Romera New York - NYC - Review THE first thing I ate at Romera New York was a jam of black olives and tomatoes. Sticky, sweet and salty, it made a fine spread for the warm roll that came with it, and it was just as appealing eaten with a spoon. At the rim of the plate were three stripes of green, gold and red, each smaller than a grain of rice and arranged like the flag of Bolivia. I eventually decided the flag had to be a garnish and ate it. Raw bell peppers. Their grassy flavor clashed with the jam. When the next plate arrived, again bearing three filaments of raw pepper, I asked a server about it. "That's the chef's little signature," she said. Like an artist would sign his paintings. By the end of my meal, the flag that was both a garnish and a little signature also became an emblem, one that stood for the larger problem posed by Romera New York. A restaurant willing to send out a garnish meant to be interpreted rather than eaten is a restaurant that wants to be admired, not enjoyed. Without question there is much to admire about Dr. Miguel Sánchez Romera, the chef who signed that plate and founded this restaurant. Dr. Romera is a neurologist who took up cooking as a hobby. It grew into a passion so powerful that, without ever having studied in a culinary school or a professional kitchen, he opened a restaurant in Barcelona, L'Esguard. While the rising tide of Spanish gastronomy no doubt lifted Dr. Romera's boat, he set himself apart. He opposed some of the chemicals being explored in places such as El Bulli, saying that for a doctor to use such synthetic ingredients would be a violation of the Hippocratic oath. Instead, he championed a cassava-based stabilizer that he called Micri. He studied the brain's interaction with the stomach, which led to another innovation, "gastronomic waters," a kind of broth that he claims produces a feeling of fullness to prevent overindulgence during his long multicourse tasting menus. There's a lot to admire, too, about Romera New York, the restaurant he founded this fall in the Dream Downtown hotel on West 16th Street. Designed by the architect Glen Coben, it is a fluid composition of glass, steel and wood, with living plants, pools of smooth black stones and serpentine curtains of rippling white fabric. It has to be the brightest and airiest restaurant anyone has ever built in a basement. In the kitchen, there is a devotion to doing things the hard way that can make the D.I.Y. fetishists of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, look like Sandra Lee. Coffee beans are roasted in house, and so, even more remarkably, are the cacao beans that Dr. Romera buys from Chiapas, Mexico, and then painstakingly turns into glossy, satiny tablets of dark chocolate that come with the petits fours. And there are the dishes that precede the chocolate, 11 in all if you choose the full $245 tasting menu. Dr. Romera's plates have a visual style all their own, painterly and handmade. Subtle compositions like a glistening scallop in a shallow pool of unsweetened white chocolate sauce invite quiet contemplation. In a city where not just the restaurants but the cooking are often clamorous, this is food that whispers. Can you tell which marinated salmon egg tastes like soy and which like beets? Is there really cinnamon in the caviar dish? If you give yourself over to the experience, a meal at Romera can refresh your perspective on what's in front of you, one of the gifts of art. Yet as much as you might admire Dr. Romera, you can't help feeling that you will never be able to admire him quite as much as you're supposed to. Upon arrival, you are shown to a waiting room and invited to peruse Dr. Romera's collection of books about cooking, art and neuroscience. Shipped from Spain, the library may be the first one where "Fat Detection: Taste, Texture and Post Ingestive Effects" is shelved right between Bocuse and Escoffier. Reading matter is provided in the restrooms and on the front staircase, too, which are inscribed with quotations from Dr. Romera like "I am a doctor who cooks, not a cook who doctors food." The menu also makes references to the doctor's ideas. Two dishes come on plates in which powdered spices or vegetables have been applied in a tight geometric grid; these are called Romerian mosaics. This wouldn't be any more becoming if the chef in question were a globally recognized master, but you might grit your teeth and indulge it as one of the prices you pay for magnificent cooking. But to eat at Romera New York is to be told repeatedly that you are in the presence of greatness, while the evidence of your senses tells you that you are in the presence of, at best, okayness.