Allen & Delancey exhibits many characteristics common to the neighborhood, with one twist. The rooms are windowless and dimly lit, yes, and there is an elegant little bar up front, where you can sit nursing your cinnamon pisco sour by candlelight. A thick curtain of red velvet separates the two little dining rooms, which are appointed with old oil paintings and shelves of books. But the menu is now in the hands of up-and-coming chef and pork impresario Ryan Skeen who says his style here is “a little more intimate, a little more refined” than what he was doing at Irving Mill.
On Saturday Nov 7th I went out to dinner at Allen & Delancy with friends from out of town. The service was horrible! We waited 40 minutes for our appetizers and they just kept bringing us bread and rolls. Dinner didn't come for another 45 minutes and the food was cold. What gives? This is NOT a cheap restaurant. I would NOT go again.
Ryan Skeen does a far better job here than at Resto, which was about the most overrated restaurant of its time. Everything I had was excellent, and creative (in a good way), to boot: lamb belly starter, less unctuous than its pork brethren, a succulent rabbit sugo and pappardelli main course, and a fab reinvention of that old warhorse creme brulee: layered dark chocolate, the creme, topped with stewed black mission figs.
The problem here isn't the food, but the menu, which is so small it makes a return visit all but impossible. Plus, the room is cramped, uncomfortable, and overloud, due to the high percentage of large tables. Rule of thumb: the larger the party, the louder it is.
How do you spell unromantic?