Chef Tomer Blechman’s new spot is just blocks from his first one, and is similarly Mediterranean in orientation, with one major difference: a focus on open fire cooking and dry aged fish.
Theodora is a hot ticket right now—the restaurant ranking app Beli just released a list of the most popular restaurants in Brooklyn, and it held the number 1 spot—so I went for it when I got a 9:00 reservation on a Friday. When we showed up with three people instead of two and begged to be shown mercy, they were able to fit us in an hour later—time that was easy to kill at the nearby Greenlight Bookstore (there are a number of good bars around as well). From this experience, I think it may be possible to try one’s luck as a walk-in.
The menu, like so many these days, is composed of plates of various sizes built for sharing, which was perfect for our group of 3. We started with sourdough with ricotta, pita with hummus, tuna crudo, and melon “tartare” (a consolation prize since they had run out of that night’s appealing special, a salmon and tuna tartare). Unfortunately, they had also run out of their kubaneh, the star of their much-discussed breads section, and one of the reasons I had been most excited to visit.
The pita and the sourdough were not amazing, so I can only imagine that it is the kubaneh that makes people lavish praise upon Theodora’s breads. The pita was fresh and chewy, but not any better than some of the city’s other great pitas (Miznon comes to mind), and the hummus was smooth and creamy, but not as balanced in flavor (tahini, garlic, lemon) as the city’s best hummuses (Laser Wolf comes to mind). Similarly, I couldn’t help but compare the ricotta on sourdough unfavorably to a similar dish a couple miles away at Misi, where Missy Robbins’ incredibly creamy whipped ricotta piped onto Shewolf sourdough went (deservingly) viral several years ago. With brown butter and honey, Theodora’s was a little too dessert-like for my tastes.
The tuna crudo was similarly unimpressive. Served on crisp lavash with a bit of crème fraiche, this dish’s blend of textures was nice, but the flavor combination—it was served with plum and a touch of wasabi—was decidedly odd and didn’t quite work for me.
The melon tartare, on the other hand, was a revelation. Am I obsessed with tartare? Sure. But does this mean I’m liable to give overly high praise to the tartares I try? On the contrary—I’m picky. Finely diced melon and the right amount of acidity managed to turn fruit into a creative vegetarian starter. If the ricotta was a dessert nefariously disguised as an appetizer, this was a dessert successfully cosplaying as an appetizer.
One of Theodora’s specialties, as I mentioned above, is their dry aged fish, so we had to order the miso black cod. Although this preparation is synonymous with Nobu, Blechman’s version held its own. The perfect amount of savoriness from the miso complements the smoky aged fish. Be warned that some of the entree portions are small for the price, but I greatly enjoyed my two bites of cod. And it allowed me to save room for my two favorite dishes of the night: the octopus and the lamb.
The octopus was saladlike in preparation, served cut up with summer squash and corn. The smoky flavors contrast beautifully with the fresh flavors of seasonal vegetables, and the octopus was perfectly cooked, with chewy meat and a crisp exterior.
The lamb is a showstopping flatbread affair, somewhere between tacos and a pizza, in which tender pulled lamb is layered on freshly baked laffa (Blechman’s famed bread prowess strikes again—more credibly, this time). Topped with pickled onions and served with three different sauces, each bite of this dish was excellent. The harissa, amba, and zhug each added a different kind of zing to the meat, and I couldn’t possibly choose which was most delicious.
We also had a side of wood fired baby cauliflower, which balanced the tenderness of the young cauliflower stalks with smoky caramelized exteriors. I only wished we’d ordered a second vegetable dish, based on the successful execution of this one.
Creamy piped cheese showed up again, and more successfully, on a dense chocolate cake that stole the show for me. Whipped mascarpone and a drizzle of olive oil topped the rich but not too sweet cake and added the perfect contrast of texture and a bit of saltiness. This was probably my favorite dish of the night, which is rarely the case for me with desserts.
Theodora’s menu is highly seasonal, making use of whatever produce is readily available, so I look forward to returning in a few months and ordering some new dishes—and the lamb and chocolate cake, of course.
TL;DR: WHAT WE ATE
Loved: lamb, octopus, chocolate cake
Liked: melon tartare, black cod, cauliflower
Should have skipped: hummus and pita, sourdough with ricotta, tuna crudo