Casa Mono has been setting the bar for tapas in NYC since opening in 2003

When Casa Mono (“The Monkey House”) opened in 2003 in the snowiest December since 1948, Joe Bastianich broke in by taking coats by the door. Meanwhile, Mario Batali stood with chef Andy Nusser on la plancha, the flat top where much of the restaurant’s menu was prepared. In a New York Times review, Marian Burros complained that the place was cold and draughty, but lavishly praised the fried squid and pumpkin croquettes while seeming more interested in the desserts. She pointedly avoided the offal that was everywhere on the menu: main cheese, kallu and the frayed red rooster combs identified as “critical bait” in my The voice of the village review – and it was they who sent food journalists on races to their desktops.

Casa Mono looks about the same as when it opened.

Over the intervening years, the appearance of the small restaurant on the corner of 17th Street and Irving Place has not changed except for the outdoor dining structures that flank it on two sides. But the menu has evolved where the rooster combs have long since disappeared along with Mario Batali – even though Nusser is still head chef. Meanwhile, the Ferran Adrià sky rose to American fame, and the cavalcade of new Spanish cooking has clearly had an impact on the food here, forcing it to be even more colorful and innovative than it already was.

I visited Casa Mono while researching my mussel card as it was one of the few places in town that consistently serves clams. The restaurant recently removed them from the menu, but I lingered after a meal that was even better than the ones I had had almost 18 years earlier. Paired with a glass of dry sherry, the sweet breads ($ 25) were cooked to a soft softness with an outer crispiness. The towering gland was presented on a base of fennel stalks, which tasted like artichoke. Saturating the reddish-brown pile was a new Spanish blossom – an almond vinaigrette that covered the pile with crushed nuts and sent the whole dish galloping towards Catalonia.

Sweet cakes in almond vinaigrette.

Shavers.

That would have been enough for a very calorie-packed lunch, but I dutifully searched the menu for signs of mussels and spotted videos ($ 21). These gossamer wheat noodles were tossed with shell-on manila mussels and chorizo, which colored broth bricks red. The noodles were cooked al dente but roasted on top, which changed their basic character and made them crunchy as well as squish. A blob of beige sherry aioli sat on top. What to do with it? Spread it on each bite.

I was so impressed with my meal there that I returned with a friend a few days later. Luckily for us, the shavers had returned to the menu and now lay side by side on a small white plate as pale bedmates. They were so fresh that you could almost see the creatures wiggling, as if to shake off their slumber, and a blanket of shredded green parsley lay on top. Olive oil rolled over the crustaceans, increasing the nautical smoothness.

In a menu divided into four sections, almost randomly and with almost 30 dishes, the insides are still there, a signature from tapas bars in Spain that is rarely seen here. You can choose pork ears, pork belly or skirt steak – partly composed of the cow’s outer diaphragm, which has a slight livry taste – in addition to the above-mentioned sweet breads. But my favorite black meat on the menu was bone marrow, which seemed to have reached its peak of popularity about a decade ago at restaurants in the area, usually plain fried and presented with toasts.

Bone marrow with all the bagel spices.

Here the presentation is colorful and festive. The surface of the cracked shins looks like a handful of confetti thrown at it, and one can see orange trout streaks, white blobs of aioli, purple onions, yellowish streaks of grated horseradish and “all bagel spices” in facetious expression. reference to a bagel spice combination that seems to pop up almost everywhere. The result is lovely twists of flavor as you spread the jelly-like marrow over the browned toasts.

Potato croquettes.

Shishito pepper.

But do not despair over classic tapas, which are still available at Casa Mono. Each is presented with a single extra feature that enlivens the small plates. The salty cod croquetas ($ 12) come with curls of orange peel barely distinguishable on the brown surface of the cylinders, adding subtle yet sharp flavors; while shishito peppers arrive wrinkled like green fingers after lingering too long in the bathtub. They come on top of a Manchego Huancaina aioli, referring to a city in the mountains of Peru, famous for its cold cheese sauce. Really, it just tasted like mayo to me.

Finally, there are the iconic patatas bravas. While this dish is interpreted differently across the Spanish-speaking world, usually involving a splash or two of hot sauce, here their bravura comes from an excess of a rich and not very spicy sauce, which makes the dish seem more like a stew than the alternative version of steak fries it sometimes looks like. All for the better, as Casa Mono exists to revise our expectations for a tapas bar, where the food easily equals the restaurant’s insanely extensive and excellent Spanish wine list.

Casa Mono offers a unique collection of Spanish wines.