Call It What You Will, The Italian-Asian Food At Hell’s Kitchen’s Sesamo Works Wonders

Take your pick: The Bard’s “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” or Gertrude Stein’s “A rose is a rose is a rose.” Perhaps more apt when it comes to the food at Sesamo, is the idea that, if you like something, you thereby understand it. And that is the case at this delightful, homey restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen where Italian and Japanese food concepts are skillfully, and tactfully, woven together.

That’s not an entirely new idea, of course. Italian chefs here and in Italy have fallen over themselves adding sushi to their menus, calling it crudi. Japanese dumplings and Italian ravioli are easy-to-love cousins. Panko breadcrumbs are as readily found on chicken parm as uni on pasta.

Back in the 1980s so-called “fusionary cuisine” was briefly a fad but because it was practiced by show-off chefs who had little idea of how to use disparate ingredients, it became a culinary joke. Yet internationalism has in fact brought Asian ingredients to western menus, even at haute cuisine French restaurants run by master chefs like Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Eric Ripert.

At Sesamo, owned by first-time restaurateurs Sabrina Gao and Nikita Levitan, Chef Sandy Dee Hall follows a sensible path in order to make his food all his own, even to serving a delicious American anadama bread with rich honey butter ($8) that has no link to Japan or Italy.

Sesamo is a very comfortable spot, with brick-lined walls, a welcoming host and congenial bar, beamed ceilings and polished wooden tables. When I visited mid-week the noise level wasn’t bad at all.

The menu is divided into small plates, pasta, large plates and desserts, and there’s nothing on it more than $42 (for a skirt steak with scallion relish and Parmesan fries).

You should order the crispy chickpeas ($7) with seven Japanese spices to pop in your mouth while enjoying your cocktail or wine. The platter of calamari fritti tossed in Sichuan flour ($19) is big enough to share, and there is a charcuterie board ($24) of smoked blue fish pâté, spiced chicken liver mousse and prosciutto.

We tried three of the four pastas, the best being the plump, yellow tortelloni filled with porcini and oyster mushrooms in a white curry cream with tatsoi spinach—which is a fine example of the honorable marriage of two food cultures. Also good and quite interesting was a vegan mac & cheese ($25) that I cast a jaundiced eye at before finding the tastes of cavatappi pasta, cashews, turmeric, “nutritional yeast” and miso was quite savory. A dish of fresh pappardelle ($26) with a duck ragù, tomato, the aromatic Indian spice garam masala, hard ricotta and mint was overwrought and the pasta got lost in the sauce.

The East-West theme is also successful with spicy chicken parmesan ($26) with a good dose of Tsien chili in the buttermilk batter and panko crust, served with spaghetti. Even better was a chicken dish of simply roasted breast and leg with a lovely celeriac puree, Chinese five spice powder and pan-roasted chicory ($36), and, like everything here, it’s a generous portion. My fondness for the flavor and flesh of Atlantic black sea bass was admirably heightened by the juicy whole fish with curried pumpkin, chutney and cilantro ($41).

As often happens, trying to make western desserts from Asian ingredients is tricky business, so although a matcha tiramisù with chocolate and rum ($11) was impressive, the flavors in both a black tea crème cheesecake with walnut yuzu brittle ($13) and a tahini granita with pickled ginger and whipped cream ($12) were pretty bland.

Chef Hall is to commended for how subtly on the one hand he handles his blend of spices and how bright and intense others are when they make sense. So, call his cooking what you like—they hate the “fusion” word here—and accept it for what it is, which is unique all on its own terms.

Sesamo

764 Tenth Avenue

212-265-2755

Open for lunch Mon.-Fri., brunch Sat. & Sun., dinner nightly.