Chef Alex Pope raises the R Bar
The West Bottoms stretch of Genessee isn’t exactly kicking these days, so one has to suspend disbelief to remember that a hundred years ago, this neighborhood was one of the city’s noisiest and bawdiest, with pool halls, hotels, brothels, cheap cafes and taverns aimed at the cowboys and cattlemen. When the Kansas City Stock Yards finally closed in 1991, a vital energy drained out of this area forever.
But after many, many months of work renovating the century-old building that formerly housed Sutera’s Restaurant, Joy Jacobs and Lisa Morales opened the R Bar and Restaurant a couple of months ago.
The giant letter R hanging on the brick wall across from the bar used to belong to actor Ron Megee, back when his stylish West Bottoms loft was the scene of many arty events. Megee left the Bottoms several years ago, but the R — which stands nearly as tall as a Schwinn bicycle — has obviously stayed in the neighborhood.
And the rest of this combination bar and upscale bistro has been brilliantly designed to look like the kind of honky-tonk that might really have lined this street back in the stockyards’ heyday. Hell, no one in the early 1980s could have predicted that New York City’s forlorn meatpacking district would, two decades later, become one of the city’s trendiest dining destinations. It took one enterprising culinary pioneer, Florent Morellet — who turned an unassuming diner into the 24-hour French bistro Florent — to start that ball rolling (even if Florent ultimately lost its lease and closed last year).
It’s tempting to wonder whether the R Bar and Restaurant’s success may be the push that the West Bottoms needs to become the city’s new dining mecca — it has already been discovered by both the hipster crowd and society A-listers. (Arts patrons John and Sharon Hoffman rave about the place and everything on chef Alex Pope’s menu.) After all, the Power & Light District ain’t it.
What’s interesting about the R Bar and Restaurant is that everyone I know who has been there agrees that the place looks fabulous, has a terrific staff (including Shawn Moriarty, one of the city’s best bartenders) and a comfortable, exciting vibe.
What no one seems to agree upon is the food. “The chef tries too hard,” my friend Missy said. “The food needs to be a little less pretentious.” But my friend Dan loves everything on the menu and is thrilled that the list of starters includes dishes such as foie gras and a caviar waffle instead of fried pickles and slider burgers. “I know it’s a bar with upscale pretensions,” he said, “but, damn it, it’s so refreshing to go someplace and not see fried jalapeño poppers and fucking artichoke dip on the menu!”
No, there’s no fucking artichoke dip on Alex Pope’s menu. It’s entirely possible that this personable young chef, formerly at the American Restaurant, has never tasted artichoke dip. Instead, he serves a delectably rich “slaw” inspired by the rustic French cassoulet, mixing cabbage with confit chicken, sage sausage, cannellini bean puree and truffle crème fraîche. It’s unlike anything resembling cole slaw (or “coe slaw,” as one burger joint in town calls it). And it’s extraordinary.
Yes, it is a pretentious menu for a place that looks like a 19th-century saloon, although you’re likely to find more boyishly attractive cowgirls bellied up to the bar than swaggering cowboys. And I think Pope lives up to his culinary affectations. At least he has a sense of humor. Instead of bread before the meal, servers bring out a savory fried funnel cake drenched in a sauce of goat cheese and paprika. It’s a light, airy creation and fun; I appreciate the novelty of the invention even if, after two dinners at the restaurant, I feel that I can go through life without tasting one again.
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My friend Marvin proclaimed the funnel cake “the white-trash version of an amuse-bouche.” He also hated the waffle dotted with Hackleback sturgeon roe and sour cream. “It might have been good, maybe, if Alex Pope used an Eggo waffle, which — say what you like about them — are usually light. The waffle we received was so hard that I could have used it as a paver in my garden,” he griped. “We finally just scraped the caviar off.”
I never would have ordered the dish anyway. I’m not that crazy about waffles with syrup, let alone caviar. So I ordered the cassoulet slaw as a starter the night I dined with Bob and Martha. Bob had beef tartar with chipotle butter as a first course (he said he didn’t like it but finished every bite) and, for his entrée, mussels steamed in a lemongrass broth. He liked those. And Martha’s short ribs were exceptionally good, and I loved the soothing lamb-and-feta sausage served with wonderful homemade noodles and a punchy lemony mint tzatziki sauce.
We were sitting in one of the back booths, far enough away from the madding crowd at the bar (where local bon vivant Chadwick Brooks was holding court) that we could have a real conversation. And I could keep my eyes on the servers dashing to and from Pope’s kitchen. I was relieved that we had the handsome and attentive Miles as our waiter, because a couple of the other servers seemed more than a little frazzled.
On the night I dined with Georgina, Kathy and Franklin, they insisted on a booth at the very back of the dining room. “I usually don’t like eating so close to the restrooms,” Georgina sniffed, “but this section of the restaurant — which would be Siberia anyplace else — is the most comfortable.” The fact that the Hoffmans were in the next booth just confirmed her opinion. “Only the nobodies sit up front,” she whispered.
I’m sure I rolled my eyes as I dipped my spoon into a bowl of Pope’s autumn potage, an excellent combination of spicy chorizo and white beans in a pumpkin-colored, roasted-garlic and rosemary broth. Bob didn’t care for his crab cake. (“It’s not moist. It’s damp,” he whined.) But Kathy loved her romaine salad with roasted pears and a bacon vinaigrette.
There’s only one steak — a smoked hanger steak — on the menu. You want a T-bone, cowboy? Go to the Golden Ox across the street. Georgina and Kathy both had the tender, sliced hunk of beef, smothered in a wildly rich hollandaise and sided with parmesan hash browns and Brussels sprouts. I thought it was a first-rate little steak, but Georgina turned up her nose. “Too fancy.” Fancy? It’s a $22 hanger steak, I wanted to scream. Luckily, Bob loved the quartet of superb pan-browned scallops on a silky sweet-potato tart — I did, too, and ate half of them myself.
The desserts I tasted could use a little tinkering: The cheddar and apple cheesecake with the layer of bacon was too fragile to actually get a decent bite — it crumbled as soon as a fork touched it — and the flourless chocolate cake was divinely fudgy, but do we really need another flourless chocolate cake in this town? The banana flan sounded interesting and looked wonderful as servers delivered it to other booths, but no one in my group wanted to taste it. “It sounds pretentious,” Georgina said.
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I bit my tongue. Sometimes, I think, it sounds pretentious to call something pretentious. Relax, I say, and just have another one of Moriarty’s drinks.
