All'Onda

    When the word was out that veteran restaurateur Chris Cannon and Chef Chris Jaeckle were going to open a Venetian-Japanese restaurant, not a few, including myself, arched an eyebrow.  Not because there aren’t correlations between the seafood cookery of Venice and that of Japan, but because fusion cuisine, though more rife than ever, seems a tad passé at a time when all the media hype is being spilled on molecular and modernist gimmickry.
    Were all’Onda (“of the wave”) opened by anyone else, suspicions of intent would have been aroused, but the two Chrises have a lot of background in this kind of cuisine: both had been part of the Altamarea Group headed by Michael White, which gave New York the great Italian seafood restaurant Marea, which had its own sushi (or crudi) bar.  Cannon and Jaeckle split from that group three years ago and restless foodies were waiting to see what they would do. It took a while.
    All’Onda is a two-tier affair, with a barn-like use of old wood and brass, and windows overlooking the street.  Downstairs is the bar (serving exotic cocktails), upstairs a dark dining room, both crashingly loud, so you need to shout to be heard by anyone at your table.
    Cannon strides genially through the restaurant in a quilted jacket, and he is certainly familiar with many of his customers. Jaeckle, when chef de cuisine, was more in the background at Marea, but he makes his appearances at all’Onda when things aren’t too hectic. 
    Despite Jaeckle’s having worked with these kinds of culinary ideas before, it’s not easy to pull off everything with aplomb if just about every dish is a novelty.  This is not a place to have a hearty bowl of risotto with cuttlefish ink or slabs of calf’s liver alla veneziana.  Each dish is cannily transformed in some way, so that razor clams come with sopressata and miso ($11), while a scallop couples with anchovy, cauliflower and lardo fat ($17).
    Tuna is paired with Cerignola olives and preserved tomato but given a shot of mild wasabi ($16), while sweetbreads are tossed in with celeriac, a balsamic sugo and bonito ($17). There are, of course, crudo items available ($13-$18).
    The pastas  ($17-$19) mostly succeed admirably. The risotto with cuttlefish is enhanced with some radicchio and slivers of saline bottarga, probably the closest thing to a Venetian rendering on the menu, and it works.  Spaghetti with Manila clams and Calabrian chile is a traditional trope, and a shot of bittersweet Ramazzotti doesn’t really add anything. But the addition of chocolate does give a noticeable boost to rigatoni with a duck ragù and Treviso radicchio. Tortellini in a “parmesan dashi,” with tomato oil and mushroom doesn’t quite connect the Venetian-Japanese dots.
    Excellent indeed was guinea hen with parsnip, shio kombu (dried kelp), and a foie gras sugo ($27), as was dorade with a Mediterranean tapenade, pickled chilies and salsa verde ($28), while monkfish with sea urchin (Jaeckle uses a lot of sea urchin) and polenta with squid ink and arugula was about two ingredients too much ($25). Jerusalem artichokes with brown butter and soy sauce were delicious ($7), and Brussels sprouts took well to a bracing cinder vinegar, honey, curry and pistachios ($7).
    I wish for more enticing desserts than olive oil cake (at an absurd $13)--a trendy idea among chefs--with lemon and basil, or a panna cotta ($12) with fennel and the gag-causing Fernet-Branca digestive most people drink as a punishment for overindulgence.  Let’s just forget the soy sauce gelato.
    It’s not easy to match wine with this kind of food, so ask sommelier Nathan Rawlinson for help. He’s got plenty of interesting wines, especially whites, that marry well.
    All’Onda has thus far drawn a surging crowd of adventurous foodies, but it will be interesting to see if many will return again and again for this particular style of cuisine.  I suspect it will evolve, tame down some of its odder components, like Ramazotti and Fernet-Branca, and become one of those places fans will bring out-of-towners for something they’re not likely to find back home.

Hours: Lunch Mon.-Fri. ; Dinner: Sun.-Thur., 5:30-11 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 5:30 p.m.-midnight