In this week's review of One Hundred West, I mentioned in passing a romesco sauce that accompanied the fried calamari and zucchini. When my dining companion asked our server to describe the romesco, she brushed the question off by saying, “It's just our version of marinara.”
She shouldn’t have been so coy. Romesco is cool and worth bragging about.
Like marinara, romesco is red. And in this case, it did arrive alongside calamari, a frequent hangout for marinara. But romesco is a Spanish-style sauce of nuts (typically hazelnuts or almonds) ground with garlic, olive oil and red peppers. Some recipes for romesco—including One Hundred West’s almond-based version—call for tomatoes, but the flavor is nuttier than marinara, and the texture is more along the lines of a pesto.
If memory serves, Red Wagon Cafe (may it rest in peace) used to serve a gorgeous variation on eggs Benedict with romesco on the English muffin. Olives Et Al., the British purveyor of olives from whom I swiped the above photo, promotes romesco as "the ideal thing for white fish or chicken, also a damn fine pasta sauce."
In our experience at One Hundred West, the romesco was a nice complement to the lightly fried squid and a welcome change from the ubiquitous marinara dip. Kudos to chefs Justin Byler and Jason Will for mixing things up a little bit. In fact, they might suggest to their servers that they brag about it a little more.
After all, if you’ve got it, you may as well flaunt it.
