BarFry

A po’ boy and assorted tempura

Photo: Wenyi Huang

Redemption, it seems, can be found in the bottom of a deep fryer. At least it worked out that way for Josh DeChellis, who showed glimpses of brilliance at Sumile before taking a career-deflating turn at the doomed Italian spot Jovia. With BarFry, DeChellis returns to his strength, Japanese food, jazzing up that most pedestrian of Nipponese menu items: tempura.

True to the genre, this is a straightforward eatery: White tiled walls, a chalkboard menu, marble tables and a 30-foot bar would be just as appropriate in a New England fish shack à la Pearl’s. The Beastie Boys crank overhead, the wine list doesn’t even bother listing producers (it just describes the varietal and style), trendy Hitachino white-rice ale and a custom-made “Gaijin” brew are two of three beers offered, and food begins arriving minutes after you order.

The menu, meanwhile, hews to my favorite redneck saying: If it ain’t fried, it ain’t food. Aside from some daily raw fish specials, the choices consist of fried stuff on a plate, in a bento box, or duded up as a po’ boy sandwich. In all cases, the results are pretty good, owing largely to clean canola oil and a sweet batter that makes everything reminiscent of a particularly good carnival funnel cake. DeChellis contrasts this doughnutlike crust with fiery dipping sauces (ceremoniously placed on the table in dainty white saucers), including a pasty wasabi rémoulade, a Tabasco-esque citrus and a deceptively simple jalapeño-soy that feels like a fireball on your tongue.

Frying, of course, can cloak even the worst-quality foodstuffs, so the top-rate ingredients DeChellis almost universally deploys stand out. As expected, there’s lots of superfresh seafood, including soft calamari, plump shrimp and moist, juicy scallops. Vegetables, meanwhile, include fleshy eggplant, beefy shiitake mushrooms and bright-orange pumpkin, sliced thin and long like cantaloupe, the soft pulp melding seamlessly with the batter. The most unusual offering: a winning “beef beignet,” which has a salted, empanada-like crust.

Most of the fried meats reappear as sandwiches, each with a different kind of sauce and pickled shaving (carrots, kimchi, slaw) to add texture and spiciness—and cut through the grease. The chicken-fried steak, a dish generally endowed with all the tenderness of shoe leather, is a moist, medium-rare hanger steak here, with a coating that’s lighter than the fried vegetables’ doughier casings. In case that’s not enough, DeChellis tops the creation with a ginger-pickled onion and beads of fried batter for extra crunch.

Those trying to keep their cholesterol under 500 shouldn’t come here. But if they do, “safe” selections are limited to nine vegetarian side dishes—including excellent warm pea shoots doused in XO sauce, and snap peas with chopped wasabi—that have both flavor and flair.

Thankfully, DeChellis knows when to pull back, and has spared the desserts from the clutches of the Fry Daddy. Choose from homemade ice creams and sorbets, in flavors like black sesame and strawberry-shiso, and a green-tea cupcake, with a thick shock of matcha-infused frosting that converts this most mild-mannered of confections into a caffeine-laden flavor bomb.

Reportedly, DeChellis is contemplating opening a raw bar next door. Until then, his light frying style passed muster with a tough critic: my skin, which detects oil the way a retired linebacker’s knee can tell you if it’s going to rain. That’s praise befitting a fry shack.