Chef Scott Bryan is back in NY and we should all rejoice. Veritas used to be my favorite restaurant in NY back when he was cooking there. Then he left, did a stint at restaurant 2941 in Virginia, and had his name rumored in association with a couple of other restaurants before finally resurfacing for real at Apiary in the East Village a couple of weeks ago.

Not one to waste time, I went to check it out yesterday. Unfortunately my timing was probably not the best because: 1. it’s Restaurant Week and 2. it’s still a little too early in Bryan’s tenure there for him to be doing his old Veritas-style tasting menus. Apparently he will not be ready to put out tasting menus at Apiary until mid to late February. But the food I did have last night showed that Chef Bryan is still on top of his game and Apiary is fully worth a return visit when he gets the tastings going.

The Apiary dining room has a modern elegance and is dimly lit in a good way. Definitely more froufrou than you’d expect in the East Village, but I like it. Sorry I have no pictures from this meal but I didn’t bring my camera. It’s just as well, since the cozy dining room’s atmosphere was so classy I would not have been comfortable taking flash photos in there anyway.

I had three apps, two of which were unequivocally superb and the other merely excellent. The fresh, sweet diver scallops were beautifully seared, sitting in a shallow pool of sauce with nuances of browned butter, coconut milk, curry and lemongrass. The dish was topped with baby greens, mache I think, delicately spritzed with just enough acidity to gently cut the richness of the sauce beneath. Kind of a quintessential Scott Bryan dish if you look at the elements- perfect execution as evidenced by the char on the scallops, depth of flavor that is not just good but absolutely captivating as evidenced by the sauce, and well-conceived balance as evidenced by the brightness of the gently dressed greens. Really a great dish.

The next killer app was the sweetbreads. Sweetbreads aren’t my favorite choice of offal, but when they are done well, they are great, and these were definitely great. They had a marvelously substantial crispiness to their exterior, another sign of that Scott Bryan perfection in execution. And the sauce, oh man what a sauce. It was a romesco, so it had a nice rich mouthfeel from whatever nuts he pureed, but the real nice touch was the deft addition of pimenton; not overpowering, but just enough to lend some color and intriguing smokiness. Beautiful.

The weakest of the apps was still rather excellent in my opinion- a Thai squid salad. The squid was of course perfectly cooked and tender, and the flavor accents were spot on for a Thai inspired dish- peanuts, lemongrass, mint and a touch of heat from chili. The dish’s flavors were as fresh and clean as can be which is a real virtue, but in comparison to the dazzling flavors in the other two apps, fresh and clean pales somewhat in comparison.

For entrees, I had the hangar steak and the risotto. The hangar steak was just ok, nothing to write home about. It came with a potato puree with a somewhat ambiguous sauce and while everything on the plate was good, it was not mind blowing. Can you tell my expectations are unreasonable for Chef Bryan? 🙂 The shrimp risotto on the other hand was wonderful. Every grain of rice was perfectly toothsome with an ethereal creamy, tomatoey essence in every bite. The plump and tender shrimp seemed almost superfluous considering how delicious the rice itself was. If you want to know how risotto is supposed to taste, get over to Apiary and try it while it’s still on the menu.

For dessert, I found the vanilla panna cotta to be uninspired, but then again my standards for panna cotta are completely unreasonable since I’ve been so spoiled by the dreamy versions served at Chikalicious and Peasant. What you should not miss at Apiary however, is the cherry financier. Irresistibly moist, buttery almond cake with bright but not puckering tartness from the cherries. Such an awesome dessert, I could probably have eaten five of them, easy. So there you go. Apiary gets a big thumbs up and Scott Bryan is still doin’ it and doin’ it and doin’ it well. I can’t wait for him to start doing full blown tasting menus again!

Apropos of nothing, here are some random thoughts regarding Top Chef this season:

[ mild spoiler alert: you may not want to read on if you didn’t watch last night’s episode yet ]

– Fabio is Mr. Reliable… in that you can count on him for at least one great sound bite every episode. I loved that he called out Scott Conant on that inane cheese-with-no-acidity comment.
– Adding Toby Young as a judge was a terrible move. He clearly comes to each episode with a few overly-rehearsed snarky comments and is just waiting for contestants to mess up in a way that lets him use his lame material. Watching Padma and Tom have to fake a chuckle after each of his remarks is just uncomfortable to watch. Reminds me of that train wreck of an experiment when ESPN added Rush Limbaugh to their Sunday NFL Countdown show a few years ago. He just doesn’t fit in.
– Jeff had a bad outing in last night’s episode. Good thing he can always go back to playing Dr. Chase on House M.D. (I can’t be the only person who thinks those two guys look identical).
– Stefan’s “get the fock out of here!” reaction to Carla winning was priceless. They tried to make it look like his reaction was in response to the fantastic prize of two Super Bowl tickets, but we all know it was just because he was floored that Carla actually won an elimination challenge. I can’t say I blame him; she is certifiably insane. Hootie-Hoo!