Blue Fin

    It’s easy enough to understand why some people might consider the ideal restaurant to be small, owned by the chef, and never varying or expanding.  I, too, love that ideal, but only as part of a grander view of modern gastronomy wherein many of the brightest concepts come from restaurant companies with many units throughout a city, a country, even across continents.  Companies like Union Square Hospitality, Myriad Restaurant Group, Patina Group, and BR Guest Hospitality run exciting, often spectacular, restaurants in NYC, many considered to be in the top tier and all created with enormous effort and financial risk.  (They also tend to be seriously devoted to food-based charities in the city.)
    BR Guest Hospitality runs 25 restaurants, most in NYC, including the highly popular and well-regarded Blue Water Grill, Strip House, Atlantic Grill, and Blue Fin, newly re-opened at the W Hotel in Times Square.  With that kind of buying clout in the market, they can claim dibs on what’s best on a daily basis, and that quality of ingredients shows throughout the menu at Blue Fin.
    The two-story restaurant has been wholly re-designed and it’s a dazzler, from the downstairs sushi bar bordered by a suspended staircase and wavy mural to the spacious main dining room upstairs done in wide expanses of polished wood, mirrors, and hanging bare lights. It’s casual but New York casual, and there seem just as many locals dining here as tourists.
     The large service staff is well trained—they have to deal with a lot of pre-theater pressure—and know the menu cold.  The wine and sake list, overseen by Beverage Director Richard Breitkreutz, has breadth and depth, with a focus on the mid-price range. There are many choices by the glass for $11, and the “Sommelier’s Selection” has an admirable number of bottles under $50, though mark-ups are not so modest. A barrel-fermented 2014 white Rioja from Bodegas Mura runs $48 here, but only $16 at a wine store.
      Executive Sushi Chef Boo "Mike" Lim, formerly of the highly regarded Sushi of Gari, and Executive Chef Juan Carlos Ortega, now with  BR Guest for two decades, provide menus rich enough in every category without going overboard.  There are ten or so sashimi items offered nightly, at $3 to $8 per piece, and a six-piece sampler of dressed sushi at $28, which I recommend as a large starter. The generous sushi rolls ($12-$16) include the delicious “Times Square” ($15) roll of crab, spicy hamachi, mango, avocado, and yuzu-miso. All the raw seafood is of pristine quality, and the dressed varieties (left) hold more interest, like kampachi with chile and seaweed, the tuna with avocado and ponzu, and eel with grilled pineapple and kojujang, a Korean sweet fermented rice condiment like ketchup.  I also highly recommend the charred octopus with smoked paprika, olive oil potatoes and romesco sauce as a fine appetizer ($19).
    When you get to the entrees, there is a shift away from Asian flavors in a hearty dish like the lobster pot pie ($35), a kind of American bouillabaisse with mussels, shrimp, and a ruddy, garlic-rich rouille.  There is a simply grilled section of dishes, served with lettuce and lemon potatoes, and the night’s catch was superbly textured, very juicy branzino  (market price).  There was plenty of sweet jumbo lump crabmeat atop a fine red snapper ($35), along with sautéed hen of the woods mushrooms and watercress.
     Companies like BR Guest are aimed at big eaters and large portions, so the warm apple crostata with dulce de leche and vanilla ice cream ($11), the flourless chocolate layer cake with white chocolate peppermint candy ice cream ($11), and the caramel pear pecan sundae with cinnamon-spiced ice cream ($10)—all ice creams are housemade—are desserts easy for two to share.   They even offer “Theater Treats to Go” ($8), a box of warm chocolate chip cookies or caramel popcorn to stave off hunger during the third hour of “Les Misérables” or “Hamilton.”
    On a post-snowstorm night the upstairs room at Blue Fin was crowded by nine o’clock, but, despite all the wooden surfaces, the decibel level did nothing to compromise our conversation—one of those details that must have gone into the re-design. 
    Blue Fin belongs right where it is in the Times Square nexus, where, when you leave and see the eye-popping video displays and flashing lights of Broadway, you’ll know that your dinner had been just as much a part of the dazzle as the rush of the crowd and the sweet cacophony of the Big Apple.

Blue Fin is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner daily.

    Much of my childhood was defined by the wines of Louis M. Martini Winery and the music of Queen. With both of them, I had no idea, until relatively later in life, how seminal each of them was to their respective industries. I won’t belabor the importance of Freddy Mercury here, but it’s fair to say that popular music as we now know it would be far different if it were not for classics like “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Killer Queen” and the rest.
    The same can be said for Louis M. Martini when considering the wines of California, and, indeed, the wine industry of America as a whole. Because the trajectory of the company, from its origins more than eight decades ago up to the excellent current releases, is as emblematic of the evolution of American wine as that of any in the nation.This past autumn, I had the opportunity to immerse myself in Martini as part of a trip sponsored by Gallo, Martini’s owner. We also focused on other notable properties in Napa and Sonoma, including MacMurray Estate Vineyards, J Vineyards & Winery, and William Hill Estate Winery, which I’ll cover in detail in a future Virtual Gourmet. Martini in particular, however, is a fascinating producer to start with, since, as it approaches its 85th year, it is absolutely as strong as ever, with tremendous expressiveness, terroir specificity, and value among its stable of wines, regardless of price point. I drink them regularly to this day.
    They’ve had years to figure things out. Louis M. Martini (above, with his son Louis P. Martini), at twelve years old,  came with his father from Genoa to San Francisco, and what started in 1906 as home winemaking evolved into a producer of sacramental wine and concentrate during the dark years of Prohibition, finally culminating in the construction of the eponymous winery in St. Helena in 1933. All of these changes and growth have resulted in a brand with significant name recognition, ownership of one of the great Cabernet vineyards on the planet, and a list of wines that, vintage after vintage, are worth seeking out.  Martini has always been synonymous with Cabernet Sauvignon, and its Napa and Alexander Valley bottlings are among the most widely known. Tasting them side by side is always a fascinating exercise, and often throws into sharp relief the fallacy of believing that the conditions of a particular vintage manifest themselves in stylistically similar expressions from one appellation to another.
    The 2012s are a great example. The Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon starts off subtly, with aromas of baking spice, vanilla and plum leading to a palate of boysenberry, blackberry and mulberry, perfumed with cedar and cut through with excellent acidity. The Alexander Valley, by comparison, lifts from the glass with black cherry, cassis, blueberry and plum, all spiced with cinnamon and clove, the flavors anchored by a great core of cassis framed by mineral, licorice, cedar, and tobacco. It’s concentrated and fresh all at once, and while both of these bottlings will benefit from a few years in the cellar, they are immensely enjoyable right now.
    The 2013 Sonoma County Cabernet Sauvignon starts off with scents of cassis, toast, and an unexpected hint of meatiness and bay leaf. Rich, well-integrated tannins frame chocolate, graphite, blackberry and warm vanilla, the balance of sweet fruit and structure immediately appealing.
    Going up in price and down in production numbers is the Lot 1 Cabernet Sauvignon, a wine that, according to Martini, is designed to capture “the essence of Napa Valley’s distinctive terroir.” The fruit comes from top sites in Napa, including Atlas Peak (Stagecoach Vineyard), Stags Leap, the Silverado Bench, Spring Mountain and more. The 2012 is utterly classic, with black currants and licorice, mineral and chocolate on the nose and opulent, silky flavors of chocolate, blackberry fruit and rich cigar tobacco. It’s delicious now, and will continue to evolve for another decade or more. For a point of comparison, we also tasted the 2005 Lot 1 Cabernet Sauvignon, which has, in the nearly 11 years since the grapes were harvested, turned into a gorgeously mature wine singing with aromatically complex led pencil, sandalwood and cedar, sweet fruit, peppercorn, vanilla and dusty, beautiful tannins.
    Martini also crafts an excellent Meritage, and its 2012 Cellar No. 254 Napa Valley is a charmer: Spicy, savory, cherry fruit aromatics find a consistent counterpart on the palate, with added flavors of cocoa powder and an excellent tannic structure. The 2012 Cellar No. 254 Petite Sirah is also a success, a sweetly fruited, concentrated and generous offering of chocolate, blueberry coulis and a hint of dried mushroom on the tongue.
    The ostensible jewel in the Martini crown, however, is Monte Rosso Vineyard (above and left), so named for its Red Hill Loam soils that Cabernet does so well in. (So, too, do other grape varieties, including a block of 110-year-old Semillon vines, though it’s the Cab that garners the lion’s share of attention.) It’s been under the ownership of Martini since 1938, and the results of the family’s work on it are stunning. The 2011 Monte Rosso Cabernet Sauvignon was fresh with lovely herb notes of rosemary and laurel, as well as plenty of red plums and currants. The 2010 is also quite fresh, yet here it speaks of raspberry, mineral and a smoky note to the rich hints of spice and leather. Gong back another five years, the 2005 is a perfectly balanced bottling with brambly fruit, sage and mineral bumping up against cherry, baker’s chocolate and sandalwood. It’s amazingly lithe for 11 years old, but that seems to be a theme with these Monte Rosso Cabernets—their ability to evolve yet still remain vibrant, which is a testament to the land itself and to the respectful winemaking of the team.
    Monte Rosso also is home to a range of other grape varieties, which are more than worth seeking out. The 2013 Malbec is all spicy chocolate and savoriness on the nose, with a palate of sweet, dark cherry fruit, kirsch-filled chocolate and mineral; and the 2012 Gnarly Vine Zinfandel, an old-vines bottling (some of which are older than 125 years) of power and structure, is downright hedonistic, with sappy blueberry and blackberry, as well as black peppercorn spice punching up the velvety texture. The 2012 Monte Rosso Mountain Red, a blend of Zinfandel, Syrah and Petite Sirah, is sweet-souled and giving, with dark cherry and a wildly appealing spicy plum note coming through the plushly textured palate.
    Approaching its centenary, then, the Louis M. Martini Winery is very much at the top of its game, leveraging more than eight decades of work, its historical know-how, and Gallo’s ability to facilitate any and all necessary changes to allow the team there to craft wines that speak to the appellations from which they come and the (often quite historically significant) soils in which the vines are grown. If that’s not a recipe for continued success, then I’m not sure what would be. Turns out my youthful wine drinking was far more significant than I realized back then. I certainly do now.