Orson Starts Production

[Paul H]

Elizabeth Falkner, of Citizen Cake renown, has launched her new venture: Orson. Located in a two-story building on 4th Street near Bryant the undertaking is audacious, both for its considerable size and for the edginess of the menu. The space uses the full height of the building with the ground floor featuring a large round bar at the center of a large open lounge area, with dining areas at the edges. The décor features dark soundstage-like grays, with glass and chrome. The upstairs areas, open to the lounge area below, are populated with additional dining tables.

The menu is divided into five sections, with three of them leading up to dessert: “teasers,” “shorts,” “premiere,” and two of them being dessert: “naughty” and “nice.”

“teasers” has, for example soup shots ($2), served in tequila glasses. Last night the soups were oyster, cauliflower, and shiitake mushroom/parmesan cheese. They were all intensely flavored, but easy to down in a single shot. Another example: duck fat French fries, with brown butter béarnaise. ($6).

“shorts” offers things ranging from the everyplace-seems-to-have-it-these-days house made charcuterie – rye salami, spiced tri-tip, peppered shoulder, ($5 each) to the more exotic charred octopus, with beef tendon and sprouted nuts ($11).

Moving along, the “premieres” include an intensely fennel-flavored chicken sausage with dino kale and candied pistachio pesto ($17) as well as blood sausage served with grits, pear, and rye crisp ($16).

These do look like very reasonable prices, but Orson serves small plates. The blood sausage is a few slices, and the chicken sausage was two pieces each about an inch and one-half long.

All of the food I tried was good, but the desserts were a standout. From the “nice” section, “gleaming the cube” was described as having “date soft chocolate, stout foam, caramel gelato, and brown butter sauce” ($10) The soft chocolate was served in a small log and tasted like the inside of a chocolate truffle mixed with chocolate mousse. The stout foam was a nice touch, obviously stylistically related to the molecular techniques pioneered at Ferran Adria’s El Bulli. Also from the “nice” section was “fleur de bleu” (lavender violet ravioli custard, citrus cells, chocolate slates, and lavender ice cream) ($9).

So, Orson inhabits a big, loud space that will be quite the scene if it stays full, and features some familiar food mixed with edgy and adventurous food. (The wood fired oven isn’t operating yet. When it does, they will also have pizzas, but I’m going to guess there might be some duck breast and arugula on them). Orson’s menu is very creative and I’d love for it to succeed.

[Robert Lauriston]

Am I reading that right? $17 for two 1.5-inch pieces of chicken sausage? How much kale?

That would help explain how Elizabeth Falkner stays so skinny.

[Paul H]

There was enough kale to hide the sausage, if you were careful, plus I forgot the two small potatoes. It is a small plate concept, though I may be slightly underestimating the size of the serving. I doubt if it is any more expensive than Cortez. The current menu obviously is aiming at a prosperous clientèle. It's interesting enough that I'm going back. Soon.

[Robert Lauriston]

Prosperous or anorexic?

I heard Cortez increased its portion sizes after the makeover, but it its original incarnation it was the least food for the money I've ever encountered.

[rworange]

Thanks for the report. Orson really took a long time to open. I had even given up on thinking about them. While I know it would be nice for it to succeed, they are getting dinged for the portion/price ratio on Yelp.

Hope you will keep this place in Chowhound radar and report back about future visits.

Website and menu is on the Place record (well sort of ... the website is a work in progress in terms of details). Nice to know they are open till midnight.

Ya suppose those invisible desserts have invisible calories? ... from the website ...

"Along with Pastry Chef, Luis Villavelazquez the menu will include options such as: “invisible dessert” that delivers intense flavor through components which are practically invisible, and Chef Villavelazques’ already culty Date and Soft Chocolate favorite, as well as some other surprising concoctions; the dessert menu at Orson is taking Chef Falkner’s already unique vision for the pastry side of her kitchen to pioneering new heights"

[Paul H]

Well, they are good listeners. Today the price of the chicken sausage and blood sausage dishes is $13, not $17.

Also, there is a bakery in the building that will be doing all of the Citizen Cake baking. Next week the pizza oven will be operational, and eventually they will be serving to-go bakery items starting at 7 a.m. in the morning.

This is certainly one of the most interesting new restaurants to open in the city for a long time.