“We’re a walk-in seafood restaurant," a server explained to the man sitting directly to my right along Penny’s lengthy white marble counter. It’s a bar that stretches down the dining room’s full length, with a break about two-thirds of the way down so servers and cooks can easily scoot into and out of the kitchen. And with 31 stools, it’s the only option for seating.
I can only guess that the limitations of the space—a long, not especially wide rectangle—somewhat directed the concept. (And it did.) There’s no basement, no walk-in, and no traditional back of house; which means that the dishwashing station sits on full view in the completely open kitchen just a few feet away from a three-tiered metal rack holding some of the most excellent, fluffy brioche that I’ve had anywhere. Chef Joshua Pinsky serves it alongside a swipe of room temperature butter accented with or without Spanish Cantabrian anchovies—it’s your choice.
Hotly anticipated Penny is the sophomore project from Pinsky and his partner Chase Sinzer. Their first restaurant, snug little year-and-a-half-old wine bar Claud—located directly below—with its rich and hearty French-ish menu, has already proved itself a hit. And it only seems fitting that the yin to Claud’s yang would go in the complete opposite direction with light, bright, high-acid cooking; the deep 1,000-bottle wine collection, on the other hand, is as thoughtfully curated as the one Sinzer wrote down below, with a focus on small production French bottles, including back vintages of Ganevat and a healthy Selosse stash.
It makes sense, given their physical limitations, that the team chose seafood. If you’re serving raw bar items, which Penny is, those require ice over fire. You don’t really need a full kitchen to shuck oysters. Or slice tartare. Around 60 percent of Penny’s succinct menu is untouched by heat, which commences with oysters, clams and meaty (boiled) Argentine shrimp sold by the piece or built into what the team calls an “Ice Box” – the standard, which changes based on market availability, is served on a rectangular metal tray inlaid with pebbled ice, decorated with the aforementioned, in addition to nicely cleaned, pickled mussels escabeche, and a little bowl of zippy diced scallop crudo in a neon green sauce flavored with poblano peppers and cucumber. One step up is the “plus” iteration, which includes all aforementioned items plus raw live scallops with yuzu jelly, steamed periwinkles, a creamy crème fraîche Jonah crab salad and a vichyssoise crowned with golden Schrenckii caviar.
Every single savory dish on Penny’s 17 item menu involves seafood. That includes the non seafoody items like the brioche (though, as mentioned, you could leave off the anchovies), and the seasonal white asparagus salad topped with umami-laced baugna cauda and a fresh snowfall of Parmesan cheese.
And while the team is totally dialed-in from the start, Sinzer admits that he and Pinksy “never imagined [they] would open a second restaurant this quickly.” They were offered the space, previously a pink Himalayan salt cave, initially while opening Claud. And when the plot remained on the market, this past September he and Pinksy pulled the trigger and construction commenced. Seven months later—poof!—Penny is born.
If you’ve been dining out in New York for at least a decade, then you may have first tried Pinsky’s food when he was sous chef under Sean Gray at the original Momofuku Ko on 1st Avenue, back with it was the size of a glorified Park Avenue closet. From there he hopped over to the Momofuku Ko revamp on Extra Place where he was named chef de cuisine, before leaving to launch Momofuku Nishi. After all that was said and done, he accepted the title as the Momofuku restaurant group’s corporate chef.
A portion of the menu is sectioned off, calling out “Market” items that will fluctuate based on seasonality. The white asparagus mentioned above is there, in addition to that lobster––poached in a stock made from aromatic herbs.
To sign out the meal, Pinsky offers two desserts: a take on chocolate mousse that’s chilled, served with a vanilla bean specked olive oil and decorated with candied hazelnuts. And then there’s the ice cream sando, using the same brioche bread in a sweet preparation, served with little bits of salted strawberries, a smidge of passionfruit-citrus jelly, and intensely vanilla ice cream.
Hero image: Teddy Wolff / Penny
