Tibi Eats | Lower Manhattan
Ernesto's, Wayla, & Blue Ribbon Sushi
**This is a repost from Gabe’s contribution to The Creative Pragmatist substack**
This week, and for the foreseeable future, we take a bit of a diversion from the weekly Instagram story post to dive a bit deeper into the inspiration behind the restaurant choices for the weekly Tibi Eats drop.
The presence of an amazing cocktail and dessert program can tell you a lot about a restaurant. This is true for an interesting assortment of reasons. When your typical diner goes out, given that the objective is to explore and eat new, inspiring food, it is pretty much 100% likely that the customer will order at least one savory food item on the menu. It would be quite rare for a customer with the intention of eating at a great restaurant to not order any food from the main menu. In the realm of cocktails and desserts, however, it is much more common for diners to go out to dinner and not order cocktails, or not order dessert, or even both. Why you might ask? Well, there are a plethora of reasons. Maybe you don’t want to drink alcohol tonight, or maybe you have been watching your diet and are trying to avoid sugar, just to name a couple.
Because the main, savory menu usually garners the most eyes and attention from diners, a restaurant will naturally place a greater emphasis on ensuring that that aspect of the experience is impeccable, allowing for other areas, like the cocktail or dessert program, to sit back in the shadows. So, when a restaurant is able to critically and deeply master not just their hero savory dishes, but also their sidekicks in the form of alcoholic and sugary concoctions, it means that they are in a league of their own. A league that few are able to enter, and where even fewer are able to stay.
The first restaurants that began to build this perspective for myself were Canje and Este of Austin, TX. They are the kind of restaurants that make you rethink your perspective on dessert and cocktail programs, as you begin to wonder why you passed up on the semifreddo or mojito last weekend. But, there is an answer as to why, at least there is for me. From my perspective, drinking alcohol and eating dessert are two inherently unhealthy things, so the trade off better be amazing, and more often than not, you eat the semifreddo and it tastes pretty mediocre and now you’re frustrated because you’ve eaten all this sugar and it wasn’t even worth it.
I go on this tangent about dessert and cocktails because it applies, in a greater sense, to an emphasis on attention to detail, a practice that paved that way for Chef Ryan Bartlow to open his Basque restaurant, Ernesto’s, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Ernesto’s is modern and cozy, as the exposed brick and leather seats evoke a sense of warmth while also contrasting the more abstract elements of the interior design. This is a restaurant where you feel the hospitality in the air as you enter and consequently become aware that the culinary journey ahead is built on a deep love for the art and craft of Spanish inspired cuisine. Through years of "research, reference, and refinement”, Bartlow has created a seasonally rotating menu, with some favorites that remain a constant, that makes Ernesto’s the perfect once a week dining tradition.
Wayla, by Chef Tom Naumsuwan, is another one of those special spots that, like Ernesto’s, sits in a very unique league of its own. Just a 15 minute walk West from Ernesto’s will bring you an understatedly beautiful Thai restaurant rooted in the concept of sharing time with friends over delicious family style plates in their serene outdoor dining area. Chef Tom’s menu at Wayla is deeply connected to his Thai origins and highlights incredibly creative flavors and traditional spices through a comforting and approachable lens. Instead of jumping down the exotic rabbit hole of spicy and novel Thai delicacies, Chef Tom looks to create dishes like his Larb Pla Tod (fried branzino) which focus on, and pay respect to, simple, quality ingredients and masterful preparation.
The final restaurant highlight of this week is Blue Ribbon Sushi on Sullivan St. I put Blue Ribbon on this list for a different reason than the two aforementioned spots. Whereas Ernesto’s and Wayla are constantly creating, evolving, and inspiring new flavors, dishes, and ideas, Blue Ribbon actually doesn’t change too much. In fact, Blue Ribbon’s menu has remained relatively the same for as long as I can remember. It is for this very reason that I have thrown Blue Ribbon Sushi into the mix for Tibi Eats in lower Manhattan.
Blue Ribbon is not going to be the best Japanese food you’ve ever had. It will not be the best piece of Madai or Kanpachi sashimi, nor will it be the best shumai. But, Blue Ribbon is indeed my favorite place for sushi in NYC. Why? Because they are consistently consistent. I have eaten at Blue Ribbon countless times, and it is always great, not mind-blowing, but most certainly great. The hospitality is always welcoming and the atmosphere is always cozy and intimate. The fish is always fresh and the rice is always perfect. I could go on forever, but the main idea is consistency, a quality that all great restaurants have, but that not all share. When faced with the decision of endless trendy places to eat sushi in New York, my loyalty, for better or for worse, will always lie with Blue Ribbon Sushi on Sullivan St.