Go Early or Late to Craftbar, But Go

Sara left a message on my machine saying that we hadn't spoken since the late 80s and she was back in New York. As I recall, last I'd heard she'd developed an eating disorder, and so became a model. But she's fine now. I called to ask her to come to a new restaurant, but she said she can only go to places that are more than a year old, as paint fumes and other byproducts of renovation sicken her. What to do; our Venn diagrams of dining options are mutually exclusive.

I compromise by meeting her at Under The Volcano for a watery margarita and salty thick tortilla chips that keep jumping into my mouth of their own volition, served with a fresh, peppery homemade salsa. Worth going back just for the chips. We decide that we both still look the same. She tells me my best friend from high school, the mogul, got disillusioned with the mogul biz, spent a year backpacking around the world and staying in hostels, and is now studying acupuncture. "Sara, that really doesn't sound like her." Sara says she herself didn't attend the high school reunion, but my best friend from high school, the future acupuncturist, did, and reported, "I was the best-looking one there." Which I'm sure was true and sounds exactly like her.

Sara's curious about New York, since she's been away, and asks me do I go to clubs. It's been so long I'm thinking, "bridge club? garden club?" I've actually joined a garden club; overhearing a conversation I was having with one of my friends, her mom (a Beekman) interrupted with surprise and admonition, "Lane, you don't garden?" As any self-respecting and well-rounded woman from the North Shore should certainly be an accomplished gardener.

Sara means a nightclub. My friends are mostly concerned with how many taps are in a place when going out. They've been known to look into a spot, say, "Eeeew, clubby," and leave. But I promise Sara we'll go to a club soon. At the Australia Day Harvest Festival, I explain about Sara and ask a trendoid I run into what's a good club, but she looks down her nose at me and says, "I don't go to clubs." But I persist, and she's tasted a lot of shiraz (the Aussies are generous pourers and say "No spitting allowed"), so she gets it in her head that a few of us should buy wigs and go clubbing.

My substitute for a restaurant ride-along says, "Oooh, this looks nice," as we approach the front window of Craft. "Well, we're not going there." We're going next door to Craft's baby sister, CraftBar. The host offers us seats next to an occupied table, which leads my high-school-teacher companion to chide, "Well that seems silly. Why don't we take this table, wouldn't that be better so we're not right next to them..." Which leads me to tell her, "You know, not everyone is 15." "Oh." It's like the LIRR at rush hour anyway, every seat will soon be taken, so you might as well sit next to the first normal person you see.

Thick velvet curtains block off the doorway, but on this windy night an insistent chill keeps licking at the shoulders of those of us in the long dining corridor. An inner brick-walled dining room is bordered by bar and gleaming open kitchen. It offers perhaps a smidge more warmth, but the corridor is good for people-watching and kibbitzing and spying on what your neighbors have ordered. The room is light and dark woods. Red crackled candleholders and the cream paper menu set each table. No salt or pepper shakers in evidence bespeaks the confidence of chef Marco Canora.

Clear-glassed bare bulbs housing glowing coppery filaments hang from the ceiling. The huge dark wood doors of the powder rooms open to oddly reveal the bathroom facilities within; every spare inch has been pressed into service. Some annoying background Rasta-pop thankfully morphs into nonintrusive soul. Early on, there are mostly working women at the bar, but then a diverse clientele files in. A bevy of babes with either very dark or very pale long dyed hair, some dates, two city gals on a get-together, even a group of young hipsters takes cheer near the full bar.

The earnest service is well-groomed, but not looking for their closeup. Some tentativeness on the part of the staff. When asked an opinion of an entree, a swallowed chuckle and facetious, "Well everything is fabulous, of course," is the initial response. I'm not made, but there is another reviewer afoot here this evening; they know we are lurking, which may have been nervous-making. At our table, we are confronted with a vase of tall herbed and salted breadsticks with baked-in oil that results in an addictive crunch. They evoke an etiquette question: "What if I break off half the breadstick, is it okay to put the other half back?" "It depends who you're dining with. And believe me, we don't know anyone where it wouldn't be all right to put it back."

