Alder (October 2013) - Closed August 2015

Living 200 miles from New York City means that trips to Manhattan generally result in an overnight stay. Based on previous experience cheap hotels in the city can be pretty grim so any stay can get expensive very quickly. As a result, trips to New York are only occasional despite its relative closeness. I’d thought my restaurant-based trip in May was going to be the only one this year.

But another kid has reached the point where they’re considering where to go for university. And they’re basing their choice on minimising costs by going to state universities. This has the perk that college visits include campuses that are in touching distance of Manhattan so the evenings on those trips can be used trying out new eating places.

Week 1 was a visit to SUNY Purchase, north of the city and we used the excuse to head into the city for a long weekend. The casual approach of Alder was a highlight for me in May so it seemed an ideal candidate to take a teenager to. The chance to try innovative dishes that seemed “familiar” but reveal more as you eat them was a good fit for an evening out.

One slight change since May is that Alder now accepts limited reservations due to Wylie Dufresne’s recognition that a no reservation policy only works if you’re flavour of the month. It was noticeable on this visit that although the room was dimly lit the tables round the perimeter of the room had a well set light above them so the food was well presented.

Consistent with my first visit, chopped pickled vegetables were brought to the table. Onion and cauliflower with chilli and garlic were the standout ingredients and the blend was every bit as tasty as I remember although it might be good if Alder also provided crackers or bread to spread it on.  Our first order dish to arrive was the dish of pigs in a blanket with Japanese mustard and sweet chilli sauce. These are made by running a Pepperidge Farm hot dog bun through a pasta machine then wrapping it round Chinese sausage and deep frying it. These are tasty bites benefitting hugely from the sauces and this was dish where my son outmuscled me to grab more of them. 

Cured Spanish mackerel with hazelnut Massaman purée, grape salad and lovage was my starter of choice. Spirals of tender Spanish mackerel were superb with their oily but not overly strong mackerel flavour. The hazelnut Massaman added a nice smoky touch to compliment the fish with the grapes kicking in a juicy freshness. 

Next up was the dish we added as an afterthought but turned out to be my personal highlight and possibly the best dish of the weekend. My mental image of French Soup Onion rings was of rings that had a liquid centre akin to a soup dumpling. The Alder version was more intriguing and more satisfying for it. The rings themselves were fairly conventional with gloriously juicy onion in a crisp battered shell. This was topped with melted Gruyere holding the rings together. The stock of the French soup was represented by a thickened beef gravy underneath the rings that had a wonderful bovine kick that sent everything up a notch. For me, this was the perfect snack food. Clever but so, so satisfying.

My son’s chosen main was fish and chips with a sweet pea and ramp tartare sauce. This dish used dogfish as the main ingredient and it was full of flavour. The small deep-fried potato cubes were lovely too. But the highlights were in unexpected places. The tartare sauce was excellent, striking a chord with a kid who wouldn’t go near normal tartare sauce and the tart vinegar powder was awesome. I was sampling it long after the rest of the dish had gone.

I chose to go with beef tongue, smoked yucca, pickled cippiolini and chimichurri dashi. I was leaning towards this because I haven’t eaten tongue for years and I’m always up for retrying things. The group of three people sharing our table rated it really highly so peer pressure kicked in and I went for it. I didn’t regret the choice at all. The slivers of tongue were tender with a subtly rich flavour and the pickled onions were the perfect accompaniment. The surprise of the dish was the smoked yucca cake underpinning the meat that gave a starchy counterbalance to the meat. With the savoury broth rounding things out, I enjoyed this a lot.

As on my earlier visit the limited dessert menu didn’t appeal. My son chose to go for the root beer pudding with smoked cashews. His take was that he loved the light frothiness of the main pudding and the combination of cashew and root beer candies adding a level of crunch. I had a taste and hated – not because there was anything wrong with it but the intense root beer flavour was something I couldn’t deal with.

After two visits Alder is right up there amongst my favourite New York places. I’ve seen mixed reviews but the food has struck a chord with me and on this visit it worked for my son too. Reserving a table meant we ended up sharing a bigger table between two parties but this worked out well because we ended up comparing notes on what we were trying. If I hadn’t seen the other group eating the onion rings then I would probably have ignored them on the menu.

And it comes back to the onion rings. I’d never expected to spend a weekend in Manhattan and come home raving about onion rings above everything else but that is exactly what happened. If you don’t feel like a full meal order a couple of cocktails and the onion rings and you’ll be doing well.

Overall Rating – 4/5