The Washington Post Magazine - USA (2022-03-13)

50 MARCH13, 2022

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SOLUTION TO PUZZLE

“REROUTED FLIGHTS,” MARCH 6

KEY TO THE PREVIOUS SECOND GLANCE

MARCH 6

PHOTO: LAURA CHASE DE FORMIGNY; ORIGINAL SECOND GLANCE PHOTO: WASHINGTON POST READER DAVID C. KENNEDY

the list you take home, “lead porter” included — and rightly so.
Have you checked the cost of flights to Tokyo or Barcelona
lately? Minibar is as much a vacation from the routine as a
dinner to remember long after you’ve dispatched, say, freeze-
dried soy sauce caramel, puffy and crisp as chicharrón and a fun
stage for luscious guacamole.
Minibar is likely to expose you to ingredients you’ve never
eaten — shirako, for instance, the custard-like center in a bite of
crisp tempura that’s dramatically presented on a rippled white
plate. The soft texture reminds me of sweetbreads. Shirako
translates to milt in English, in this case, cod sperm sacs.
For all the science and whimsy behind a lot of this food, the
current iteration of Minibar emphasizes Japan’s reverence for
quality and presentation. Slices of gently crisp abalone are
brushed on one half of the delicacy with tamari and garnished
with tiny balls of compressed green apple, a detail designed to
refresh the palate like pickled ginger in a sushi restaurant.
Nature provides the abalone with a plate: its own iridescent shell.
In another eye-opener, glistening caviar and prime wagyu
beef nestle inside a nasturtium cup. “Dig deep,” diners are
instructed by the chef-servers. Proper excavation gets you brown
butter croutons — dueling texture — in each decadent spoonful.
And nowhere have I encountered eel as elegant as at Minibar,
where the skewered fish, brushed with a marinade of rosemary,
thyme and Spanish smoked paprika, is garnished just so with
pale green crystal lettuce.
“Frozen salad 3.0” marks the transition from savory to sweet
and relies on a hand-cranked ice shaver to turn a vegetable into
something frosty and refreshing, at present a peppery cucumber
salad. It is followed by chantilly cream piped onto a sheet of nori
and meant to be a riff on senbei, Japanese rice crackers.
The show moves at a nice clip. The principals have
experienced the entire menu as diners do, seated before the
buffed wood counter, and it shows in perfect pacing. Your eyes
will be trained on whatever course the chefs are setting before
you or, in the case of one dessert, sesame tart, feeding you off a
long-handled spoon. Should you look behind you, however,

check out the chalkboard wall, where sous-chef Melissa Lalli

illustrates a handful of recipes in a few choice words and

sketches. One of them is haiku for a brilliant dessert featuring

milk sorbet in a strawberry tuile garnished with herby nepitella

blossoms.

If you’ve been to Minibar before, the present ending is a

lesser moment. No one moves from the theater to cocktail

lounge next door, Barmini, for dessert. (Blame the pandemic.

And trust that the team will rethink the drill, which extends the

fun.) The bill for drinks and extras is also presented in a leather

holder rather than as a surprise: I still smile at the memory of

retrieving my check from nesting dolls several years ago.

But those are small quibbles in what remains a grand

adventure. I’m not issuing stars right now — again, blame the

pandemic — but if I were, I’d shower four of them, my highest

rating, on Minibar by the one and only José Andrés.

Strawberry tuile filled with milk sorbet.