THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED Eolo Awards

THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED Eolo Restaurant Review:

The seemingly endless array of nondescript restaurants that flank Seventh Avenue in Chelsea has never really lured many hungry non-residents to the neighborhood to eat. But, then again, perhaps they haven’t eaten at Eolo. Chef-restaurateur Melissa Muller-Daka, a graduate of the French Culinary Institute and Columbia University's program in culinary anthropology, takes on the challenge of reinterpreting Sicilian cuisine, in all its multi-layered and historical multi-cultural landscapes. And she does an admirable job. The menu changes seasonally, but here’s an idea of what you might find: start with tuna tartare, mixed with hints of ginger syrup, tarragon and red peppers that floats in a thick, utterly-sumptuous pool of Bronte pistachio cream; or braised goat paired nicely with a parsnip purée. Pasta dishes are equally complex: port-laced cherries add an extra flavor stratum to the raviolis with lamb sausage and broccoli rabe and the homemade cavatelli with pine nuts, currants, cauliflower and caramelized onions adds a sweet and sour element, so typical of the region, but rarely translated outside its shores. Meatier dishes include a satisfying yellowfin tuna in a sea urchin emulsion and tender piece of suckling pig. The wine list is international but leans heavily---as one would expect---on Sicily.