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Newsday - Long
Island
 July 8, 2004, 9:17AM EDT
Bliss’ chef boasts
Versatility and verses
BY JOAN REMNICK – staff writer
It was late in the evening when Richard Desmond emerged from his kitchen – shyly, at first, to chat with diners, and once emboldened, to launch into an aria. “Che gelida ma.nina,” from “La Boheme.” Desmond usually sings on request, if the restaurant isn’t too busy.
The applause that followed seemed as much for Desmond’s powerful tenor as for his artistry as a chef. For everything that came to the table, from the bread at the beginning to the desserts and petits fours at the end. Desmond had made himself. It is he who brings credibility to the restaurant’s hype-heavy name.
This was so even one night in early June, shortly after Bliss’ debut, when food took so long to arrive that the manager graciously offered drinks to every table in the house. Things these days are running much more smoothly.
It’s a challenge not to eat too much of Desmond’s crusty bread, to be slathered with basil-infused hummus. You’ll want to savor every bite of his Napoleon of butter-poached jumbo shrimp and white bean puree, cilantro sauce and crisp tortillas, an intriguing layering of textures and flavors. House-made gnocchi with pan-seared scallops, saffron, basil and stewed tomatoes, though, proved overly rich. Desmond got it exactly right with his lush (but not cloying) stuffed Portobello mushroom with Gorgonzola cream, polenta cake, tomatoes, roasted garlic and shitake demiglace.
The Bliss salad, a refreshing toss of organic baby greens, orange vinaigrette and pignoli nut oil, came garnished with zucchini tempura.
Fine fire-roasted ahi tuna was plated with feathery-crisp phyllo potato cakes, baby bok choy and coconut ginger sauce. Nearly hidden beneath pan-seared tilapia was spinach cannelloni, which, though listed on the menu, seemed a delicious surprise. The dish our waitress termed Desmond’s signature item was as inventive as it was irresistible – a “millefeuille” of pasta sheets enfolding succulent, savory slices of pot roast, the whole drizzled with truffle oil and Parmesan foam, encircled by sautéed vegetables. If simplicity suits you more, try the bacon-wrapped sea scallops, a flavorsome evocation of the ‘70s, served with ginger-glazed turnips and spinach. Thick, juicy, fire roasted double-cut pork chops – with caramelized apples and creamy polenta – were elementally satisfying.
Desmond’s occasional tendency to over-orchestrate showed in his caramelized banana and chocolate sandwich with a mango and coconut infusion. The “infusion” came in a little stemmed glass set upon a sea of melted chocolate alongside the cake “sandwich.” But his caramel tart topped with a cinnamon streusel was classic Desmond: a pebbly top layer of streusel covering creamy caramel pudding set over a crackle of puff pastry.
Best of all was his superb lemon curd “cake,” more of a warm lemon pudding, with wafts of freshly whipped cream.
After that came a plate of delicate petits fours. And after that, the restaurant’s name seemed only logical.
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