”™Tis the season to be jolly and what could be jollier than to be back in full holiday shopping mode ”“ not anodyne online shopping, but old-fashioned department-store shopping. And where better to do it than at Neiman Marcus in The Westchester in White Plains, that most razzle- dazzle of department stores, never sparklier or more glamorous than at holiday time. Up through the store we go, strolling past Dior at the top of the escalator, ambling past Acqua di Parma, moseying by tables laid out with exquisite cashmere scarves, jangly belts, trainers like works-of-art ”“ beautiful things you want to buy for their sheer loveliness, not because you need any single one.
And on the store”™s Level 3, right at the top, is Mariposa (“butterfly” in Spanish,) where the restaurant host, Ronnie Barback, who is as cheerful as the store is bright, greets us like long-lost friends. “Hello, a table for lunch? Here, follow me”¦. This is one of my favorites, somewhere you can see the whole restaurant, but also a little private.” It”™s the sort of welcome that sets the tone for a sunny visit, even on a wet and gloomy late-fall day.
Ronnie has been with the store for some time but has only recently come over to Mariposa ”“ which emerged from its chrysalis in 2014 after a four-month, $1-million renovation that transformed it from one of Neiman Marcus”™ former Zodiac restaurants. (There patrons used to vie to sit beneath glass artwork of their birth signs.)
“They asked me to host,” she says, smiling. “ ”˜That”™s fine”™,” I told them, ”˜just don”™t ask me to cook.”™” Ronnie is a riot and we could talk to her all day, but she has other guests to attend to and, besides, we need to eat. As she leaves us, along comes a server, right on cue, depositing just-cooked popovers on our side plates, along with demitasse cups of consommé ”“ the free signature starters at any of Neiman Marcus”™ restaurants. (For the history of that tradition and more, see the Neiman Marcus story on Page 8.)
Meanwhile, here”™s Ronnie back again, handing me parking validation (“only for my favorite customers,” she confides.) A get-out-of-jail-free card, I call it jokingly, although with popovers this fresh and flaky and consommé this golden and intense, I think I”™m going to want to linger in jail a while longer.
Mariposa, I”™m discovering, is a sanctuary, offering comfort and calm along with gentle, old-fashioned service, although that”™s not to say it”™s remotely stuffy. That goes for the food, too ”“ a revamped, broad menu that reintroduces a lot of NM classics, everything based on prime ingredients, combined or cooked with imagination and flair.
Take the salads ”“ the dashing Madison, which is an upmarket play on a Cobb, or the Gotham, borrowed from Bergdorf Goodman”™s powder-blue, Central Park-overlooking BG restaurant, (Bergdorf”™s being a Neiman Marcus Group family member.) Yes, the usual suspects are here ”“ a black angus burger with what I can only describe as illustrious truffle fries, a tuna melt with a moreish tuna pecan salad ”“ but so, too, are more complex, more substantial dishes.
Glossy linguini come with a generous amount of snow-white, jumbo lump crab in a garlic and ginger butter sauce, a winner of a dish from chef Angel Bueno, who knows that, while we all love garlic, it makes a good friend but a bad master, and so he uses it judiciously. Blackened salmon has crisp, corn tortillas for its running mate, the dish spiced up with a feisty chipotle mayonnaise. A generously-sized skirt steak with a carefully reduced demi-glace will appeal to lunchtime carnivores.
As for the patrons, they run the gamut, from focused lone shoppers, ticking off items on a list, to lunching ladies and families with kids. Ah yes, the kids. Some are are quite sophisticated, sitting demurely and enjoying their Kobe beef hotdogs from the encouragingly “grown-up” kids”™ menu, while some are right little screechers, being mollified ”“ or bribed ”“ by their parents with the promise of what Santa will bring them if they will just cut out the whingeing.
However, let”™s not dwell on irritating children but instead think about the desserts ”“ a tall, rich coconut cake, or, as the menu calls it, an “iconic” NM chocolate cookie. I”™m not sure what makes a cookie iconic and we didn”™t put it to the test, but an affogato ”“ that spectacularly simple Italian desert of a scoop of vanilla ice cream, “drowned” in an espresso ”“ brought a delightful lunch to a satisfying, stylish close. (Shoppers on the go can always grab coffee from the new coffee bar off the shoe department on Level 1.)
With its elegant design touches, blue crystal water glasses, silver butterfly napkin rings and raw silk curtains ”“ like the ones you get on planes these days, separating business- class customers from the rest of us, only the drapes on planes are more likely to be nylon ”“ you know a place is tops when you have to scratch around for flaws. Yes, were I Mr. and Mrs. Neiman or, for that matter, Mr. Marcus ”“ figuratively speaking of course, as the store”™s founders passed away decades ago ”“ I might be inclined to put a door or screen on the wide opening that leads from the restaurant to the kitchen, so that guests wouldn”™t have to face a fire exit. But beyond that, I can”™t think of a thing I”™d change, so perfect is this spot.
And, by the way, I was exaggerating about the kids. Lest you call me “Scrooge,” honestly, they were all lovely. Just as Mariposa is ”“ beautiful as a butterfly, indeed.
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