A new restaurant and wine bar on W54th Street is bringing a tasty fusion of Latin American and European cuisines to Hell’s Kitchen, weaving tapas into the life of New York City.
Chef Harold Breton at Tapas 54. Photo: Dashiell Allen
Tapas 54, led by Chef Harold Breton and owner Joel Ogando, combines traditional Spanish tapas with Dominican flavors and cooking techniques. It’s a new culinary philosophy that Harold calls “Urban Tapas.”
“Growing up, when we had guests over our parents would create little dishes of cheese, salami, crackers and small bites of things,” said Harold, a native New Yorker whose family is from the Dominican Republic. “So growing up here in New York City, there’s a lot of dishes that I enjoyed, and I said ‘let’s translate these into tapas and make them shareable plates with more of an urban approach’.”
Pulpo is one of Tapas 54’s specialties. Photo supplied
Originating from Spain, tapas are small plates of food served with wine, and carried on top of wine glasses. Tapas 54’s menu is influenced by a combination of “street food and food mama cooked at home,” and then expertly paired with wines, he added. Harold and his staff make all recipes from scratch, including the breads.
The salt cod and crab croquettes are influenced by the typical Dominican dish masa de cangrejo (crab meat) and bacalao (dried and salted cod). Harold presents his pulpo (octopus), a classic Spanish dish, next to fingerling potatoes, cherry tomatoes and fennel so that the plate will look like the bottom of the ocean.
Tapas 54 takes over premises that were home to Botanica for many decades. Photo: Phil O’Brien
And don’t hesitate to ask him for a wine pairing. With the cod croquettes he suggests the Nora Albariño, made from white Spanish grapes, since “both flavors are very pronounced [but] they won’t compete with each other.”
Botanica, a store selling religious paraphernalia, ran out of the same address until March 2022, when the longtime owner Emilia “Caiyo” passed away.
The space, just west of 9th Avenue on W54th Street, is bright and intimate — and secluded from the bustle of the city — while a front panel window welcomes fresh air inside. A soundtrack of Latin rock, salsa, bachata, flamenco and contemporary Spanish music sets the ambiance.
“My passion for cooking comes from being able to execute what I have in my mind and translate it to someone,” Harold said. It’s what he’s done for the past 15 years, opening and developing the menus for numerous restaurants, largely in Upper Manhattan and The Bronx. This is his first venture in Hell’s Kitchen.
Harold studied at the French Culinary Institute in NYC (now the Institute of Culinary Education), where he learned from renowned chefs like Alain Sailhac. There, he began to think about the similarities and contrasts between European and Latin American cooking methods — like braising meat in France while stewing it in the Dominican Republic.
His dishes combine his knowledge of both, such as his fresh pasta with a coconut-based pistachio alfredo sauce that he adapted from a friend’s passed down Italian family recipe.
Wines line the wall of Tapas 54. Photo: Dashiell Allen
“Hell’s Kitchen has a lot of history, and there’s a lot more history for it to make,” said Harold. “It’s a great community. The people that I’ve met so far, and everybody that’s come by to wish us luck, to patronize us and enjoy a glass of wine or a bite to eat, they all have nothing but good things to say.”