Urban59 Studio NYC

Hell's Kitchen's Cafe Forant is the kind of NYC restaurant many of us have spent our lives dreaming of. Marvelously lowkey, with deceptively simple fare, it (and its owners Carolyn and Lea) manages to convince diners that they have wandered in off the streets of Manhattan into a smalltown restaurant where everyone knows your nameand if they don't, they really want to learn it.

More of a takeout place than a sitdown restaurant (there are only a handful of tables), everything is made fresh each day by Lea Forant. The evening Regan and I stopped in for a quick bite, most of the sandwiches had been snapped up long ago, but there were still plenty of main courses. Determined to try a little bit of everything, we soon faced plates of meatloaf (a crowd favorite at $8 per pound) and grilled salmon ($22 per pound), with sides of roasted brussels sprouts and seared spinach and a small pot of homemade mayonnaise that tastes the way mayonnaise should always taste. The meatloaf (including the mandatory ketchup top) was as good or better as your mother's used to be, depending on your mother. And the salmon was perfectly pink inside, which thrilled picky Regan. And all those seared and roasted veggies were the perfect accompanying dishes, filled with more flavor than the usual bland, boiled ones. If we'd known how fast the sandwiches flew off the shelves, we'd have come for lunch to try the ham and Camembert ($6.95) and roasted duck Reuben ($7.95), but those will have to wait for another trip.

And for dessert, it was bliss all the way with the onetwothree punch of a slice of apple tarte tatin ($5.95), a sweet Italian rice cake ($2.50) and a dark cocoa brownie ($2.50) that almost sent us into a chocolate coma. More than any restaurant I've been to in the last year, it's Cafe Forant that I'd recommend for anyone looking for a smile and a scrumptious meal.

Mark Peikert - HX Magazine