refers to the semi-scorched bottommost rice in the pan, which takes on a nutty, caramelized crispness. If you don’t appear to be scraping your socarrat assiduously enough, the hovering host will insist on doing the job for you, harvesting the deep-brown crusts from your almost-empty pan.Wine, at present, is on a bring-your-own basis, which suits the homier style of the restaurant and its food. The loud crowds that fill the place at peak hours detract from the comfort of the little room, but the worst of them may soon proceed to a newer, more gimmicky place, leaving Socarrat free for everyday enjoyment.Socarrat (259 W. 19th St., between Seventh and Eighth avenues, 212-462-1000).

Socarrat Takes a Secure Attitude Toward Tapas

Socarrat Takes a Secure Attitude Toward Tapas

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