Gored by Islero
It’s hard to keep up with the slew of Spanish restaurants in New York City, all vying to replace those tired “paella and sangría” menus with clever tapas and high-end ingredients like jamón ibérico. But the new formula doesn’t guarantee a good dinner. If you’ve been wondering what the fuss is about, Islero isn’t the place to find out (or at least not yet).
The restaurant’s menu suggests a longing intimacy with Spain, with a story about how Islero was the bull that killed the mythical Manolete back in the 1940s. But there is something about how the bullfighter’s name is misspelled in bold print as a French-looking “Manolette” that makes you wonder just how heartfelt the nostalgia is.
We moved twice around the still-empty dining room (it was early) before we settled in. We asked for a change when we couldn’t scoot the corner perch (everything’s bar height) within striking distance of our mouths. The second move fullfilled some mysterious priorities known only to the management.
Oh well, a klutzy beginning on a first date is to be expected; the place just opened. And Jessica Floyd is cooking here — they say she cooked at DB bistro, so we waited to feel the chemistry. My uncle asked the bartender what kind of aperitif she would suggest, and she missed her chance to sell us the Islero cocktails with a lame, “I’m really not good at making suggestions.” We went for a bottle of Jumilla (Las Gravas 2003), good, and though overpriced at $58, more affordable than most wines on the list (there are about a dozen Spanish reds; the dozen or so “New World” ones includes Opus One).
Our round of tapas started with croquetas of golf-ball size and hard-crustedness, tasting vaguely of gingerbread, and plain but acceptable albóndigas. The creamed spinach would have been a winner as a side at a steakhouse, but made for such a runny tapa that sharing seemed like double dipping. The mac ‘n’ cheese was an admirable replica of that high-end box kind where the cheese packet is white instead of orange; why not do something chewy, crusty and tangy with this vehicle for manchego cheese and “black hog ham?” Pork belly is on every menu in the city right now, but don’t bother with it here: the promised crispness doesn’t pan out, and the caramelized nut garnish got stuck in our teeth. The menu includes both Spanish and “latin” items, maybe that’s intriguing, but crunchy okra combined with seaweed salad and lotus root just struck us as a bad idea.
We set out to stick to tapas, but seeing as how the nibbling wasn’t going so well, we ordered the hangar steak, two tasty roll-ups come with a crispy chickpea garnish that was one of the best elements of our meal so far. In spite of the salty implications of its Spanish name on the menu, the bacalao is fresh, not salt-cured, deliciously sauced with fennel and olive oil. The dish was good — or could’ve been good — but it came to the table barely lukewarm.
We weren’t primed to be tempted by dessert, but pumpkin churros with hot cocoa sounded like it might be a good experiment. Reading on, though, about the peanut butter spoons with marshmallows, we found ourselves asking “why?” instead of “why not?” and ordered the check instead.