Tavern + eatery = The Tav’ery

BY JEREMY WAYNE jwayne@westfairinc.com

“Hello boss, how are we today?” asks the attentive runner at The Tav’ery, a relatively new restaurant in Bronxville, where, like me, a handful of other diners are enjoying a late lunch and taking refuge from the heat on a sizzling Tuesday afternoon.

Since I’m never addressed as “boss” at home — a prophet has no honor in his own house, as the Gospels have it — or anywhere else for that matter, I rather like this. I also like the way he immediately fills my glass with good, old-fashioned, iced water, poured from an aluminum pitcher, rather than launching into the “Still, sparkling or tap?” routine that in far too many restaurants has become the preamble to getting a glass of simple H20.

I like the space, too, a long marble-topped bar as you enter, diverting left into a larger restaurant room behind. It’s a bit of an awkward layout, the main restaurant — not so much a V-shape as a squiggle but it sports a long, L-shaped banquette, a booth for four and a couple of cozy corners. So, something for everyone.

The menu, too, has enough variety to take you from an early lunch through an early supper, with small plates, tacos, sandwiches, burgers, “grande” salads and more. Or, “More…” as the menu has it.

I thought French onion soup on the menu on a 93° July day, where a cold vichyssoise or gazpacho might have been more appealing, was pushing it a bit, and said as much to my server — that a piping hot onion soup might be a hard sell on such a day — when the man at the next table promptly went and ordered it. He demolished the Gruyère-saturated crust and then the soup with brio. I ate my words.

Me, I went with a Cobb salad, mostly because I love a well-done Cobb but also to see the reason — or justification — for calling it “grande,” which is, after all, a very grand word for a salad.

This was not so much a deconstructed salad as an unconstructed one in the first place, with egg whites and yokes separated and the shredded lettuce, red onion, blue cheese, grape tomatoes, cucumber and bacon bits presented in separate bands along the plate. A colorful and pleasing arrangement, if not an especially grand(e) one, it tasted fresh and delicious.

The kitchen impressed, too, with my main course, a Pat LaFrieda original beef burger, prime quality beef with caramelized onions, pancetta jam, Gruyère and

Tav’ery’s own aioli — served with crisp, spirally fries.

Several dishes, perhaps too many, contain melted cheese — Gruyère, smoked Gouda — although I had no complaint about it in a compelling dish of caramelized cauliflower with braised Swiss chard, Tav’ery’s particular acknowledgement of the cauliflower craze sweeping the region. In this dish, the cauli was “drizzled” with melted Brie, a vast improvement on the British classic of “cauliflower cheese” — a sad, sloppy mess served up once a week at my English boarding school, and the reason I did not eat cauliflower again for more than 20 years.

Brussel sprouts, another vegetable du moment, enjoyed upgraded treatment, with those crisp bacon bits again and the sprouts shimmering under a bourbon glaze. Again, though, I would not necessarily include this winter root vegetable on a summer menu.

My Irish server, full of “thank yous” and “you’re welcomes” and Emerald Isle smiles, was now busy discussing the joys of County Sligo with a couple seated nearby. It sounded as if they were headed there shortly on vacation, and the server knew it well.

Someone else was ordering a Guinness — an excellent thirst quencher when served cold enough — and the large black and gray picture with a gash of red running through it, on the wall opposite my table, was suddenly reminding me of Chris de Burgh’s “The Lady in Red.” Yes, I was definitely having an Irish moment here in Bronxville. I think we all were. Whatever happened to Chris de Burgh, by the way?

My neighbor on the other side, meanwhile, he of the onion soup and asbestos tongue, with whom I had now struck up a conversation, told me he appreciated the house-made tartar sauce that came with his beer-battered cod, a nice tranche of fresh fish fried in a crisp batter. The sauce, he pointed out enthusiastically, was not your usual vinegary glop from a packet but a well-balanced mayonnaise with pickle and dill. Go, Tav’ery.

Like several of the dishes, my sticky toffee pudding dessert was a little busy, with its sheaf of fresh mint leaves, strawberry slices, scattering of blueberries, scoop of dulce de leche ice cream and large dollop of whipped cream all adorning the pudding, which was good and sticky enough to stand alone. OK, that ice cream wasn’t half bad, I admit it.

Coffee by the way, Masini by Essse Italian espresso, was superb.

With less melted cheese, please, and fewer drizzles, The Tav’ery is a handy restaurant I can imagine myself returning to time and again.

For reservations, visit thetavery.com.