We must review this casa!

Sifton, pitching inside:

"There is a lot of cashmere and silk at Casa Lever, plenty of crazy wealth. (That’s Mr. Rosen over there now!) But it’s still fun in Spence-Chapin thrift-shop merino, in a Housing Works frock."

But!

And there is a delicious and deeply attractive plate of king crab, sea urchin, pickled jalapeño and avocado. As young Mr. Ripley and Dickie Greenleaf discovered in San Remo, it can be tough to share.

I now want there to be a restaurant that would justify Sifton's assertion that it seems like the kind of place the Welches would go on a night out, while Harriet stayed home with Ole Golly.

Also, given the account of

Vitello tonnato, the classic summery antipasto of chilled sliced veal served alongside what amounts to a deep cloud of tuna-infused mayonnaise, with a few fried capers strewn about for salty crunch, is here offered as advertised, no more. That is right for the room and its aesthetic: silky tuna sauce and thin folds of veal, just as the grandmothers made, unchanged by time or fashion.

It's shocking that

Amatriciana, for instance, is another classic of Italian cuisine, a sauce traditionally made of guanciale, or jowl bacon, with pecorino and tomato. Here it’s rendered with tuna, and served with a fat sort of rigatoni from Gragnano.

Tuna Amatriciana? Besides not making any more sense than a vodka gimlet, it sounds like something that belongs at some sort of rigidly pescetarian outpost run by Moby's nephew in Bushwick. 

Also, opening "Casa Lever" in the former Lever House runs the risk of reminding diners of Trillin's famous "maison de casa house" putdown.

Comments

[Sorbet Trio]

Whenever I am exposed to this dude's reviews I cringe. It seems likely that he can write well, so why doesn't he?

Without clicking through:

1. You can't put a sentence like "Here it's rendered with tuna, and served with a fat sort of rigatoni" in a food article without conjuring unwelcome ghosts of rendered fat.

2. What does he imagine Ripley and Dickie were sharing?

3. "what amounts to a deep cloud" -- puuuhhhh

[jws]

I appreciate the allusion to Under Armor.