Restaurant Week: Luxury Dining Without the Snobbery

Mesa Grill offers all the luxuries of an upscale restaurant meal—attentive staff, white linen tablecloths, an expansive wine list—without pretense. The menu doesn’t require the knowledge of a foreign language, and the kitchen doesn’t offer outrageously small servings better suited to mice. The restaurant, which turns 18 this year, is participating in the New York Restaurant Week’s prix-fixe three-course meal special at $24.07 for lunch and $35 for dinner.

While Mesa may not be the first choice for diners whose taste buds favor rich French or Italian fare, the menu items boast a wide range of appeal, and its Restaurant Week menu is true to the variety of its standard menu. The menu focuses on grilled meats and fish combined with light, refreshing flavors like cilantro and citrus. Some of the fancier dishes include a dressed-up version of quesadillas and grilled Mahi Mahi with roasted pineapple-cascabel chile sauce.

Mesa is filled with smiling and conscientious staff members, including a manager who makes a point of personally checking on tables—even those where diners are not jotting down comments in a notebook. My waitress happily answered my questions about ingredients and my companion’s question about the flavor of ice cream accompanying our coconut crêpes (a homemade blend of coconut, vanilla, cinnamon and espresso, as it turned out).

After splitting a warm half-corn, half-black-bean muffin, we dug into an unusual take on mussels that packed a little kick: a red chile pesto broth. We were surprised by the protein-heavy chopped salad appetizer, which seemed dense in comparison with the otherwise light and well-balanced menu.

Though we did not indulge in Mesa’s acclaimed white peach margaritas, we appreciated the combination of sweet and savory in entrées like pan-roasted chicken with blackberry-ancho sauce. While on its own, the Mahi Mahi entrée seemed bland, when splashed with grilled lime and topped with pineapple and a spicy chile sauce, the fish took on a summery flavor.

When it came to dessert, my dining companion and I, both long-time appreciators of French food, agreed that our coconut crêpes, filled with a cooked cream that tasted like crème brulée, were among the best we had ever tried.

Mesa Grill is in the Flatiron/Union Square district and is one of Food Network star Bobby Flay’s two restaurants in Manhattan. Since 1991, it has offered diners a high-end meal without pretense. Be sure to check it out before the week ends.