Truffle Feast at David Santos’s Louro

I’ve been pretty terrible about blogging them, but suffice it to say that our first trip to Chef David Santos’s underground supper club was the first of many. Dave’s food is this hard-to-find combination of incredibly comforting and refined, and his passion for what he does makes it taste even better. And now the chef finally has a proper home, Louro in the West Village.

The night before the official opening, we were lucky enough to get a couple of seats at his first Monday night Nossa Mesa supper club dinner, part of a weekly series of themed meals. This was the Black and White dinner, featuring loads and loads of truffles.

This dinner was BYOB, but the bar was fully stocked, and we of course had a glass of Riesling. The space, formerly housing the restaurant Lowcountry, has been redesigned with whites and granites, gorgeous branch-like lighting fixtures with exposed bulbs, and a “library” of photos of books lining the walls. Classy.

Chef Santos’s famous/infamous Portuguese “butter”

Actually lard. With lots and lots of black pepper.

Chef Santos’s equally famous/infamous “flatbread”

Actually the fluffiest bread. Not at all flat.

amuse: uni, grapefruit

One of the better preparations of uni I’ve had. The tart grapefruit didn’t highlight the bitterness of the uni, as I would expect, but they balanced one another. A very clean, refreshing start.

hamachi tartare, quail egg, grilled scallions, white truffle aioli

I never thought I’d ever call scallions the highlight of a dish, but these were so flavorful and had such a great chewy texture. Between the over-easy quail egg and the aioli, this became a creamy mess within seconds, and all of us were practically licking our plates to get every last bit of scallion-y oil-slicked hamachi.

celery root soup, black truffle pudding, celery in textures

I have a friend who hates celery, and never was I sadder for her than when eating this belly-warming bowl of celery-flavored cream. Slivers of celery lined the bottom of the bowl, but the textures weren’t even necessary for me when the base was so incredibly rich with celery.

risotto, lardo, parmigiano foam, white truffles

Refusing to let up for a second, the chef followed with another creamy dish: the most cheesy, fatty risotto. You think you’re going to get tired of eating a whole bowl of the same flavor and texture, and then you take a single truffle-laden bite and wish the bowl was bigger.

Senat Farms chicken two ways:

first way: black truffle, corn bread, wild mushrooms

Tender chicken with a crispy skin and cubes of granular cornbread, mushrooms, and onions marinated in truffle oil. So many deep, dark, umami flavors in one dish. I needed about ten times more cornbread and ten times fewer mushrooms, but I understand that normal people love mushrooms.

second way: polenta, confit ragu, wild mushrooms

Very reminiscent of the buttery potato mousseline served on the side of the whole duck at Eleven Madison Park, this was so smooth it was hard for me to equate it with the grainy fried polenta I’m used to. The tender chicken almost disintegrated into the creamy polenta. I hope this shows up on the regular menu so I can eat it again in the dead of winter and be comforted.

foie gras beignets, truffle sugar and glaze

Donuts4dinner! Only sadly, I didn’t care for them. For me, they weren’t nearly sweet enough to be dessert because of the truffle, but they were also too sweet to be savory because of the sugar, and they were also a little funky thanks to the foie gras. On the bright side, they were just the right fluffy-but-filling consistency, and one of my friends thought they were entirely successful, so.

In the name of self-congratulations, I’d also like to mention that some of my photos were used by New York magazine’s Grub Street blog yesterday in the announcement of Louro’s opening this week: What to Eat at Louro, Now Serving Fry Bread and Rabbit Rillettes in the West Village. (Click on the picture to see more.)

I couldn’t have been more pleased at the opportunity to shoot Chef Santos’s food and to have my work shown in one of my favourite blogs. Here’s one of the outtakes from the shoot to get you ready for Louro’s regular menu: