Openings

First Look at Café Clover, Downtown’s Latest Spot for Eating Well

Cauliflower steak with romesco and vegetable chutney.
Cauliflower steak with romesco and vegetable chutney. Photo: Gabrielle Plucknette/New York Magazine

The menu at Café Clover seems perfectly tailored for a New Year’s resolution to eat well and more healthily. Chef David Standridge, who ran the kitchen at Market Table and worked at L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon, incorporates quinoa into his tagliatelle and dresses it with beet greens, maitake mushrooms, and sunflower kernels. His pasture-raised strip steak comes with a potato purée whipped with olive oil instead of butter. And incentives to load up on vegetables abound: You can get any three of the $9 seasonal salads for $25, or any three of the $8 sides for $22. Even bartender Johnny Swet’s cocktails sound practically virtuous, mingling beet juice with vodka and rum with chunks of ice made from coconut water.

Tropic Thunder with rum, housemade pineapple syrup, fresh lime, and Thai bird’s eye chile over a coconut-water ice.
Tropic Thunder with rum, housemade pineapple syrup, fresh lime, and Thai bird’s eye chile over a coconut-water ice. Photo: Gabrielle Plucknette/New York Magazine

Market crudité with green goddess, smoked vinegar, and sesame ranch.
Market crudité with green goddess, smoked vinegar, and sesame ranch. Photo: Gabrielle Plucknette/New York Magazine

Baby beets and apples with lovage, celery leaf, and a teff crisp.
Baby beets and apples with lovage, celery leaf, and a teff crisp. Photo: Gabrielle Plucknette/New York Magazine

Wild Alaskan salmon with spaghetti squash, turnip greens, and black trumpet mushrooms.
Wild Alaskan salmon with spaghetti squash, turnip greens, and black trumpet mushrooms. Photo: Gabrielle Plucknette/New York Magazine

Quinoa tagliatelle with beet greens, maitake mushrooms, and sunflower kernels.
Quinoa tagliatelle with beet greens, maitake mushrooms, and sunflower kernels. Photo: Gabrielle Plucknette/New York Magazine

Almond-milk panna cotta with saffron sweet spices and rose petals.
Almond-milk panna cotta with saffron sweet spices and rose petals. Photo: Gabrielle Plucknette/New York Magazine

Photo: Gabrielle Plucknette/New York Magazine

Café Clover, 10 Downing St., at Sixth Ave. 212-675-4350

*This article appears in the January 12, 2014 issue of New York Magazine.

First Look at Café Clover in Soho