63 Clinton ⭐️

TLDR: Like your brother is cooking for you while visiting for Thanksgiving, but he’s a Michelin star chef. 

Recommended. 

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What I talk about when I talk about comfort is what most restaurants set out to cultivate, and what most fail miserably at. Now sometimes I love tuxedo-clad, sterile and stuffy, white-walled experiment chambers the likes of which makes the OCDs squeal in relief. Sometimes catching the eye-roll of the maître d' sends a chill up your spine just as of a touch of citrus hits your tongue and the masochists start to make sense. That’s rare though, and often bastardized by relentless brigades of the Overworked, Underpaid, and otherwise Inept.

63 Clinton is the perfect antidote. 

If the phrase “make yourself at home” was personified it would be by them. Go hospitality for hospitality, and they blow the 3-stars out of orbit every time. The chefs are asking you why you’re there, and staying to talk about politics and dreams. The servers are beaming smiles so startlingly big you refuse to believe they’re being paid to do that, and you can’t help but keep one plastered on your face too. 

The food isn’t bringing home straight A’s, and you might catch the team making self-deprecating jokes to that effect. It’s the brother you know could do more with his life, could make it to the top of every mountain, but you’ve never seen anyone happier, or who makes others shine quite like he does, so good enough for him is good enough for you. And only he could get away with that. 

The menu had highs; the sauces shot you straight into the Arizona desert, watermelon aguachile made you lick the bowl, miso trifle with peaches edged orgasmic, balsamic on melon sorbet – brilliant, yes the caviar hand roll is ridiculous but necessary, and I could eat that cheddar biscuit with the steak and chimichurri every day. The menu also had lows; the taco was over-salted, the chopped tomatoes and baby corn in the parfait favored cafeterias over fine dining, the shrimp with the squash blossom relleno felt better suited to a kid’s menu, but that salsa punched me so lovingly I couldn’t help but forgive it each bite. 

Isn’t that what happens in every family story though? We are quick to judge the slight errors of menus and throw the whole restaurant away, in demand of perfection. Rightfully so, we don’t have the ties of being born with them, we spend our money to be in them. But when you’re eating here, you forget that. The slips feel like watching your little sister elbow a glass off the kitchen counter, your uncle miss a drunken step. The highs like sneaking a fresh-baked cookie away from the plate you left out for Santa, like the first sniff of your mom’s perfume when she picks you up from summer camp. And everything in between wraps you in the arms of your lover, who doesn’t sing that well, but god does it feel good when he sings to you. 

That’s all I could think of, how good this feels, how lucky I am to have these people cooking this food for me, watching the passes of stolen glances and grins, smelling the oak wood smoke swirling through the air to the tunes of Otis Redding and Led Zeppelin mixing melodies with my wine and infusing my skin with the buzzing reminder that right now, in this moment, with these people, life is good. Life gets to feel good. And that’s more than the best dish in the world can give you. It’s deeper than excitement, richer than surprise, softer than glee. It’s what makes life bearable when all that fades away. 

It’s what stays.

Cheers!

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What do you talk about when you talk about 63 Clinton?