This morning, I was looking at a 1979 Washington Post review by Phyllis Richman of a red checkered tablecloth Italian restaurant. The review warned that their pastas were $4 at lunch, but they increased to $5 at night.
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Problem with TCI is that everything is imported and local items like lobster and fish are pricy. But for 2009 these sound like resort resto prices. There are more affordable “local” joints. We used to go annually to the same resort. Nowadays we are cheating with Anguilla.
Hmmm. Those were resort restos and others… I’d have to look up the names of places we went to.
The biggest sticker shock came at the supermarket — for the very reason you mention, of course, but we somehow were under the delusion that we could save money one night or two by making our own meals 
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I think restaurant prices have risen faster than the rate of inflation. There was a post (and mid) pandemic jump that never settled back.
Thanks to some fabulous tasting crawls that let us eat at multiple restaurants in a day, Toni and I ate at well over 30 restaurants during out just-ended 30 day stay in NYC. It was, once again, a fabulous food trip, but the sheer number of places we ate at makes timely posting about them impossible. I’ll be dribbling out reviews for some time now.
But this review by @small_h motivated me to me to go ahead and post about Theodora now. Toni and I ate there last Thursday, and we’re extremely enthusiastic about Theodora. It’s one of the two meals we most enjoyed on the entire trip (the other was Razza, the pizza place in Jersey City).
For me, Theodora was all about the smoke.
I should be upfront about the fact that I am not a moderate where smoke is concerned, more is better. American barbecue is my favorite food, Laphroaig is my favorite scotch (I’ve had friends complain that it tastes like licking an ashtray), and the advent of trendy mescal-based cocktails has been blissful.
@small_h noted that the smoked trout was “a little too smoky” for her taste. I understand the idea of “a little too smoky” as an abstraction, but in practice I can’t remember ever thinking that a dish was too smoky.
If you are more moderate in your appreciation for smoke as a spice, you might want to discount my enthusiasm for Theodora quite a bit.
A “La Cigua” cocktail – mezcal (smoke), chipotle (more smoke), tequila, cucumber, and serrano – was a good start.
Next was some smoky pita (fabulous) with hummus topped with monkfish liver 'nduja. I love Italian 'nduja, but this monkfish liver version might be even better. The assertive fishiness of the liver stands up very well to the heat of the 'nduja spices.
My only (literally) criticism of the entire meal is of the pita. Not that it wasn’t delicious, it was superb. But there was just one piece of pita, and it was just too small for the amount of hummus and 'nduja. It’s kind of silly in the context of an already indulgent and expensive (by our standards) meal, but I was put off by paying $6 for an extra piece of pita. So we made do with finishing up the hummus and 'nduja with spoons (and truth be told, fingers for the last dabs – this was good stuff). But a little bigger piece of pita would be a nice change.
The hiramasa crudo with finger lime, dashi, avocado, and (a key ingredient not mentioned on the menu) green wasabi tobiko was next.
This was the first of the two dry-aged fish dishes that we had.
Theodora dry ages its fish, an old Japanese cooking technique that has absolutely fascinated the critics. Theodora’s dry aging technique has gotten detailed writeups in the NYT, Brooklyn Magazine, Grub Street, Eater, TimeOut, and Conde Naste Traveler, with probably the most detailed explanations in the Infatuation and Ryan Sutton’s subscriber-only Substack blog. The different types of fish are aged for differing periods, hung upside down by their tails.
The hiramasa is aged for 7 days. The chef says this gives a firmer texture to the crudo, but to be honest, I didn’t notice that much of a difference in the texture. It was bursting with flavor, and maybe that is attributable to the dry aging. Even for me, this dish was a nice change of pace from the all the smoke before and after it.
Next we had what the menu called wood-fired greens. Adding that much smoke to a salad is a smart strategy and this was a great salad. The kitchen does take some liberties with what constitutes “greens,” or maybe I’m just narrow minded, since I don’t ordinarily think of fava beans, bok choy, okra pods, or a ripe apricot as “greens.” But I’m not objecting at all to the redefinitions.
Then the highlight of the meal – the dry-aged whole branzino cooked in their Josper oven, served with a large salad. It’s not cheap ($68), but we had a lot of leftovers (which made a nice fish sandwich for our Vamoose bus ride back to Virginia) and it’s a lot cheaper than some other places (Laser Wolf’s $128 whole branzino comes to mind).
For our last year’s Brooklyn stay, probably our best meal was at Foxface Natural. But there was a noticeable flaw with the meal – the roasted goat, which some critics compared to North Carolina barbecue, and which the chef explained was smoked more than 8 hours – just wasn’t that smoky. It was extremely enjoyable, but I felt a little like I’d been “bait and switched” on the smoke level.
So when Ryan Sutton wrote “the whole branzino boasts especially vivid levels of smoke, as if the folks from Hometown BBQ swung by for an impromptu collaboration,” I was wary that the critics were once again over-promising on the smoke.
I need not have worried. This is the most intensely smoky fish I’ve ever had, including gravlax, lox, and other varieties of smoked salmon.
