Photograph by Eric Helgas
Photograph by Eric Helgas

There are no tiki drinks at Noreetuh, a new Hawaiian place in the East Village, and what a thrill that is. Instead, a bottle of Viognier turns out to be the perfect apricot-scented complement to big-eye-tuna poke—and if the table won’t have white, there’s a muslin-covered book of other French wines, assembled thoughtfully by one of the three Per Se alums behind the restaurant.

Noreetuh’s sophisticated wine list is the scaffolding on a menu that embraces both the high and the low of Hawaiian food. It is a rebuke to the once prevalent fantasy of a Polynesian Disneyland, and a reminder of the long migration of people from China, Japan, Portugal, Korea, the Philippines, and Southeast Asia to the Hawaiian Islands. It is also frequently delicious, and unintentionally, perhaps, forces a rethink of the widely maligned genre of Asian fusion. Upgrading musubi, Hawaii’s favorite gas-station snack, takes guts, or rather, tongue—the corned-beef kind, which sits in place of Spam on top of the cilantro-infused rice, wrapped in a package of nori. That’s not to say there aren’t opportunities to eat the “Hawaiian steak.” Spam tortellini could be just a gimmick, but even Italians might have to agree that there are worse things to stuff in a pasta shell than spiced pork.

The blending of traditions is consistently smooth, as in a shallow bowl of tofu swirled with uni, ikura, and shiitake. It’s cold, velvety, a little bit louche. A busy hearts-of-palm salad is a precise calibration of crunch (crispy shallots), ooze (smoked tofu), and clutter (beets, cilantro), and almost enough to redeem the official vegetable of the nineteen-eighties. The kitchen’s commitment to fun in every bite extends to even the most prosaic-sounding dishes, like the chow noodles, made up of uniform slivers of bean sprouts, shiitake, and spiced tofu. The occasional lily flower nests amongst the foliage. Or take that poke, a plateful of raw, sesame-oiled tuna, texture-heavy with chunks of macadamia, slices of jalapeño, and springy tassels of seaweed. You’re on St. Mark’s Place, but the taste is unmistakable: saline, like a gulp of seawater when you dive under a wave. ♦

Open Tuesdays through Sundays for dinner. Entrées $16-$22.

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