- Critics’ Pick
-
La Fonda del Sol
- Spanish/Tapas $24-$34
-
200 Park Ave.
New York, NY 10166 - Neighborhood: Midtown East
- Phone: 212-867-6767
The original La Fonda del Sol served an array of stoutly reimagined Pan-Latino favorites, like stuffed Argentine beef and a delicate midtown version of lechoncito asada (suckling pig on a spit). The food at the new restaurant is the work of Josh DeChellis, a talented culinary chameleon who has cooked everything during the course of his commercially spotty New York career, from high-end seafood (Union Pacific) to Italian (Jovia) to excellent Japanese fusion (Sumile). DeChellis is originally from Colombia, and it turns out he’s as adept at turning out creative tapas facsimiles as he is at everything else. We liked the sweet short ribs braised in Tempranillo wine, the chewy, salty slices of Serrano ham, and the authentically crunchy wedges of toast called tomàquet, spread with a thin, rich film of crushed tomatoes. There are properly crumbly, cinnamon-flavored beef empanadas, too, croquettes stuffed with veal terrine, and mini Jean Georges–style tuna tacos filled with sashimi-grade tuna belly and a hint of pickled jalapeño.
More of these tapas dishes are available in the café area than in the dining room, where the appetizer-entrée rhythm of the meal follows a more predictable, prosaic path. The dimly lit room has all the default trappings of other standard upscale restaurants around midtown, including scraggly twig arrangements, closet-size bathrooms, and a glittering, exhibitionist steel-and-glass wine rack. The first appetizers I sampled included small, even meager shreds of raw kampachi with pickled pineapples and jícama, and a tasty though slightly chewy rendition of braised pork cheeks leavened with fat judiones beans and studded with bits of spicy sausage. The jumbo prawns à la plancha weren’t worth their $16 sticker price, so if you want a traditional Spanish meal, order the soft white calamari (which is also cooked à la plancha and drizzled with lemon), followed by a platter of the dense, salty jamón de Bellota, which comes from the famous acorn-fed “black-footed” hogs of old Iberia and until last year was illegal to import into America.
Iberian-food traditionalists won’t find much to get excited about among the entrées at La Fonda del Sol, however. Many of the dishes are standard expense-account favorites (steak, salmon, chicken, etc.), albeit gussied up by DeChellis in a generally successful attempt to appear enticing and new. The Spanish snobs at my table gave thumbs up to the loin of lamb (crusted in pumpkin seeds and served with a Tellicherry pepper), and to the salmon, which is rolled in chile pepper and set on a pile of softly cooked carrots and salsify. Those two midtown stalwarts, steak and chicken, are dependable, particularly the former, which you can get cut for two from a giant beef rib or as a nicely charred New York strip. But the cod (with baby clams and green parsley sauce) was sludgy and over-salted, and my friend the Pig Fiend, who’d traveled up from the South especially for this meal, gave two thumbs down to the chef’s minimalist interpretation of suckling pig, which, in his estimation, lacked the porky, crackly pleasures of the real thing.
Feature Links
- The All New Issue: A Dozen Additions to the City's Landscape (18/01/09)
- Adam Platt's Where to Eat 2010 (03/01/10)
-
Hours
Dining room: Mon-Fri, 11:30am-3pm and 5pm-10pm Sat, 5pm-9pm Sun, closed<br>Lounge: Mon-Fri, 1130-1030 sat 1130-10 sun closed
-
Prices
$24-$34
-
Payment
American Express MasterCard Visa
-
Special Features
Design Standout Bar Scene Dine at the Bar Lunch Teen Appeal Notable Chef Good for Groups Business Lunch Hot Spot
-
Alcohol
Full Bar
-
Reservations
Accepted/Not Necessary