Degustation: Pipa Tapas y Mas

Ilona Logvinova, 1L

Contributor

In pinning down the thought trains that would inevitably shape this article, I couldn’t help but converge on a single word—a corollary of descriptives, in a sense, that delicately and unpretentiously photographed my union of mission and meaning. “Rustic,” I thought to myself, “is Pipa, and Pipa paints ‘rustic’”—in a quixotically tangible, metaphorically shimmering eclipse of a match.

This seduction-laced enclave was born as an installation inside ABC Carpet amp; Home, a high-end carpet and rug emporium in the heart of the city’s Flatiron District. The restaurant addition was sculpted from the manufacturer’s storage space for chandeliers, melodic tapestries, and an antiquated collection of furniture, all neatly arranged and assembled to seat the curiously incoming patrons. With each decorative delicacy itemized in price tag (and still very much so literally for sale), the intrusion of retail into Pipa’s culinary renaissance is entirely enchanting to this recent day.

Dimly lit, the interior is illuminated by low-hanging chandeliers, inviting you to feel a bit engaged and imposing—an intruder and a complacently cherished insider all in the same glimpse. The crowds are substantiating to say the least; weekday or weekends around 8 p.m. or so, dinner-goers will fill up the nave of the hostess’s corner and patiently wait their linearly spontaneous turn. With reservations made just a few nights in advance, you can easily secure a table for two or more, and Pipa is especially inviting to groups, aligning some tables in clover-like formations for the draw of a pleasantly prolonged social syllable, celebrated in the true tradition so authentically native to tapas.

The extensive menu evinces bright panoplies of small plates and starters, with a few select entrees for the sacrilegious few who go straight for the main meal. The wine list impresses with some selections that pair well with the menu’s palate pleasers, and the wait staff will be sure to take their time navigating your menu alongside your choosings. My dinner duo was especially impressed with their recommended choice of spirit, Innis amp; Gunn—a beer enthusiast’s dream, apparently, ordered and savored thanks to the unsolicited and friendly suggestion of our quaintly hospitable waiter.

In navigating the menu’s stellar plentitude, an absolutely insistent stop is the cocas, a type of Catalan flat bread that’s sure to treat and please. I started with the mushroom coca, an exotically erudite twist on a pizza equivalent, topped with wild mushrooms and Manchego cheese, traced with truffle oil, and embroidered with caramelized onions, figs, toasted almonds, and a hint of Serrano ham. Moving onward, I’d zealously recommend the crispy calamari and the patatas a la brava—the former a perfectly funky take on the traditional calamari (the best I’ve tried in the whole of New York, to date), and the latter a pleasant way to juxtapose the bite of your balanced wine, served thickly sliced, crispy, and adorned with spicy mustard aioli for a hint of some lingering spice.

Arguing with a touch of gluttony and some glorious over-indulgence might then just convince you to take on a main course, and I’d artfully insist on the traditionally inviting arroz con pollo. The chicken is tenderly seasoned, the Valencia rice is brilliantly paprika flavored, and it comfortably tapers amidst a bedding of roasted peppers, black olives, slight chorizo, and green peas.

In the tapas tradition of lingering likings, Pipa will invite you to fancy your optics and shmooze to your pleasings for as long as your social intrigue and flare intertwine—without feeling rushed or censored in the very least. Adorn the quietly exposed brick and the flickering flare, the gaze of the dangling price marks and the authentically sewn abstract of an antiquated and cave-like palatial space. The salsa-tinged sound bearings might even invite your daydream’s flirtation with the idea of shopping for some glimmering chandelier pieces of your very own—for, oh, you know, that largely looming and perfectly wide-open NYC space that you just happen to have waiting for you downtown.

Or, on the earthier flipside, you might instead smile sardonically at the regally-inflated thought, and maybe just leave with the resonating pixel of something simpler, something entirely…rustic. A descriptive eclectically ineffable and necessarily intuitive—in that mythically awesome, make-this-place-your-own-urban-nook sort of stylistic way.