The branzino is first dry-aged for 4 to 5 days, depending on the size of the fish. On the second day, the branzino is stuffed with copious amounts of rosemary, plus lemon and salt. Then (according to Ryan Sutton) it is cooked in the Josper oven for 25 minutes using a combination of cherry, oak, and hickory wood. (The Josper oven comes from Catalonia and can reach 1000 degrees F, though I find it hard to believe this flaky fish was cooked at anything close to that temperature.)
As you’d expect, the branzino comes to the table beautifully bronzed and charred in places.
Presented with this whole fish, the server offers some quick instructions, basically along these lines: “You’re going to need to use your hands. Here’s a plate for you to put all that rosemary on. Then you cut upward here [motioning toward the head] and across here [pointing to the tail], then you hold it open and lift the spine out. GOOD LUCK!” (Okay, I made up the “Good Luck” part.)
It turned out to be very easy, if you didn’t mind getting your hands greasy and sacrificing a shirt to fish fat. Due to the dry aging, the flaky flesh is just a little bit firmer than a non-aged whole fish and the whole spine lifted out easily. Plus, you got to snack on the intensely smoky crisp branzino skin as you deconstructed the fish.
My vocabulary doesn’t have that many synonyms for “delicious,” so I’ll just say I enjoyed this fish more than any other fish I can ever remember having (with the possible exception of the Heebster sandwich at Russ & Daughters).
After eating less than half the fish, we were stuffed and waved away any idea of dessert, but Theodora still comped us a dish of delicious coconut mango sorbet.
The service throughout the meal was knowledgeable and friendly (and very respectful, since we were probably 30 years older than anyone else in the place). The waiter even laughed at my jokes. The New York Times had blasted the “at times deafening” music, which it described as “that awful racket,” but Theodora had apparently gotten the message as the volume in the restaurant was actually pretty quiet (certainly much quieter than in the owners’ other restaurant Miss Ada).
All in all a great meal.
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Fabulous report. I love smoky flavors, and everything looks fantastic. Guess I’ll be having dinner with our Brooklyn buds there soon.
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I thought this was a place you had praised but then couldn’t find a write-up — duh, because it was a conversation 
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The fish looks amazing, as it sounded when you described it.
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My brother from another mother!
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I could not convince my party to order this, and now I am enraged.
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thanks so much for the complete description! Now I understand and am in envy!!!
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Just had a totally delicious Portuguese custard tart courtesy of vendor Lisbonata. Liked it so much two went into my bag for Jim, the second, pistachio cream. https://www.lisbonata.com/. That second IS pistachio, not zaatar.
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wow! and they deliver!
Our favorite. We have been twice to the one in the financial district. They have a branch in Catonsville southwest of Baltimore which we have been to a lot. It is identical in menu and the food seems identical. But when I tried to get more info from the owner, he really started tap dancing. I think it is a family connection, but I am not sure.
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Another fun meal at Laser Wolf. First at this location. Same great Hummus, pita, while Salatim I felt were better in Philly. The two eggplant items were standouts. Good Date-Harissa Wings, Steak Shishlik, Keves Kebab (like lamb kebab meatballs). Dorade was nice and plentiful if not slightly overcooked.
Many of the reviewers who complain about prices are just confused about the concept. Unlimited salatim, hummus, pita, ice cream that come with each main arent exactly free. In fact they cost $26 if you dont order any mains, or choose other items like the wings
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That’s a good point about the sides making the price point more attractive. Still, it does make it difficult or impossible to get out of there without spending a fair amount of money, even if you’re not interested in unlimited sides.
But your report keeps Laser Wolf on my “must try someday” list (but maybe the Philly branch).
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We ordered an extra dish and spent the same amount we spend at any such place these days, $100 pp. Thats with drinks. You can argue that there’s some quantity over quality aspect here, but the quality is just good enough, and you can order more of what you like. The star Hummus alone is $12 at Dizengoff, so $26 for the full Salatim course isnt too bad.
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I can’t remember the last time I spent that much per person. Wow.
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My wife and I just spent a month in NYC eating and I’m pretty sure we never spent $100 per person, though we might have come close 2-3 times. The closest time we came to $200 was probably at Bunny, an outstanding Turkish-German restaurant on the border between Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights.
Toni, my wife, virtually never drinks alcohol with meals, which keeps the cost of our meals pretty reasonable.
So when I asked the proprietor how many drinks would be in a carafe of Turkish raki and he answered, “Definitely enough to get two people drunk,” I was surprised (and delighted) when Toni said, “That sounds good.”
We didn’t come anywhere close to finishing the carafe, but the proprietor graciously turned his head when we poured the rest of it into a “to go” cup.
I love retirement.
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Drinks is key. A full service meal that includes a drink, app, main, shared dessert, tax/tip in Manhattan and north Brooklyn averages $90 pp for us. It was $75 not too long ago. When we go out with friends its $100 easy. Yesterday was $125 at a crappy Italian in SI (friend’s bday).
Thinking about some of the places you went to like Theodora, it would be hard to stay under $100. I would be inclined to try something from each category including bread course.
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You’re right about Theodora. The pre-tip total was $166 (I took a photo of the receipt so I could remember what we had). My wife paid the bill, so I’m not sure how much she tipped, but probably in the $35-$40 range. She was very enthusiastic about the quality of the service.
