Most Under Appreciated?

Last Sunday Chris and I had dinner with some friends at the newly re-designed Alex Urena restaurant, Pamplona.
Alex started working in kitchens when he was a teenager and has cooked for some incredible chefs (see Gothamist writer Hugh Merwin's Q&A with Urena here).

Alex Urena is the kind of guy you can't help but root for. He is a very talented chef and just a really nice guy.
The dishes he prepares has a thoughtfulness and a complexity that demand the kind of attention that has to happen hours before the first diner walks into the restaurant. On Sunday, we didn't order big because we had all snacked prior to our 9:30 reservation but we still cleaned every plate.
Dishes that we ordered (for 4 people):
Bocadillo De Conejo braised rabbit, crema de cabra   
Pincho De Dateles dates - palacio, bacon
Bacalao Gidalgo Croquets salt cod croquette
Milhoja De Txanguro snow crab, phyllo dough and black peppercorn tuile
Pulpo Braseado a La Rioja octopus braised in red wine, paprika potatoes, horseradish cream
Cochinillo confit suckling pig, chestnuts puree, swiss chard, celery root gratin

I'll spare you adjectives like, "clean"  and "bright" or my least favorite noun, "mouth feel." Simply put, every dish we had was delicious. My favorites among them were the Pulpo and the Cochinillo. Both expertly cooked, bursting with flavor and made the whole table happy. The draw of the new Pamplona is the same as the old Urena, it's the food. I'll say it again. Alex is an excellent cook.

Pamplona compared to Urena is a more casual restaurant. The tones in the restaurant are chocolate brown and tables are cloth-less. In Frank Bruni's March 2006 review, he wrote that Urena is "(t)he ugliest restaurant with great food that I know." For this reason,  Pamplona will again come under design scrutiny and also because it's kind of hard to look the other way.

In April of 2006, The Chicago Tribune reviewer, Phil Vettel gave the now shuttered Schwa restaurant 3 out of 4 stars. The review caused a ruckus in the restaurant community because all 3 of the stars were given based on the merit of the food and totally turned a blind eye to the service and ambiance, or lack thereof. "(The)service is almost non-existent, and the restaurant falls short in some of those myriad little niceties that I like to call creature comforts," wrote Vettel.

Who knows what The New York Times will hold for Pamplona or if they'll get a second go, but putting the paper of record aside, I highly recommend a visit to Pamplona. Before you go, check out the video of Urena for comparisons sake.