Friday night in the Meatpacking District, well after ten pm—and the hordes are out. Buddha Bar has a ninety-minute wait and Buddakan is Grand Central. Over at Fig & Olive, the music is nightclub loud. The streets are a parade of stilettos and limos. It’s all a bit much—over the top and in your face—and therefore, we’re relieved for the relative sanity of 5 Ninth. Not that this three-story 1848 brownstone is a bastion of calm, but up in a corner of the second floor, seated by the window overlooking that gorgeous ivy-covered brick wall, there’s at least a vague sense of refuge from the madness all around.
Of course, one doesn’t head to the Meatpacking District on a weekend to find peace and quiet. Romance, perhaps—but more often the kind of romance connoted by a perfume commercial. But upstairs, in the back of 5 Ninth, it’s almost possible to appreciate the very real charms of this wood-beamed townhouse with its six fireplaces and fieldstoned garden.
The tables are wood—and rickety—and need to be balanced by the service staff, who do so efficiently. And our server is equally efficient—and worse, as if she’s got a train to catch, just as soon as she gets rid of this table. Clearly, she’s feeling the adrenaline rush of the neighborhood—and sharing it with us. Still, it’s possible to pay her little mind—treat her more like a pesky fly—and sink in to the pleasures of the food. A fine yellow beet and goat cheese salad, and a rich spinach and parmesan ragout in its own iron skillet. Equally indulgent, with the bite of jalapeno, is an herb risotto, fresh with pesto and succulent farmers’ market cherry tomatoes.
If our server hadn’t needed to catch her train, we might’ve stayed for dessert—a chocolate box at the next table looked to be just the thing—but there might be another time. Perhaps when the weather turns chill, and those fireplaces crackle, and the summer romances have faded to heartbreak, and only the winter winds blow through the cobblestoned streets of the Meatpacking District. Maybe then for that chocolate box.
LINK: 5 Ninth Restaurant
