The Harrison

There are chefs—like writers and actors—who need an inspiring hand in order to reach their full creative potential; someone to rein in their most foolhardy impulses, focus their talents and nip their egos in the bud.

At the Harrison, longtime up-and-comer Amanda Freitag—who’s run the kitchen since January—has finally met her impresario match in Midas-touch restaurateur Jimmy Bradley. How else to explain the remarkable upgrade in her cooking over her last post, Gusto in the West Village? There, filling in for Jodi Williams, she seemed to be playing someone else’s role (and cooking someone else’s food).

In Tribeca, Freitag has devised a menu as refined and elegant as her food at Gusto was overassertive and clumsy. It’s so polished, in fact, that the Harrison feels like a restaurant reborn, and its chef like a suddenly serious contender.

Of course, the place was hardly hurting for an overhaul. The Harrison opened in 2001, when the city needed to be coddled. It’s a testament to Bradley’s significant chops just how consistent the restaurant has remained over the years, even as a procession of chefs (Joey Campanero, Brian Bistrong) have left their marks on the seasonal menu.

Like its Chelsea sibling, the Red Cat, the Harrison remains one of New York’s most beloved casual destinations—homey enough for Sunday supper at the bar, yet upscale enough for a decked-out Saturday night. While R.E.M. and David Bowie are typical of the mix-tape soundtrack, the laid-back waiters still fold your napkin while you’re in the bathroom, and deliver chocolate truffles before presenting the bill.

Freitag’s food tips the scales in an even more grown-up direction. We started our meal there on a recent Sunday night with a pair of cocktails that sum up the restaurant’s high-low appeal—the Harrison Tonic (Maker’s Mark with Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray), and the sophisticated-feminine Royal Blush, made with sweet brachetto, moscato, brandied cherries and bitters.

The spring menu forges its own eclectic path. There are nods to Freitag’s Italo-centric résumé and to the homespun New American cooking that has long been a Harrison hallmark. Many dishes marry the two genres—and are the better for it.

Fried baby artichokes, a Gusto mainstay, anchor a seasonal starter—more Greenmarket than Italian cuisine—featuring fresh ricotta and a bright-green symphony of pea leaves, big sweet peas and spring-onion puree. Featherlight raviolini, the only pasta on the menu, depart even further from their old-world roots with a subtly spicy, butter-enriched French-Creole seafood sauce and a filling of lobster and crawfish. And succulent skate fingers don’t even speak a word of Italian, with their crisp cornmeal crust and refreshing, tangy rhubarb-cabbage slaw.

The entrées we sampled, meanwhile, were as notable for their splashy vertical presentations as for their clean, clear flavors. A reengineered trout almandine featured perfectly seared stacked fillets, luxuriating in a phosphorescent parsley pesto with slivered almonds, horseradish cream and matchstick celery root. An enormous English-cut lamb chop, gloriously bloody and marinated in rosemary and anchovies, hid under a buttery heap of miniature carrots and fennel. It was missing only one thing: The Harrison’s ought-to-be-legendary duck-fat fries with lemony mayo, an à la carte side so compulsively unhealthy, I felt like a junky digging for the last crispy bits.

Pastry chef Colleen Grapes also skillfully toys with the refined-rustic dichotomy—in an olive oil cake that’s like a lush cross between sponge and angel food, with tart brûléed grapefruit; and in a delicate chocolate tart, its ganache swaddled in an unlikely pretzel crust, with a single potato chip balanced on top. Grapes, a Red Cat veteran, recently returned to the Bradley fold after a brief tenure at Irving Mill. Like an auteur director, Bradley inspires not just great performances, but a loyal cast, too.