Hearth--Manhattan

646.602.1300

It should be noted that a lot of my restaurant experiences included the influence of tremendous amounts of alcohol. And it as been said that I am not necessarily the smoothest of drunks. Nonetheless, I must say that Hearth was a place I’d been dying to visit. Not me, actually, but rather my wife, who begrudgingly joins me on many of my restaurant sojourns. In this instance it was my other wife, a dear friend dialed into the industry to direct me to places she thinks I’d like. Unfortunately for these places, I’m a drunk. And when drunk, I’m an asshole.

The Hearth experience began at Terroir, the little-sister wine bar. Terroir is fantastic, and we started there with a little bacala and a few glasses of wine. I’m not sure what kind, so I’ll stick with red. When we finally got over to Hearth we decided to sit at the bar so we could observe the wait staff scurry around in their pre-determined casual attire. More on the pre-determined in minute. The bartender reminded me of someone, and when she walked up I was creepily familiar. I say creepily because I didn’t have my I’ve-never-met-you-before defenses up and was a little too much myself. Dare I say that for one, I was drunk, and two by virtue of one, an asshole. As we looked over the Northern-Italian Aspired menu I inquired about her nifty shirt, which everyone else in the restaurant was wearing to some degree. Did the restaurant make them buy their own striped shirt so that they could personalize the obvious manufactured casual look? Or were they forced by the conglomerate to wear them? My server did not receive these questions well, briskly going over the menu before taking a drink order for more red wine.

Now at this point I’m going to take minute to discuss what we had. I’d already wolfed down the bacala, which was delicious and I presume from the same kitchen. My friend had a salad with a lot of fennel and the quail. She said both were quite delicious but I wasn’t about to try her food because she’s kind of hot and fennel is gross. I had the veal meatballs, and because the server curtly took my order, also had a plate of salty gnocchi. There was also ravioli on the plate of meatballs. A question I distinctly asked when ordering to begin with, which is why the salty gnocchi was so fucking disappointing; because the dish already came with a fucking starch.

I understand that owners are trying to make their restaurant into a specific brand to attract a specific customer. I know this. Certain places do not necessarily have formal service, some places require a tie, and other places deal with insanely poor people and serve them processed protein that sometimes passes for beef. That’s the owner’s prerogative; what he or she thinks will sell well and for what price. And all of these places have two things in common: the first is that they are going to serve food; the second their staff is going to have to deal with assholes.
I appreciate I might have been off-putting to that lovely bartender on that particular night. I know my hang ups, look at myself everyday in the mirror and go on with life. I’m an asshole when I’m drunk. I get it. But don’t fuck up my order because of it. A restaurant that charges the money that Hearth charges should have the person who manages their bar, including service drinks mind you, know the menu backwards and forwards. And should prevent someone, even if they make fun of your silly dress code, from ordering a side of starch with a dish that clearly covers the starch department, especially if you’re going to charge that person forty dollars for an entrée and the side. You never know who keeps closeted restaurant reviews. And if Terroir’s staff wasn’t so knowledgeable, and most likely a better representation of the owner’s vision, an asshole like me would choose never to return.