Somewhere between the tamarind-butter snails and the bruléed coconut bread pudding at Ha’s Snack Bar, I had the sudden urge to shake the hands of the two chefs — the way Paul Hollywood does as a judge on “The Great British Bake-Off” when a confection tastes too wonderful for words.
The cliché has it that escargots are just a vehicle for butter. Yet in this version, a dab of tamarind zapped that richness with some tang, summoning the mollusks’ natural earthiness. Escoffier could never! And that bread pudding: the top scorched to the razor’s edge of burnt, the crumb bouncy and coconut ice cream dribbling generously down the sides. Sweet, but barely.
The rotating menu at Ha’s, on the Lower East Side, modulates between Vietnam and France but mostly reflects whatever the chefs, Sadie Mae Burns-Ha and Anthony Ha, decide they want to eat that day or week. And what they want to eat is both freewheeling in concept and precise in execution. Theirs is singular, game-changing talent.
You may already know this. Since 2019 the couple have drawn a loyal following for their roving pop-up, Ha’s Đặc Biệt. (“Đặc Biệt” loosely translates as “house special” in Vietnamese.) Ha’s Snack Bar has been packed since its debut in December, with little self-promotion beyond a January post on Instagram announcing that it had already been open for a few weeks. The tiny room, as quaint and charming as a Paris bistro, doesn’t even have a complete kitchen — just a few portable cooktops, a rice cooker, a small fridge and a combination oven originally from a Wawa store in Philadelphia.
Ms. Burns-Ha and Mr. Ha, who are married, declined at first to be interviewed for this review, saying the Snack Bar is just a dress rehearsal. In a few months, they said, it will become a more casual spot with “wine bar fare” like oysters and pâté, as they open a bigger, more ambitious restaurant around the corner.
If they can make food this thrilling in a stopgap space with no real kitchen, I wondered, what could they do with the full-blown restaurant?
Ms. Burns-Ha and Mr. Ha met as cooks in 2015 at another forward-thinking restaurant that punched far above its size: Mission Chinese Food. In 2012, the chef Danny Bowien opened its first New York City location, inside a cramped downtown basement, with some of the city’s most exhilarating and surprising food, before moving it two years later into a cavernous space on East Broadway (and eventually a smaller restaurant in Chinatown).
The early, freewheeling spirit of that restaurant, where Neapolitan pizza, kung pao pastrami and Filipino stuffed chicken appeared on the same menu, is alive at Ha’s Snack Bar.
The menu starts with dishes as small as a single oyster smudged with green chiles. It graduates to large plates like a sweet-and-sour seafood stew whose sharp contrasts make each bite as fascinating as the first, and a butter-soft steamed whole porgy electrified by fat shards of ginger and a pool of potent nuoc mam. The showstopping desserts, prepared by Ms. Burns-Ha, almost always include a pie with an impeccable butter crust.
The chefs pack so many smart ideas into even the simplest of dishes. Chicken bouillon powder was whisked into the sauce of the eggs mayo for a savory burst. Chewy, marshmallowy chunks of toasted Pavlova were hidden, like Easter eggs, in the orange-lemon sorbet. Even the bread was its own revelation — baguettes from the French bistro Balthazar warmed in the combination oven, which steams and softens the interior while giving the crust extra crackle.
Not a single dish played it safe. The black pudding’s rich, meaty essence was enlivened with pickled kumquats, Thai chilies and a base of puff pastry as delicate as tissue paper. That classic French standby, crème caramel, had a bitter avalanche of coffee granita sliding down the wobbly custard.
Then again, these pairings weren’t so much gambles as they were references. In France, boudin noir is often served with cooked apples, another kind of tart fruit. In Vietnam, where Mr. Ha’s parents were born, a dessert called bánh flan cà phê features flan with coffee syrup.
If French technique is the heart of Ha’s, Vietnamese flavors are the soul — like a lemongrass-heavy giò thủ, or headcheese, accessorized with a mustardy, herbaceous sauce gribiche. In an interview, Mr. Ha — who used to work at the Manhattan neo-bistro Frenchette — posited that the food feels like “reverse colonization,” a vision of what French cuisine might be if Vietnam had occupied France rather than vice versa.
This vision will certainly have more room to breathe in the larger restaurant to come. But there’s a winsome delight to the low-lit space on Broome Street. It has 24 seats, most of them stools, with bottles of wine and vintage silverware tucked into shelves and a chalkboard menu hung on the wall. Tall vases of flowers and branches — arranged by Kristina Burns, a florist who also happens to be Ms. Burns-Ha’s mother — and bowls of citrus brighten the moody room.
Mr. Ha manages the kitchen, and Ms. Burns-Ha oversees the dining room, running the wait-list and dispensing wine recommendations. The service is quick and courteous but firm; don’t expect to linger for hours over a drink.
About those drinks: I have yet to sip something at Ha’s that wasn’t as fun and unpredictable as the food. I tried a Greek red that recalled a strawberry Jolly Rancher, a Piedmontese vermouth with the vinegary edge of kombucha, a chilled Jura that smelled of hibiscus.
There’s a catch to all this excitement. In the restaurant’s current incarnation, seats are squeezed together, the backless stools are uncomfortable and reservations are scarce. (Walk-ins are accepted, but the line can get long.) The oysters should be colder, and the risotto a touch less salty. These are the trials that come with a restaurant transitioning out of its pop-up phase.
But I’m willing to trade some mild back pain for food that’s as improvisational as it is elegant — especially knowing that the city’s most exciting new restaurant is merely the warm-up act.
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