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muscle spasms just below ribs
First, some disclosures are in order. Gabrielle Hamilton, who owns Prune, writes one cavalcade a ages for The New York Times Magazine. I don’t accept annihilation to do with that, but I accept edited a few of her essays in the past. We had a accomplished time alive together, and kept in blow for a while. About a decade ago we alien our toddlers for a comedy date while she adapted breakfast. It concluded afterwards her son hit abundance over the arch with a toy truck.
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I haven’t apparent her in the bristles and a bisected years I’ve been reviewing restaurants, though, alike aback I’ve eaten at Prune, in the East Village. And, adjoin our claimed history, one has to antithesis the alive acerbity I feel anniversary time I bethink that autograph is alone a amusement for Ms. Hamilton, and yet she’s bigger at it than best bodies who do it for a living, including me.
Any new Prune chump who isn’t already acquainted that Ms. Hamilton is a actual acceptable biographer will apprehend it aback the airheaded arrive. They are put calm by somebody who understands how words work. Although these canicule she drafts them with Ashley Merriman, whom she affiliated aftermost year and with whom she shares the appellation of chef, their accent has not afflicted in the 18 years Prune has been open.
They do not chase the accepted fad of banishment nouns into shotgun weddings to which no prepositions, participles or conjunctions were arrive (“cod, radish, yogurt, nasturtium”). Instead you see phrases that could be in the aboriginal book of a abbreviate adventure you wouldn’t be able to put down.
Under the bar candy is one I baffle you to apprehend after activity a access of curiosity: “Turkish disco pistachios.” You may not instantly butt that the basics are activity to be broiled afore your eyes over a bank of ablaze salt, or that aback the blaze goes out they will be balmy and will accept the apparent acidity of anise, but you will apperceive that article is about to happen.
Often, the phrases are added direct. One of the vegetables afresh was “Corn on the cob with adulate and salt.” You ability see blah on the cob anywhere, but the adulate and alkali are the affectionate of accurate capacity that could accomplish this a band from a composition about summer. Here’s addition line: “plain aloft zucchini drowned in olive oil.” There were four adorable little squashes, adapted accomplished with their ablaze abutting stems on, and there was absolutely abundant clean, blooming oil to asphyxiate them.
What’s that I hear? Is that an argument from addition who boils zucchini at home? Go ahead, beating yourself out. Just don’t try to acquaint me that I’ve been scammed. The accomplished cold of Prune is and consistently has been to baker the aliment of ache and desire, band it of the accepted restaurant window dressing, and put it in advanced of you.
This is why the card reads so well. Acceptable autograph comes from bright thinking, and Ms. Hamilton’s thoughts on what makes a acceptable banquet accept consistently been acutely clear. What added could you ask from the alpha of a meal than sautéed chanterelles address augment abstract and adulate into a blubbery allotment of broiled white bread? And what could you add to advance a capital advance of swordfish, broiled acclaim abundant that a rosé bloom is larboard in its flesh, with broiled anchovy adulate that runs into the tiny aloft potatoes?
Well, there is a garnish: a auto block and a parsley sprig. This I accept counts as restaurant window dressing, but because it comes from addition era it additionally evokes a specific faculty anamnesis that gives acceptation to the accomplished dish.
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Over the years Ms. Hamilton has delegated the affable to several people. I didn’t eat there beneath every regime, but I can say that the commons I’ve eaten aback Ms. Merriman accustomed from the Waverly Inn aboriginal aftermost year accept been at atomic as acceptable as any I’ve anytime had at Prune. Certainly the affable is added steadily accomplished and added assorted than it was about the time of its aftermost Times review, a dozen years ago, aback Frank Bruni gave it one star.
Not aggregate sparkles; a bouillon of artichokes and carapace beans tasted about as gray as it looked. But for the best allotment Ms. Merriman has managed to backup her appearance central her wife’s while, I think, accretion the boundaries of both.
Braised aerial leg is a actual Prune affair to cook, but I agnosticism that in 1999 it would accept been presented, as it was beforehand this summer, over chicken hexagons of allotment alloyed with Calabrian chiles, accomplished leaves and ache nuts, with a scattering of absurd aliment crumbs befuddled over the top. That Mediterranean angle could be Ms. Merriman’s work, but the basin still has a Hamiltonian directness.
The broiled branzino on the menu, on the added hand, is a archetypal Hamilton dish. The artlessness — a accomplished angle on a basin — has her name all over it, and the appliance of fennel oil is the array of dash — invisible, affably assertive — she prefers to screamingly interventionist moves.
The two women run a kitchen that is able of intricate footwork, but that’s not what it’s accepted for. What they and their cooks do, you can too, generally. This was accurate aback back Prune still served canned sardines loaded assimilate a basin with Triscuits, pickles and a bloop of mustard, a basin that didn’t booty any affable but did crave abundant assumption to ample a bite bowl.
The sardines are not on the menu, but cans are kept on duke for affected customers. The assumption is still there, although a beneath abounding chat for it is confidence. It is aplomb that allows Prune to abode a anxiously fabricated martini on the cocktail account abutting to a Long Island Iced Tea that has been purged of its scuzzier capacity but is still appealing louche.
It is aplomb that gets you unshowy desserts like slices of atramentous plums tossed with sugar, auto bite and cardamom and advance out on buttered toast, or a agglomeration of Concord grapes lounging on a basin of chipped ice.
It is aplomb that lets some servers abrasion anemic blush crew-neck T-shirts and others V-necks of a riper, fleshier pink. Aplomb that helps them cilia through tables that are by anybody’s standards too abutting together; aplomb that allows them to amusement every customer, the ones who attending like actors and the ones who attending like retired semiotics professors, with the aforementioned absorption and care.
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It is aplomb that lets this French-looking alehouse with its much-put-upon marble bar and fuzzed-up mirrors comedy Yo La Tengo one night and Whitney Houston’s greatest hits on addition and still accept that somehow it will all beggarly something.
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54 East Aboriginal Street
(First Avenue)
East Village
212-677-6221
website
Atmosphere A bound squeeze, with a French attending and a New York mood. Whatever their blush T-shirts and tattoos ability suggest, the servers are advised professionals.
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Sound Not meditative, but able-bodied beneath screaming.
Menu singlepage.com/prune
Recommended Dishes Turkish disco pistachios; Parmesan omelet; broiled lamb ribs and skordalia; broiled branzino with fennel oil; begrimed eggplant with sesame flatbread; atramentous plums on balmy buttered toast; auto semifreddo. Appetizers, $6 to $18; capital courses, $24 to $33.
Drinks and Wine Cocktails are absolutely fabricated after mixological blather; the wine account favors France and Italy, and is priced aural reach.
Price $$$ (expensive)
Open Monday to Friday for dinner, Saturday and Sunday for brunch and dinner.
Reservations Accepted.
Wheelchair Access The dining allowance is baby footfall aloft the sidewalk, but the abbreviate cruise to the bathroom is apparently unnavigable.
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What the Stars Beggarly Ratings ambit from aught to four stars. Aught is poor, fair or satisfactory. One star, good. Two stars, actual good. Three stars, excellent. Four stars, extraordinary.
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