As for the coffee - the Abbott to a bagel placeвЂ™s Costello - it is widely understood as a waste of time. Their outsides are substantial but ultimately yielding. Owned by Sam Thongkrieng, who emigrated from Bangkok in the 1980s, Absolute channels the recipes of yesteryear (Thongkrieng learned his craft at Ess-a-Bagel) to form bagels of both ineffable softness and satisfying crunch. Absolute Bagels is a filthy little store with sublime bagels. Let the fancies have Black Seed and SadelleвЂ™s. And the kitchen is as at ease with the muscular flavors of octopus a la plancha as it is with balancing the subtle flavors of a spring-pea risotto with Maine lobster and lemon verbena.ДЄnd then thereвЂ™s Absolute Bagels, the only bagel store worth the line. The menu, which spans from Arabic flatbread to IbГ©rico ham, is like a Carnival Cruise calling on all Mediterranean ports. The space at Boulud Sud - gently curved ceiling, colorful banquettes in harlequin stripes, white tablecloths - radiates monied calm. The Lyonnaise chef Daniel Boulud is a shape-shifter: stuffy on the Upper East, transactional in midtown, and here, in the Upper West Side, pure comfort. ItвЂ™s impossible to leave un-full or unsatisfied. Though thereвЂ™s no red sauce here, the sourdough-battered chicken in pastella may just be the best fried chicken in the city. A tortellini pie - veal meatballs, bolognese, mortadella-stuffed tortellini - is equal parts Medieval Times and GBBO. BГ©chamel replaces red sauce in a Roman artichoke lasagna, basically an artichoke in a pasta costume. Beef-bone broth arrives in a delicate Ginori porcelain cup. Bergamo, where the young Leonti once lived, is the Upper West Side of Italy: plush, lush, and opulent. In a well-appointed ground-floor dining room that used to be John FraserвЂ™s Dovetail, longtime Marc Vetri protГ©gГ© Adam Leonti delivers his Northern Italian cuisine in what looks like an Art Deco/Pop Art/Salon del Mobile installation (the design was heavily influenced by Ettore SottsassвЂ™s famous 1980s Memphis Group).

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