• Published: January 11, 2012 on The BespokeBlog

Having recently moved back to New York after a 10-year hiatus, I feel a little like a tourist when it comes to the city’s restaurant scene. It would be an understatement to say everything has changed, in restaurant terms, during that time. Besides the fact that I was just starting out back then and couldn’t afford the luxuries that I am now able to, New York’s gastronomic landscape changes every few months. Younger chefs are breaking rank to create something they can call their own, and the old guards’ empires continue to expand or morph with equal ferocity. The sheer number of dining establishments and new openings is astonishing and it makes it difficult for the uninitiated to know where to begin.

A good place to start is the historic site of 50, Commerce Street in Greenwich Village.

Originally a speakeasy during the Depression era, it is now home to an excellent restaurant that serves contemporary American fare with flare. Chef Harold Moore’s cuisine is at once generous, technically adept and eminently satisfying. With years of experience in the kitchens of French luminaries Daniel Boulud and Jean-Georges Vongericthen, there is no doubt of his abilities. But what is comforting is that a meal at Commerce is not a stuffy affair. Au contraire, it is a convivial and sometimes communal experience in which you will be well looked after and sumptuously fed.

If there is one thing I have taken away from my few visits, it is Chef Moore’s desire for each of his diners to be respected and taken care of, something that has been lost at too many perfectly good restaurants that unnerve you with table time limits and other conditions.

One recent evening began with an assortment of starters that ran the gamut between hamachi ceviche and devilled eggs. The fried oysters with rémoulade were sufficient evidence that the raw state of this mollusc can be improved, or at least equaled, by pristinely preserving its refreshing, saline qualities within a light, crisp, battered casing. A deceivingly simple salad appeared and provided the perfect zing to arm us with what to come – I didn’t learn until later that it contained no less than 20 herbs and lettuces.

What you must order when you go to Commerce are the plates designed for sharing. The signature dish is a whole roasted chicken, which is stuffed with, and sits proudly atop, some of the richest accompaniments you can dream up (foie gras is only the beginning…). The bird was our final savory course, and lived up to the hype (you can watch the chef prepare it in one of my dining companion’s video).

The sharing dish that I enjoyed the most was actually the rack of lamb that, in a seemingly counter-intuitive but appropriate progression, preceded the chicken. If there were a perfect pink, a precise level of juiciness and just the right amount of flavour for a roast lamb, this was it. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted better, and I’ve eaten a lot of things that go ‘Baah’ in the night.

Desserts are straight-up classic Americana, perfected. The chocolate pudding (the American kind) is deliciously rich and wholeheartedly recommended. However, it was the most unlikely of desserts that stole my heart: the coconut cake.

I know, it sounds like something you might see at The Cheesecake Factory, but Chef Moore calls it ‘The Best Coconut Cake’, and he is not wrong about that fact. Its multiple layers of moist sponge and cream flirt dangerously close with being too sweet, but manage to toe the line. It will cost $10, but other than the lamb, it was my favourite thing of the night.

Our table went through a few bottles of a particularly delicious and reasonably priced Oregon Pinot Noir, which suited the wide selection of dishes to a tee. The wine list is fairly compact and French-heavy but is well chosen and even includes some French Crémant (sparkling wines from outside of Champagne), something I would like to see more of in other US restaurants.

You can either start your evening at the bar or end up there; some people come in for just a drink… but usually stay for more. It has that kind of energy. It always seems to be alive. In fact, a different evening at Commerce began with a pungent glass of Fernet Branca, but that is another story….

Commerce
50 Commerce Street
Greenwich Village
New York, NY 10014