One thing about downtown in general, and the Lower East Side in particular, is that there are many places where one can indulge in a glass of natural wine and some interesting small plates. Or, there were — until Contra was replaced with Bar Contra (a cocktail bar with cheffy bites that I found less impressive than its predecessor), and Flynn McGarry transformed Gem into Gem Wine and then closed altogether. It would be hard to do it better than Gem, Contra, and Wildair — but the competition has recently been drastically reduced, pretty much leaving Wildair to carry the torch.
Enter Cactus Wren. The new spot from the team behind Sixty Three Clinton (a Michelin-starred tasting menu spot at that address), located just a few blocks away on Rivington, is already a tough reservation. For the thousandth iteration of our tried and true Metrograph-and-wine-bar Friday date night, my fiancé and I were excited to try it.
Cactus Wren is located in a corner space with lots of windows; on one hand, great for peoplewatching, but on the other hand, it feels rather exposed and not very intimate. White brick walls and comfortable cream banquettes are accentuated by a gorgeous white mosaic pizza oven. It’s a lovely space.
The menu is playful, and seems designed for a variety of appetite levels; if you want to make a meal of it, you’ll likely want to order a few different small plates, of which there are many. Two categories of smaller dishes are joined by four entree options and two pizzas. Because Cactus Wren is of the moment, and is shrewdly taking advantage of the opportunity for a bit of bougie hype, you have the option to spring for caviar three separate times on the relatively small menu, which is, overall, seafood forward — but there’s cheese pizza too.
We opted for the hamachi crudo, the chips and fish, the caviar bean dip, and the comte and honey pizza. The raw hamachi, tossed with just enough leche de tigre for a hit of citrus to complement the fresh fish and topped with slices of fresh mango, was a delicious beginning. The “chips and fish” — named precisely, for there are more chips than fish — was strong as well. The fried anchovies (perhaps my new favorite way to experience the salty little fishes) sat atop a bowl of good crispy fries tossed with a vinegar and onion powder that brought Lays to mind and packed that good, good MSG punch.
We all know every hot restaurant needs at least one buzzy dish, and in our era, throwing caviar on something random is a shortcut. Cactus Wren’s is their seven layer bean dip topped with (a relatively generous amount of) caviar: a luxe play on what I think of as a Tex-Mex Super Bowl appetizer. Served with homemade flour tortillas that were hot and perfectly chewy, this was a hit. The generous portion of briny caviar played well with the dip, which has all the elements one would expect, including smooth refried beans, crema, and creamy avocado. There is also a small handful of ultrathin, crispy potato chips to add some crunch, which was welcome as a way to break up the consistently smooth textures of the rest of the dip. I enjoyed this dish, and I must give credit where credit is due, but for $70, I hoped to be absolutely obsessed with it, and I simply was not.
My fiancé is never one to say no to pizza, and he can appreciate the pleasures of a dollar slice and a $42 caviar pizza alike, so we obviously had to order the aged comte and honey pizza. Unfortunately, it was disappointing. While the crust was solid, the bite was pretty much all crust with a bit of sweetness from the honey, because there was not nearly enough cheese. We wanted some gooeyness, maybe a bit of greasiness; we got neither, and it was unsatisfying. For a place that has such a beautiful pizza oven so prominently on display, the pizza should be much better. And to put it bluntly: how do you mess up a cheese pizza?! The fact that we didn’t enjoy what should have been a very easy recipe for success speaks for itself.
We were disappointed to see that neither the tuna and chorizo nor the lobster pot pie were actually on the menu, despite being listed online; perhaps if we’d gotten to try these dishes, which very much appeal to my palate, we’d have enjoyed ourselves more. But ultimately, if I was hoping for a new go-to spot on the Lower East Side, Cactus Wren didn’t quite make the cut. It would do in a pinch — the ambiance is nice and the menu is at least enjoyable in its commitment to novelty — but I wouldn’t labor over Resy notifies or dine at 10 pm just to get in. It’s good enough, but it’s not, as the kids say, worth the hype.
Pricing: plates of varying sizes $12-$70
I like caviar. I really do. But it’s seems lazy to just add caviar to a thing when I’m unconvinced it’s an integral part of the tasting experience. I feel like you could slap a dollop of caviar on anything and I’d believe it. Caviar on ice cream? Caviar on a gestacho? What’s next?!