New York Magazine – July 22, 2019

52 new york | july 22–august 4, 2019

PHOTOGRAPH: SCOTT HEINS FOR NEW YORK MAGAZINE

The Fulton

food

Edited by

Rob Patronite and

Robin Raisfeld

key: The rating scale of 0 to 100 reflects our editors’ appraisals of all the tangible and intangible factors that make a restaurant or bar great—or terrible—regardless of price.

On the Waterfront

Globally accented seafood meets picturesque coastal

setting at Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s latest.

by adam platt

S

ure, there are a few things

that might cause a bilious skeptic to

raise an eyebrow (or two), and

maybe even emit a sad, resigned

sigh, when planning a first visit to Jean-

Georges Vongerichten’s ambitious new

downtown seafood restaurant, the Fulton.

Like many large-scale projects around

Manhattan these days, the 200-plus-seat

restaurant is situated in a new real-estate

development, in this case at the

end of the refurbished Pier 17

down by the old South Street Sea-

port. There will be a food hall in

this boxy, somewhat antiseptic

mall-like structure one day, along

with other enticements (yes, Mr.

Chang will be opening a restau-

rant too), but right now the entrance is a

little hard to locate (it’s obscured by vari-

ous construction projects, not to mention

that rumbling Mad Max flyway known as

the FDR Drive), and when you arrive for

dinner, you might find yourself wandering

up and down escalators, like I did, through

crowds of dazed-looking thrill seekers and

tourists, before you sit down to eat.

As anyone who’s followed his long and

storied career knows, Jean-Georges has a

knack for taking tired old formulas

(French cooking, Asian fusion, farm to

table, etc.) and imbuing them with his par-

ticular elevated sensibility and style, and

this new exercise in mall branding turns

out to be a little different from all the oth-

ers. The large, double-floor space has been

fitted out with aqua-green banquettes and

buoy-shaped lights, among other nautical

touches, and it occupies a prime spot at

the front of the pier. There’s an alfresco

area where you can contemplate a

variety of eclectic raw-bar treats

and crudi as sea breezes waft

around, and from the well-situ-

ated tables in- and outside of the

restaurant, you can gaze at the full

span of the Brooklyn and Manhat-

tan bridges, as well as south,

toward the harbor, where the ferries and

sailboats are cutting to and fro.

“I almost feel like I’m on vacation,”

someone said during one of my visits, as

we looked south down the harbor and

then up again at the great bridges turning

pink in the evening sun. Indeed, for a

front-row view of the Fourth of July fire-

works, the restaurant was charging a

hotel-level $375 per seat (which included

food and drink). Being a Jean-Georges

franchise, the Fulton’s menu is filled with

discreetly exotic touches from around the

globe. Our places were set with chop-

sticks, and during the early, crudo portion

of dinner, we sampled deep-sea red

prawns from Spain, served with their

whiskery heads on and an elegant Asian-

style dipping sauce made from fermented

soybeans; long, chewy razor clams from

Maine spritzed with lime juice and chile;

and delicious little nickels of delicately

sliced scallops, laid out on their silvery,

moon-shaped shells with a garnish of torn

shiso leaf and jalapeño.

“This is the only Manhattan clam

chowder I’ve ever eaten that didn’t taste

like the inside of a rusty tomato can,” one

local chowder aficionado said after expe-

riencing the excellent house chowder at

the Fulton, which the kitchen constructs

with littlenecks and choppings of celery,

carrots, and potatoes, all cooked down in

a tomato broth brightened with Thai

chile pepper. That other tired local war-

horse Long Island fluke crudo is enliv-

ened with Sichuan buds, fresh mint, and

a habanero vinaigrette, among other

things. The warm, gently pulverized octo-

pus tentacle is an almost perfect iteration

of this great Mediterranean dish, and if

you call for a helping of bouchot mussels,

you’ll find that they come with a small

mound of black Chinese rice on the side,

which you’re instructed to stir into the

rich, lemongrass-infused broth once a

modest number of shells have been

cleared from the bowl.

A few of the entrées at this elaborate sea-

food shack turned out to be more of a mixed

bag, however. The aïoli-laden fish stew

IMPRESSIVE^88

The Fulton

89 South St.,

at Beekman St.

212-838-1200

thefulton.nyc