Restaurant review - Mesa Grill, NYC
Bobby Flay is one of those empire-building American celebrity chefs. He owns 5 restaurants: Mesa Grill, Bolo and Bar Americain in NYC, Mesa Grill Las Vegas and Bobby Flay Steak (Atlantic City). Flay also hosts four Food Network television programs and appears regularly on a fifth. On Thursday night, we had dinner at Mesa Grill in NYC.
The decor is lively and imaginative and the atmosphere is informal. I especially like the restaurant logo with the flattop font so reminiscent of the tabletop land formations after which it is named. This is a busy restaurant and we were lucky to get a table. Service is friendly in an American type of way but the waitress was knowledgeable and pleasant. Simple white linen tablecloth does the trick for me every time. The wine-list is limited but the pricing is fair. We should have delved into the impressive collection of tequilas including assortments of blanco tequilas, reposado tequilas and anejo tequilas but we didn’t thus avoiding a nasty hangover.
The food at Mesa Grill is distinctly southwestern. Have a look at the full dinner menu here to get a better idea. Everything we had was outstanding so we can recommend the following: “rough cut” raw tuna nachos, shrimp and grouper ceviche, red and black crusted filet mignon and New Mexican spice rubbed pork tenderloin(at right).
A couple of glasses of white to start off with followed by a really remarkable bottle of Peter Franus 2003 Brandlin Vinyard Mount Veeder zinfandel and we were happy campers.
I’m not crazy about southwestern food generally but I must admit we ate well and I might go back some day…if there weren’t so many other damn restaurants to try. Total including dessert and tip: $190.44.
Joseph Froncioni
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