Harbour

New York diners expect little from low profile, out-of-town chefs. But once in a rare while, a young unknown sneaks into the city, delivering the culinary version of an Oscar-worthy screen debut. Joe Isidori, the chef behind new seafood restaurant Harbour, cooks like a prodigy despite having spent most of his career hidden away in the Donald Trump machine. Though his last post at the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas earned him a Michelin Star, he’s hardly a household name.

His new Soho sleeper features food so often thrilling it’s easy to forgive the hermetic dining room’s many physical flaws. The serpentine space is decked out like a luxury yacht, with polished wood panels, creamy leather upholstery and faux portholes peering out into a fictional sea. But with no actual windows and more bad tables than good ones, the place is as claustrophobic as the hull of a ship.

The over-the-top setting—which also features a Chihuly-esque blown-glass chandelier—feels entirely out of sync with our humble economy and the restaurant’s off-the-beaten-path downtown locale. The waitstaff, in unisex red ties and brown vests, practices old-fashioned synchronized service—whisking dishes off of big silver trays in unison. Soups and sauces are poured tableside from miniature porcelain pitchers. An amuse-bouche kicks off the meal, petits fours finish it, and a playful palate cleanser sets you up for dessert.

Despite all the fine-dining flourishes, owner Richard Schaeffer—financier and sailing enthusiast—seems to be hedging his bets, with deals designed to force the restaurant into working double duty as both special-occasion and everyday spot. While à la carte entrées max out at $39, a four-course tasting menu is an astonishing bargain at $45. And though the average cocktail tips the scales at $15, there are also ten solid wines priced at $20 a bottle.

But even if the space recalls a time when Schaeffer’s banking buddies still had money to burn, Isidori’s cooking is a throwback of a different sort—hearkening to the days before fusion fare had become a bad cliché. In less able hands, his United Nations cuisine might be a muddled mess. But the young chef has a jazz master’s talent for combining disparate notes into a harmonious whole. His “clam chowder,” floating plump shelled clams, is a journey through an ethnic food market in Queens—featuring Chinese bacon, red-bean vinegar and curry oil among other exotic ingredients—but is as rich and velvety as lobster bisque. In another dish, tender squid ribbons seared on the plancha swim in a delicious sea of spicy, salty East Asian condiments—fish sauce, shaved shishitos, Szechuan pepper, fermented black beans.

Though mains are generous enough, our chatty waitress—eagerly explaining the restaurant’s sustainable ethos (you won’t find any bluefin here)—encouraged us to also order sides for the table. While the ginger-kissed parsnip puree, really a vehicle for butter and cream, and fat, greaseless fries with truffled aioli may have been overkill, both were delicious and hard to resist. The frites were a fine, mellow match for the chef’s Korean-style mussels, one of New York’s most exciting new bivalve preparations, featuring Canadian mussels in a spicy broth topped with bacon-flecked cabbage, chunky cucumber kimchi, Thai basil and fried shallot chips. His lobster, too, departs from the fine-dining norm, enhancing the unusually sweet butter-poached meat with green garlic, ramps, freeze-dried peas, lobster oil and roasted maitakes. Another elegant dish—a gorgeous crisp-skinned tilefish fillet paired with a delicate shrimp dumpling—featured a yellow curry and coconut broth so authentically Thai, you’d expect the chef to have spent a few years cooking in Asia (he hasn’t).

Though Isidori, who brought along his entire kitchen crew from Nevada, doesn’t have a pastry chef, you certainly wouldn’t know it from Harbour’s top-notch desserts. Rich, creamy butterscotch pudding spiked with Glenlivet comes topped with brown-butter cookies and duck-fat-popped popcorn that’s a brilliant, decadent, salty foil. A superb crusty espresso soufflé, with pistachio gelato and white-chocolate sauce infused with star anise and cardamom, continues in the more-is-more vein.Despite the kitchen’s consistent fine work—there was not a single clunker among the dishes I tried—and a staff of true believers, Harbour’s survival is hardly a given. Though outdoor seating and a new bar-food menu certainly might help, cuisine this good belongs in a better situated and less stifling space.

Cheat sheet

Drink this: The ambitious nautically themed cocktails by consulting mixologist Deborah Harris include the Sag Harbor, a sweet-spicy mix of bourbon, ginger and cayenne syrup ($15). Among the ten $20 bottles of wine is a light and refreshing Loire muscadet.

Eat this: Clam chowder, squid with Chinese black beans, Korean-style mussels with bacon and cabbage, butter-poached lobster with ramps, tilefish with yellow curry, butterscotch pudding.

Sit here: The bar area, which is cut off from the windowless dining room, is a more casual and airy spot to enjoy the chef’s fine cuisine. The best seats in the dining room are center stage under the blown-glass chandelier.

Conversation piece: Harbour announces its devotion to sustainable seafood with literature from the Blue Ocean Institute, Chef’s Collaborative and Environmental Defense Fund laid out on the tables and near the front door—including a guide to the “ocean friendly” fish the restaurant serves.

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