Little Drunken Chef in Mt. Kisco

Little Drunken Chef in Mt. Kisco: You go to some restaurants for convenience, some for the all-star chef and some because they’re just fun to go to. The new Little Drunken Chef in Mt. Kisco, from chef Bonnie Saran of Little Crepe Street and Little Kabab Station, is one of those. It’s a great space with a lively crowd and a fun and affordable tapas menu for share heads that spans the globe – from land and sea.

If you’re getting tired of reclaimed barn wood or feeling like all the recent industrial urban vibe renovations are getting a little one note, you’ll find Little Drunken Chef a breath of fresh air. Let’s be clear, LDC’s designers were definitely going after an urban vibe but this space is a lot closer to the East Village than anything we’ve ever seen in the suburbs.

Let’s Make Bad Decisions Together …

With it’s hodge-podge of surfaces from brick to cinder block to, yes, a hint of reclaimed barn wood, it looked like three generations of exposed wall, each revealing archaeological hints of the building’s past. Like the distressed signs stenciled on them like san seraph graffiti, each wall seemingly represented a different historical era. There was one sign for Weber Eggs and and one for Remy Martin and another, “It’s Safety, Quality, Quantity in that Order” that read like pre-OSHA work place guide lines for a machine shop from 1938. In our minds they were all past tenants of the space. Then, on the eastern wall, was the winner for the most curious modern day hieroglyph of all: “Let’s Make Bad Decisions Together.” Was this some cryptic slogan leftover from an Occupy Wall Street colony? Or a marriage proposal from a downtown performance artist? We had a lot of fun letting the walls play mind games with us. Add in the metal industrial cage overhead, that serves as a DJ station, and we felt like we were eating on one of the sets from the musical Rent. Worked for us.

Tapas with Mediterranean, Asian, Spanish, Indian and Moroccan Influences 

There’s a great copper topped oyster bar where you can throw down some fresh cool ones from the sea and some signature cocktails. But we took a table and explored the menu.

The Tapas menu was, shall we say eclectic, offering shareable food with Asian, Spanish, Moroccan, Tibetan, Indian and Mediterranean influences. The chilled tapas ranged in price from $7 for the gazpacho shrimp and basil shooters to $11 for the smoked salmon and caviar with vodka, chives, sour cream and dill. The warm tapas start at $4.50 for the cocktail samosas with tamarind chutney to $8.50 for the giant wild mushroom ravioli with truffle oil, Parmesan cheese and peas. How did we miss the Tibetan Lama Momos – steamed dumplings with spicy tomato chutney? Like we said, fun affordable food.

There are also steamed dim sum style buns with eggplant and Tzatziki sauce and another with pulled pork and Chimichurri. The wings with Moroccan Harissa or lemon grass chili come spicy or spicier. The closest thing to an entrée on the menu is the Paella and Rice Pans. A classic Valencian Paella is just $13. The rice pans are the same price and include a Caribbean Goat Curry Pan or a Chicken Tikka Masala Pan. Finally, there’s the Four Ways menu where you can get falafel, Lamb or Chicken Shawarma or Jamon & Manchego Croquetas served with four different sauces for just $9. All eminently shareable and most of the menu is gluten free.

What we liked

We had the Ceviche Flight, one halibut, one shrimp, one oyster and one veggie. Not sure what the veggie ceviche was, to be honest, but loved the rest. We also think you can’t beat the Beat ‘Em Salad with roasted baby beets, arugula, watercress (nice touch) fennel, red onions, orange, goat cheese and a sober sauce. The New York Times liked the Giant Wild Mushroom Ravioli with truffle oil and Parmesan and so did we. Ditto for the Squid Ink Fideos with shrimp, burrata, scallions and sundried tomatoes. And the cocktail samosas are a great thing to order while you peruse the menu, which can take a while. We are always attracted to something deep-fried and then have regrets afterward but this was clean and not greasy at all – a no-brainer way to start the meal for just $4.50.

Finally, we couldn’t resist the Vietnamese Banh Bao Buns. We love Asian buns. We had them with pulled pork and chimichurri even though we don’t like pulled pork. We just wanted those buns. Guess what, we still don’t like pulled pork. We find them too sweet. In fairness, LDC’s pulled pork was not exceedingly sweet. In fact we liked them more than we usually like pulled pork. We just don’t like pulled pork. Our bad. But we would try the Eggplant and Tzatziki Buns because LDC knows how to do dim sum buns. Excellent. And we’d like to go back to get a little deeper into the oyster menu that includes offerings from Maine and Narragansett Bay.

Why would you go here?

We always like to place restaurants in a social context, asking ourselves on the ride home, “why would we go there?” Although the crowd was mixed in age (not as young as we expected – not a bad thing) and the bar scene is really more of a food scene than a meet up place, make no mistake about it LDC is a lively place. We won’t be going there for our anniversary, we won’t be taking grandpa there for his 90^th birthday and it’s not family night out despite the moderate prices.

But if you want to meet up with some good friends for some casual dining and a few drinks, if your college roommate is in town and you want them to think there’s still some life left in you, or if it’s just the two of you and you want to be surrounded by a social scene so you feel like you had a night out – this is why you go to LDC.

We’re taking our nephew from California when he’s in town (whether he passed his Bar exam or not) and LDC’s Oyster Bar is a great place to meet up with your assistant coaches to go over the opening day starting line-up.

One side note: The New York Times called them out for (too) loud music but when we were there it was toned down and it was not an issue. Though, quiet(er) we would retool their playlist and fill it with, I don’t know, Amy Winehouse, Norah Jones and Sam Smith. But we would retool almost anybody’s playlist, so don’t mind us.

(Little Drunken Chef, 36 East Main St., Mount Kisco, 914.242.8800)

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