There are a few taps at the bar, I see a light and a dark pint pass by. We order glasses of wine; bottles are brought and tastes offered. A Menetou-salon Pinot Noir ($7) is roughhewn cherrywood, while the Matakana Pinot Gris ($9) from New Zealand is a gravelly glass of sweet apple. There's no pressure to order a whole meal or even to order everything at one time. The vibe is it's your place, it's your meal, get what you want. The menu nods to Italy. Stuffed risotto balls ($6) wrapped with satiny meld of fontina and pecorino, then battered and fried, sit over a sweet, pure tomato sauce. A mouthful of the creamy cheese-enveloped sphere is a cushy comforter harboring your body heat against an impending crisp morning. A "snack" of breadcrumbed and shallotted fried stuffed sage leaves ($6) inhabits your soul with fresh sage; I don't want an exorcism, I just want another bite. The mild sausage stuffing doesn't detract from the herbal rush. We're not given individual plates to load our hors d'oeuvres onto. Perhaps we look too dainty to make a mess, but we do.

A side of root vegetables ($6) combines copious amounts of licoricey fennel bulbs, just-browned cauliflower florets (which sparks an argument over whether it is a root vegetable), softly caramelized baby carrots (I'd prefer a serving of just these lovely runts) and tender celeriac. My companion says, "What's this?" "Fennel." "How do you know?" The single diner next to us, a home cook, comes to my aid with the proclamation, "That is fennel." He had been at Gramercy Tavern, which was jammed, so they sent him over here. He's thoroughly enjoying his braised rabbit and seems to be well taken care of. Next to us on the other side, what looks to be a lesbian couple say they really like their white bowls of lemon-yellow saffroned and shrimped risotto. The maitresse d' checks in with most tables to see if all is well. It is.

The rabbit ($17) is moist, fall-off-the-bone delectable in a hearty brown hunter-type tomato-based stew with black olives. It's sprinkled with fresh rosemary. I offer a taste and get back a squeamish, "Uhhh I don't even want to hear about it." Hey, I don't want to kill Thumper, but if rabbit is going to taste that good, I can't be held responsible. My plate's not been heated, so the sauce cools quickly. The menu offers six warm, pressed sandwiches (panini), of which we choose the cured duck "ham" with hen-of-the-woods (that flowery-looking mushroom) and Taleggio ($11). A precise, uncrusted rectangle with delicate meat in which the melted cheese melds with the puffed insides of the crimped bread, marking perhaps a new height in the history of the grilled cheese sandwich.

It takes us like 10 minutes to decide which desserts to get because their descriptions are such that we want to try all of them. Someone scrupulously gathers every crumb from our table with the intensity of a border collie rounding up sheep. In a pool of sour apple cider syrup dotted with caramel bits, we find a double-decker of tongue-burning-hot apple fritters ($8) well-paired with a large nodule of caramel ice cream?a burnt-sugar flavor delivered via a cold conveyance for some ironic food fun. The apples are cooked through yet mushless. A rectangular plate of mini biscotti ($7) shows off two each of traditional pistachio, anised almond, choco-hazelnut blanketed in dark chocolate and a specimen that my companion says tastes like a pecan sandie. I tell our neighbor, "You made a mistake not ordering dessert, my friend." But he's happy with his elegantly glassed amber Vin Santo ($12). A decadent portion of dark chocolate tart with pistachio ice cream ($9) makes its way to a table where a first date, that I'm glad I'm not on, seems to be in progress. They both look bored.

Coffee is perfect, the kind I could sit all night drinking cup after cup of. A blue glass creamer and bowl of rough white and brown sugarcubes are pretty to look at. The dessert menu also lists infusions, among them elderflower, which herbalists say can cure your catarrh, and lemon verbena (the herbalists' "nerve tonic") and teas such as Tieguanyin and Uji sencha (Japanese green tea). Tieguanyin is an oolong once imbibed only by the emperor and named for the Iron Goddess of Mercy.

By 8:30 bar and tables are completely filled; the service gets a small bit flustered. Reservations are not taken here, so you may want to come early or late. Kitchen hours are noon till 1 a.m. Next door, over-the-top Craft looks to be a celebration destination. You need to bring a megaphone to be heard across the big tables. But intimate CraftBar, with its rotating entrees, numerous wines by the glass, attention to single diners and gentle pricing ($106 including tax and tip for two glasses of wine, two snacks, a hot sandwich, an entree and side dish, two desserts and two coffees), for a Colicchio venture, is meant to be your regular habit. If Craft is your Saturday night hot date, CraftBar wants to be your midweek let's rent a movie and curl up on the couch. It's so comfortable it doesn't feel like going out. In a good way.

CraftBar, 47 E.19th St. (betw. B'way & Park Ave. S.), 780-0880.