4 days ago
Pan-American Cuisine And Comfort Are A Perfect Combo At Cómodo In New York
The food of Colombia and Latin America, like this moqueca, have color and deep flavor at Cómodo.
Felipe Donnelly and his wife Tamy Rofe have worked together for a long time now, at both Colonia Verde in Brooklyn and Comparti, and right now at Cómodo they are turning out their most ambitious work, combining Latino and American cuisines within a comfort zone of very hearty, deeply flavorful dishes that obviously come from the heart.
Felipe Donnelly spent ten years in the ad business before becoming a professional chef.
They do so within a most charming, comfortable and warm dining room of a kind whose use of wood, curtains, soft lighting, covered tables with lamps, flowers and works by Colombian artists Luisa Castellanos, Valentina Petalosi, Gogy Farías very much reminds me of similar restaurants in South America. The crowd is not loud, and the midweek night I was there the music was played softly.
Sheer comfort at Cómodo reminds one of is liar dining rooms in South American cities.
Donnelly, himself Colombian, is the co-owner and Executive Chef of Cómodo, who, after moving to the U .S. actually worked in advertising for over a decade while practicing his love of cooking. In 2010, he and Tamy hosted a series of supper clubs at their apartment, and they decided to do it full time, opening the original Cómodo (now closed) in SoHo neighborhood in 2012 and Disco Tacos, a food truck-turned-restaurant.
Wild mushroom tacos have a woodsy deep flavor.
The menu is a very sensible size, which makes it all the more difficult to ignore a single item. We began with sea bream ceviche, simply dressed with lime juice, ricotta and olive oil. Among the many tuna tartares I've had this year, Donnelly's is one of the best, spiked with habanero ash aïoli, refreshing watermelon, the scent of mint, sesame oil, and a tostada. Wild mushroom tacos were smartly pickled, again with a hit of habanero ash and the addition of Oaxaca cheese.
I love Brazilian pão de quejo––the puffy, stretchy buns made with tapioca flour––and they serve them at Cómodo, though they were too dense and chewy.
Tilefish is dressed with lime and a plantain puree.
Moqueca is also of Brazilian origin, usually made with seafood, here with rich butternut squash coconut milk, crunchy wheatberries, pickled peppers and steamy white rice––a delicious melding of many flavors in perfect harmony. Golden tile fish also takes splendidly to a coconut lime sauce with the great idea of plantain puree, and shorts ribs had plenty of rocoto peppers, sweet onions, peewee potatoes, tomatoes and white rice, to be enjoyed by more than one person.
The idea of poblano pepper rigatoni with a vegetarian bolognese would have been better with more punch to the peppers and seasoning.
The menu also offers two beef dishes: A Colombian picanha like steak frites, and a bone-in ribeye with potatoes and cilantro-scented aïoli.
This us rich food but please have a dessert at Comodo, either the profiteroles with chocolate topping or the raspberry sorbet dashed with ruby Port.
Cómodo is such a comfortable and civilized restaurant without any pretensions, so it's easy enough to like for those virtues, but the real draw is the out-of-the-ordinary, heart-felt cooking here you will crave again and run $10-$18, main courses $18-$78.
CÓMODO
Freehand Hotel
23 Lexington Avenue
212-475-1924Open nightly for lunch Mon.-Fri.; dinner nightly; brunch Sat. & Sun.
