John Dory Oyster Bar

Issue: Where to go to trick your friends into thinking you are hip and cool?

Rule: I am not hip and cool. But I like to pretend that I am. I recently picked the locale for a small dinner get together with old friends. Both live in the NYC area and are both pretty hip and cool. I thought we should try to go someplace perhaps a little out of our usual price range and a little outside our usual cool zone. So began our journey to the John Dory Oyster Bar at the Ace Hotel.

Application: The journey started with me asking everyone in my office if I looked hip enough to gain entry into the restaurant. I was worried about it due to the Times review which mentions "young bucks in selvage jeans and attitude". My attitude is far from actual attitude.
The John Dory is technically a hotel restaurant but the hotel is the Ace Hotel which is also home to No. 7 subs, Stumptown coffee and The Breslin (The John Dory's cousin). There are no reservations so we arrived at 6:30 and were seated pretty quickly. There were plenty of modelriffic people at the bar, but not eating. The clientele tended to match the wait staff. No less than three handsome bearded men waited on us or ordered us wine or dropped off our food in our time there. All three were friendly but one forgot a component of our meal (and was terribly apologetic about it) and one tried to give us a lobster that we did not order (and clearly thought we lying to him about it). The hostesses (again three vaguely hipster pretty ladies) were welcoming.
But enough about the cool factor- let's talk food. April Bloomfield is a well known chef responsible for the flavorful meals at The Breslin and The Spotted Pig. She actually popped by the table next to us and I was totally star struck. Not so hip and cool, huh? The menu is composed of an extensive raw bar, bar snacks, small plates and desserts. There were three of us so we ordered an assortment of hits and split them. We started with west coast oysters- yum. We moved on to bar snacks with an order of parsley and anchovy toast and roasted peanuts with garlic and rosemary. We may never know how those peanuts are, since we never got them, but the parsley and anchovy toast was salty without being fishy and green without having the after taste of parsley. A warning- the parsley is a similar consistency to a heaping dollop of pesto. This is not a dish to eat while on a date unless you appreciate green stuff on your teeth. But do eat with friends because it is damn delicious.
Our main small plate dishes were adventurous and tasty. After we sat down to dinner we realized that none of us really like seafood that much. Oops. But I strong-armed us all into trying meals we would never normall try. We started with a delicious roast beet salad to ease our way into the seafood. Then we snacked on octopus with potatoes and aioli, chorizo stuffed squid with smoked tomatos, Maine lobster chowder and deliciously salty Parker House rolls. The chorizo stuffed squid was served on top of amazingly creamy white beans and was a tasty and unique flavor. The octopus had a delicious crispiness to it and the potatoes were an unexpected joy. Potatoes- who knew? The Parker house rolls were almost pretzel-ish as my companion remarked. I literally licked my finger tips to soak up every last grain of salt.
We ended with a malt chocolate ice cream with honeycomb. OMG it was to die for. The crunch and sweetness of the honeycomb was genius.

Conclusion: I want to go again, right now. As I write this I get to re-live the delicious squid and on-tap sauvignon blanc, the crisp honeycomb and full length mirror in the bathroom, the roast beets and perfect white beans. Maybe I did not have to be hip and cool to enjoy this place. Or maybe I am even hip and cool enough for it.