The Tasting Menu at Louro

Having first met Chef David Santos at his home supper club, Um Segredo, I felt a sense of pride when he opened his first restaurant in Manhattan’s West Village, Louro. As he sold out his Monday night themed dinners (like the truffle feast) and received a star from the New York Times two months in, I was already telling people that “I knew him way back when”.

The restaurant is a little bit of everything: a rustic floor and seating, nature-inspired lighting, and black and white photos of highbrow book collections. The food is on the fancy side, but the service makes you feel comfortable. I get the feeling that Dave’s tasting menu varies from night to night like the Per-Se-trained chef he is, but here’s the five-course, $65 chef’s tasting from the night my boyfriend and I visited recently:

homemade flatbread and Portuguese “butter”

The Portuguese “butter”–actually lard–is basically reason enough to ever visit Louro. Chowhound even wrote an article solely devoted to people’s devotion to it. In the Um Segredo days, it was a gloopy, drippy, melty concoction. Now it’s a homogenized spread that actually stays on your bread. I’m not saying I like it one way or another, but it’s all grown up now and is certainly ready to be jarred and sold commercially. (Hint, hint.) The bread was just as ridiculously fluffy/crunchy as ever.

seafood fritters, smoked paprika aioli

So much flavor, and not any one standout “this is definitely scallops” flavor but a meld of the whole sea, clean and fresh and bright. They didn’t even need the tangy sauce for me, and I live to cover up natural flavor with sauces.

piri piri shrimp

Super spicy thanks to the piri piri pepper with the most perfect texture. I have to admit that I’m somewhat squeamish about touching shrimp tails still (and let’s not talk about the heads), but I could eat a lot of these. Like, a lot a lot.

green asparagus

My extremely observant impression of this: “very fresh for the most part but then sour pickled something”. You’re welcome. The mushrooms were salted and the whole dish was chilled.

white asparagus, sauce gribiche

I love when a simple dish really wows. Not that sauce gribiche is so simple, but presenting this white asparagus so purely made it seem more important and almost meaty, like a piece of steak. I loved the grainy texture of the sauce against the cool, tender asparagus. It was like eating a really good tartar sauce. With eggs.

sepia

The cuttlefish is a freaky animal, but it’s a pleasure to eat a singular thing like this with no bones/veins/any of the freaky stuff you find in land creatures. The sepia has a natural light oceany flavor that was compounded with grilling, and then the richer bacony flavor and bitterness of the greens created a contrast.

uni, crispy pork belly, yuzu, shiso, togarashi pickled cabbage

My boyfriend said he was worried that pork belly was too easy–bacon makes everything better–but we didn’t care once we tasted the fresh brightness of the uni against the richness of the pork. The spicy/sour cabbage cut its fattiness, and with the bright citrus, this dish became one of the lightest pork preparations I’ve had. But with just enough of that uni iron flavor to make things interesting.

mackerel, pineapple, hearts of palm

Sour and sweet thanks to the pineapple and the onion, which for me, made the dish. Crispy skin and that tender but hearty hearts of palm texture.

walleye, hominy, onion ring

So meaty and spicy with so many textures, from the crunchy onion ring with its delicate batter to the hominy, which was like eating a mixture of pasta and popcorn.

spring vegetable pasta

I don’t know why Dave’s pasta is so good. I half-expected this to be a pasta course simply for a pasta course’s sake, but this and the tagliatelle were two of the most memorable dishes of the night. The peas and garbanzos were so super fresh and al dente against the creamy, rich cheese.

octopus bolognese tagliatelle

Cheesy but not enough to hide the tang of the tomato, with the thinnest pasta and just the right amount of chewy texture from the octopus. I expected this to be on the seafood side of the flavor spectrum, but it was much more land meat than ocean.

pork belly

Tender, oniony, and homey, like it was from a recipe passed down by your mom. The best part were the nuts that added to the crunch of the crust.

steak

I loved the bold flavors of this, the intense spice of the peppers and chilis. Tender and rare, with hearty crushed potatoes.

pain perdu

I don’t really remember what was going on with this bread, because I was too focused on the amaretto cookie, which was suuuuuper buttery. It was perfect with the texture of the ice cream–just a little grainy, like the best homemade ice cream is.

white asparagus ice cream, strawberry compote, shortbread crumble

The funky, fresh taste of asparagus with the cold and syrupy sweet strawberry chunks and a crumble for texture. This isn’t for the faint of heart with the asparagus flavor so evident and unexpected in ice cream, but Chef Santos seems to love to present a little challenge at the end of the meal (see: foie gras doughnuts).

I won’t rate this since I’m too biased toward Chef Santos’s cooking, but I can tell you that this is the best food I’ve had from him. He’s never been one to shy away from bold flavors, but these dishes were even bolder, even more complex, even more complete than what he was doing at his supper club. Clearly the new kitchen and the hands in it suit his ambitious style, and I plan to be so much of a regular at Louro that they get tired of seeing me.