Turn Down the Heat

Seven months after opening, Eel Bar has become a less buzzy, better version of itself.

- MATTHEW SCHNEIER

WHEN EEL BAR opened last summer, the weight of expectation was heavy. For a certain kind of New Yorker—I am one—Eel Bar’s sister restaurants (Hart’s, Cervo’s, the Fly) represent a halcyon ideal of “our” places: cozy, boozy, tasty, and, for half a minute or so, semi-secret. Not so at Eel Bar; it was jammed from the jump. Aaron Crowder, Cervo’s longtime chef and a partner at both restaurants, did double duty between the two, and the menus overlapped. You could get a very good half-chicken at either with good fries. Mussels escabeche at Cervo’s—spicy, coral colored, just barely cured in preserved lemon—became fried mussels, stained paprika orange, at Eel Bar. If you can popcorn a shrimp, why not a mussel?

Eel Bar felt great. Its room was sexy, all textured glass and stainless steel. Rather than one long galley, the bar here looked out over the dining room, and the dining room looked back over the bar—you could make eyes across the room, if the mood struck. Eel Bar was a perfect vibes restaurant—in the complimentary sense, as with all of the group’s establishments. Founding chef Nick Perkins cut his teeth, not to mention met several of his partners, at Diner in Williamsburg. Diner, Andrew Tarlow’s first venture, was a previous generation’s vibes restaurant, where the cooking was quality but the ambience was never taken for granted.