Aqua, a 400-seat Italian-Japanese restaurant imported from London
Aqua, in Flatiron, brings together two separate menus, one Italian and one Japanese, in a venue with more than 400 seats that was formerly a furniture store.
The latest gigantic venue to open is Aqua, at 920 Broadway, near 20th Street in Flatiron. Grand Brasserie and Din Tai Fung had already followed suit with over 400 seats, a scale previously considered manageable. The business prioritizes volume: more money is made, but the intimacy of a restaurant for about 60 people is lost, although a venue the size of a coliseum also has a certain spectacle to it.
Aqua is owned by David Yeo, who also owns Hutong, and occupies a space that until recently was a furniture store. The main dining room, shaped like a mallet, extends around an oval bar crowned by enormous rope sculptures that give it the appearance of a ship without sails. A long wing with a 21-meter sushi bar leads to a separate entrance on 21st Street.
The tables are comfortable and scattered throughout every nook, cranny, and open space, as far as the eye can see. The variety of lamps is astonishing, but the place is still dark, and there's a mezzanine that's not yet open. Aqua is actually a branch of a London restaurant and offers two menus: one Italian, "Aqua Roma," and the other Japanese, "Aqua Kyoto."
The Italian and Japanese menus are separate, with almost no fusion between them. The waitress suggested ordering dishes from both menus, but warned that the order of arrival couldn't be controlled, so it was impossible to eat sequentially, first one cuisine and then the other. This happened with the Japanese shrimp tempura and the Italian fried calamari, which arrived at the same time, with such thick batter that it was difficult to tell them apart.
With around 70 dishes, not counting desserts, the menus have short sections of two to five dishes per category. The Italian section includes starters, appetizers, raw dishes, pizzas, pastas and risottos, main courses, and side dishes. The Japanese section offers appetizers, tempura, maki, sashimi and sushi, crystal sushi, signature dishes, main courses, robata grills, rice, and noodles. The Crystal Sushi stands out, invented in Hong Kong at Shiro, one of the chain's restaurants: a raw fish core wrapped in translucent flavored jelly, instead of nori seaweed. In one of the three versions (two pieces for $22), the piece features a scallop wrapped in kimchi jelly, with caviar and a gold leaf. It's more visually striking than tasty.
Of the Italian pasta dishes, the mafalde with oxtail ragu ($29) was exquisite: the wavy noodles melted in a thick, dark sauce. Its only drawback was the small amount of noodles compared to the abundant sauce, which meant you had to eat it with a spoon, like soup, when it ran out.
On the Japanese menu, maki rolls are prepared with care so the nori seaweed doesn't fall apart and the ingredients don't spill out. The futomaki ($19) is wrapped in a layer of rice paper, and the tuna, salmon, mackerel, and avocado form a perfect combination, like a jazz trio. For vegetables, the spinach salad ($17) is the dish known as ohitashi on most Japanese menus: two cylinders of pressed spinach with a sesame dressing, served tableside. The chicken thigh ($19) is also a standout: two skewers coated in a dark, sweet sauce and grilled, giving the meat a smoky flavor.
To have some control over the order of your dishes, it's best to place a small order first and then another one later. Aqua isn't a pizzeria or a sushi bar per se: the quality is good, but the selection is limited in both categories, so it's best to avoid them. It's a good place for drinks and snacks, and since it's large, you can usually get in without a reservation.
