#Lingr el five ophilias restaurant movie

Isn’t that a British dish? (Gibraltar is British, I suppose. And the Diablos, also a Traditional item, although tasty, were basically a gussied-up version of devils on horseback, combining the flavors of Serrano ham, prunes, blue cheese, piquillo peppers, and feta. I’ve eaten kofta a zillion times, and this had none of the spice-market richness one finds everywhere from Turkey to India. I’d have thought that “albóndigas,” those ubiquitous Spanish meatballs usually made from beef and pork, would be featured there, rather than bland, dry balls of poultry skewered with peach slices, of all things.

For example, the Traditional list includes chicken kofta. That sounds clear enough, but the categories prove maddeningly porous. The sherry-forward Spanish Scaffa cocktailīoth of those dishes came from the first of three categories of tapas-Traditional, New School, and Middle Eastern-that form the heart of El Five’s menu. The addition of a sherry gastrique and shards of chorizo elevated that dish to semi-fancy without losing the simple, salty, perfectly oily plot. Ditto the patatas bravas, round pucks of crisp potato with garlic aïoli. It was a moment of tapas satisfaction: small and savory food, whetting one’s appetite for the next thing. We sipped a bright Greek Moschofilero Boutari white wine and nibbled creamy goat cheese croquettes, which were delicate globes of fried cheese served with a swipe of spicy honey and bits of crisp bacon. This past summer, its high-top terrace perches, backed by a lively bar and facing the sunset-illuminated city, made my wife and I, walk-ins, feel like we’d scored the catbird seat. Here’s the thing: I like Las Vegas, and I like El Five. Cucci says that he likes his restaurants to have “intentional misalignment,” whatever that means, but the real theme at El Five is, “Party on, señor!”

But you may as well accuse the Venetian casino in Las Vegas of cultural appropriation. Before even a bite of food is served, this is the sort of restaurant that would give a dour student of cultural appropriation theory enough material for a doctoral dissertation. But it’s also situated in a typical LoHi building: all glass, concrete, and rectangular effects. I’ll concede that El Five’s glitz does remind me of certain over-the-top establishments I visited in Casablanca many years ago-vaguely. The patatas bravas deliver tapas with satisfaction. There are mirrors, tiles, and elaborate steel sculptural shelving along with dark banquettes and gleaming wood counters and tables, all wrapped up in a self-described “Moroccan aesthetic.” If Edible Beats dressed Santa Claus this year, he’d be down your chimney in Jean-Paul Gaultier boots, a vermilion smoking jacket, and a Turkish fez.

#Lingr el five ophilias restaurant movie

(Edible Beats is, of course, the restaurant group behind the bonkers “gastro-brothel” Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox as well as Root Down, Linger, and Vital Root.) And whatever Pan-Mediterranean mashup cuisine El Five’s “Tapas de Gibraltar” might be-I’ll get to that-chef/impresario Justin Cucci and his gang serve it up in a seven-month-old penthouse space festooned with blown-up vintage Egyptian movie posters. When you arrive at El Five, a slow elevator takes you up five floors to a restaurant that only the people at Edible Beats have the chutzpah to pull off. Sign up today! El Five 2.5 Stars The Draw: Pan-Mediterranean tapas in a buzzy room with fabulous views The Drawback: A few dishes slide into fussiness Don’t Miss: Patatas bravas, goat cheese croquettes, shrimp and calamari a la plancha, shawarma lamb ribs, cauliflower yufka, sausage paella

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