Harlem Goes Gourmet

Quality and rarity will cost you a long walk and a pretty penny at the new Harlem Citarella, at 125th and Amsterdam. This being said, if you are looking for excellent, rare seafood, choice produce, poultry, or meat, and decadent cakes and pastries in a room about five times the size of Milano (that looks about five times better than Milano), then Citarella is well worth the walk, not to mention if you are on the lookout for that random foodie item like truffle butter, clotted cream, or South African not-from-concentrate 100 percent juice in a shelf-stable box. Such expenditures of time, calories, and credit cards are at times a necessary indulgence, especially considering the 10 percent discount your CUID entitles you to until September 17th and the five dollar delivery that is offered at all times and can be sent for online at www.citarella.com.
Citarella caters to the customer. Confused about the difference between a ribeye and a brisket? Lee Pollack, the amicable, extremely helpful general manager, can help. Want an item that is not currently sold at Citarella? If it's out there, Lee, as he would like to be called, can order it for you. Want to learn how to pick out a decent pear? He can teach you. Want to know what his favorite items in the store are? He will let you know.
An interview with Pollack provided much knowledge, including a bit of the background of Citarella as a company. He has been working as a butcher for a good portion of the 20-plus years in which Citarella has grown from a well-known seafood-purchasing venue to a multi-location enterprise that spans from the Hamptons to Greenwich Village to, as of this June, Harlem.
He is quite proud of the company and how it has "pretty much taken over the gourmet market in New York," particularly concerning the major efforts Joseph Guerrerra, his boss and head of the growing Citarella empire, makes to ensure the highest standards of quality and diversity of products.
In the past few months since the opening of the Citarella on 125th business has been slow. Pollack is "accustomed to a volume store," the "circulation of products," and the business such a following entails. Currently, Citarella lacks that business. People who live nearby are taken aback by "the look and cleanliness of the store," according to Pollack. But they slowly trickle in, especially when he personally invites people walking down the street to come in and check it out, proclaiming his produce prices, at least, "are right in line with the people across the street," a nod to the nearby C-Town.
The word is slowly spreading. This particular location has started stocking catfish and other items specific to Harlem culture. But in the hours I was there, I saw only fifteen or twenty people walk in and out of the store.
This leaves Pollack and the other employees with plenty of time to cater to you, the adventurous Columbia student.
While there, I learned the secrets to picking out good seafood, meat, and produce, because nowadays Citarella has time to help any random food adventurer with life-altering questions such as these.
For seafood, I learned to make sure that the fish glistens and that it smells like fresh seawater rather than any sort of acrid scent. When you open up its gills, you want it to look beet-colored and moist and to be a bit clammy and gooey. The part under the gill should not be at all dry or shriveled. All these things ensure that you get the freshest fish possible.
For meat, you want to buy the cut with the most marbling, or white lines, running through the bulk of the meat. Lean cuts are not preferable. If you buy a nice cut with a lot of marbling, no matter what you do to it, it is still going to have juicy, meaty flavor. Also, if the meat does not look bright red, that does not mean it has gone bad-nicely aged beef turns a darker red color that is sometimes not consistent.
In terms of fruit, particularly ones like pears, peaches, and bananas, the ugly ones rule. Buying a gorgeous-looking perfectly green pear is not going to do you any good if it is still hard and unripe. Ripe, juicy fruit should give a little under your thumb when you press down on it lightly.
Vanity is everything, however, when it comes to vegetables. Peppers should be smooth, not wrinkled; broccoli should be green with no hints of yellow; any foliage of any vegetable should be perky, not wilted.
Besides the helpful service, the food options themselves really are astounding.
The seafood area, which does not smell in the slightest even when one is standing right in front of it, offers salmon certified organic by four different nationally-recognized companies, live crabs and lobsters, eight types of mussels and clams, and random, exciting finds like sea urchins.
With single-serving versions of a good number of the tantalizing array of baked goods behind the pastry counter, including carrot cake, crème brûlee, and strawberry shortcake, not to mention their larger counterparts and the great variety of fresh-baked breads brought in from all of the best bakeries in the city, you should never go anywhere else for birthday cake or a dessert to impress your dinner-party guests.
The array of available cheeses stuns the eye. The ice cream freezer in itself boasts five well-known brands and countless flavors. The produce is fresh, bright, and, in some cases, pre-cut into special little packets for stir-frying or fajita-making. Godiva chocolates and pre-packaged little containers of pastry flour wink at you from wall to wall, but one question still remains.
Why is this all in Harlem?
I asked Pollack, but the only answer he gave me was that there was "interest in the area" and that the neighborhood was lacking such a store. In a press release, Guerrera "enthusiastically comments" that they are "excited to be opening our newest Citarella store on 125th Street at a time when there is so much pride and new development in the Harlem community."
Whether or not this location takes off remains to be seen, but until then, there's clearly plenty of fine food-and fine service-to be had.