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Chef duo Samuel Clonts and Raymond Trinh began their careers together at the Dove Mountain Ritz-Carlton in Arizona, a luxury institution, before both moving to New York City, where they worked under celebrity chef Cesar Ramirez at Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare. Eventually, the pair struck out on their own in 2021, opening a relaxed restaurant with a gorgeous tasting menu on the Lower East Side. Called 63 Clinton, it’s one of those places I hesitate to talk about publicly, lest it seem overcrowded or raise the chef’s prices to $120, a reasonable price for seven exciting courses. What I love most about it is its uniqueness, its utter confidence, and its indifference to the imposed standards of chic that seem to drive so many high-end restaurants into monotony. Even though it opened just a few years ago, 63 Clinton feels — wonderfully, comfortingly — like a throwback to the original, rock-star culinary heyday of the early twenties. It seems to be staffed by people who are open to new ideas, experimenting, and pursuing a risky, freewheeling business model that relies entirely on their taste, skill, and confidence, which, in the case of Clonts and Trinh, is pretty high.
Pizzas with unique toppings are cooked in a domed oven decorated with tiles.
Cactus Wren, the new spot they opened in February at the intersection of Ludlow and Rivington, is also sui generis, in that it seems completely disconnected from current trends and uninterested in capturing any particular zeitgeist. It nods to history with recurring elements tied to the American Southwest (the restaurant is named after Arizona’s state bird, a small brown bird known for its call), but it’s mostly the cuisine that does the job. The menu is dense and diner-like, elegant and casual, high and low. In its pursuit of, well, whatever it’s pursuing, Cactus Wren subverts categories in a way that feels natural and invigorating. Ingredients and techniques intertwine and vary from dish to dish, like a game of Mad Libs in the kitchen. Of course, a huge dollop of sturgeon caviar should be on top of a bowl of seven-layer bean dip that includes crispy potato chips; it’s no more fussy or high-concept than serving caviar quenelles with sour cream and blini. Why not deep-fry chicken wings in a light batter and dust them with jalapeño powder? They’re intensely flavorful yet surprisingly light, like giant matcha-colored beignets. The real beignets at Cactus Wren, meanwhile, are filled with takoyaki-style chunks of langoustine and seasoned with Old Bay, very Maryland-y; the Maryland shrimp, meanwhile, are served on little triangles of sandwich bread and deep-fried in an homage to shrimp toast, a dim sum classic that comes with a very un-dim sum garnish of green goddess sauce for dipping.
Sourse: newyorker.com
