When Oxalis, a celebrated destination restaurant in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, closed its doors a year ago to reinvent itself as an all-day cafe, the locals had questions. How would the chef Nico Russell retool his innovative, hyper-seasonal tasting menu — built on foraged herbs, mushrooms and fruits — into casual dining? Would he stay true to his original vision, or would he go the well-trod route of Caesar salads and fries? Would there be a burger?
The pandemic had already shaken things up. During lockdown, Oxalis pivoted from serving a citywide following (fans journeyed across the boroughs for Mr. Russell’s miso-cured scallops and fig-leaf yogurt tarts) to feeding its neighbors as Oxalis Pantry, selling groceries, sandwiches and homemade jams.
The community turned out. Instead of coming in a few times a year for birthdays and date nights, locals queued up daily for the coveted burritos and carefully constructed jambon beurre baguettes.
Oxalis Pantry eventually closed and the restaurant reopened, but the pantry’s success convinced Mr. Russell and his partners, Piper Kristensen and Steve Wong, that what the neighborhood wanted most was not a special-occasion, Saturday-night-date restaurant, but a more accessible place to drop by on a Wednesday, maybe with the kids in tow. And the average hump day, like the average child, requires more flexible feeding.
So the partners rewrote the menu and hung a new sign. Last May, Cafe Mado was born.
It’s as if the whole place has been thoughtfully redesigned for Wednesdays. The airy, window-filled dining room is vivacious, but not party-loud, with noise-diffusing plants here and there, including a violet-leafed oxalis on the terrazzo bar as a nod to the past.
It’s a weeknight oasis where a gorgeously buttery, winy house-made chitarra pasta with maitake mushrooms can be further mellowed by a glass of skin-contact wine and the soothing ministrations of the knowledgeable staff. It’s an antidote for the Monday-morning blahs, where sharing a tomatillo-salsa-slathered sausage-egg-and-cheese with your toddler will put most immediate woes on hold. And you can count on it for a leisurely Friday afternoon, when tucking into a lusty, olive-laden muffuletta in the light-filled atrium qualifies as an act of self-care.
But what sets Cafe Mado apart from other user-friendly cafes is that, within all these familiar, comforting dishes beats the heart of a seasonal tasting menu. Mr. Russell is such a master of refined technique and unorthodox flavor combinations that it can’t help but shine through. There are ways in which Cafe Mado is just Oxalis in deep cover.
You can feel this pulse even in the crowd-pleasers. There is indeed a Caesar salad, yet the pile of fresh Romaine is buried under a snowdrift of Parmesan spiked with toasted baker’s yeast, lemon zest and horseradish for extra umami and tang. It’s in the fries — skinny, crispy strands perfumed with herbes de Provence and ready for dunking into pungently garlicky aioli. Order them with every meal.
Then there’s the Tony. This mortadella sandwich on a homemade sesame roll, a take on an Anthony Bourdain favorite, is spruced up with melted caciocavallo cheese and house-fermented pickles.
The Tony fills the easygoing burger role at Cafe Mado, although when an actual burger briefly appeared on the menu, it was anything but. It was a patty melt, with Wagyu beef threaded with bits of beef tongue, and even though I’ve been visiting regularly since the summer, I missed it. This is because Mr. Russell, along with his chef de cuisine, Daniel Martignon, changes the menu constantly. I’ll just have to watch for the next round of offal delights.
Meanwhile, I’ll happily content myself with the yuba, and its intense, tripe-y chew. Yuba is a traditional Asian ingredient made from the skin that forms on top of a pot of simmering soy milk, often used to make mock meats. At Cafe Mado, the floppy sheaths are seared with blackening spices, then coated in fermented tomato sauce. Crisp at the edges, stretchy in the center and very spicy, the dish occupies a territory somewhere between silky braised cabbage and squidgy offal. It is, with good reason, one of the most popular items on the menu.
The country pork ribs are intensely chewy, too, though they’re not so much ribs as a chop taken from the upper saddle of the pig. It’s an aggressively fatty, sinewy cut, cooked until just pink and still juicy, then served next to a dollop of velvety quince with enough acidity to counter the richness of the meat. It’s a good choice for anyone who loves the jaw workout of gnawing meat off the bone (me!), but not for those seeking the effortless softness of a chicken breast — or, for that matter, a burger.
The yuba and the pork, which I loved, and the monkfish with sea lettuce, which I didn’t (I found the ocean funk overwhelming) may not be for everyone. They exude the sensibility of a tasting menu, in which the kitchen sends out novel and unfamiliar dishes that challenge you in a (hopefully) delightful way. Not all of them hit, but all are worth trying.
This sensibility is most palpable in the brilliantly conceived, seasonal vegetable dishes. During my visits, they included a nubby, smoky bean purée with charred sweet peppers; a sprightly salad of pea greens dressed with sesame; and chunks of spiky fried pumpkin dusted with cherry blossom. Mr. Russell knows how to use acidity and doesn’t shy away from fat; calibrating the two is what makes the simplest dishes sing.
One of my favorites among the vegetable options, “potato, poblano, honey,” tasted the way a William Carlos Williams poem sounds. Made with a variety called Prince of Orange, these were some of the most potatoey potatoes I’d ever had — earthy, fluffy and drenched in a spicy-sweet emulsion of roasted green chiles, heavy cream and honey. They were served toward the end of a meal in which we massively over-ordered, yet my tablemates and I finished every bite.
It was the same at dessert time, when we devoured every crumb of a brown butter tart and every slick of roasted-yuzu ice cream with sea salt and olive oil. The desserts are consistently divine; you shouldn’t skip them.
At Oxalis, with its preset menus, you didn’t have to think about what to order because the decisions had been made for you. At Cafe Mado, you can order anything you want. But it turns out that what you want is very likely to be whatever the kitchen has dreamed up. You just don’t know it yet.
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