M. Wells, a Diner in Long Island City, Queens: Report From the New Culinary Frontier
A tasty Quebecois mutation of eggs Benedict featuring fresh peas and salt cod.
There's really nothing visually arresting about the down-at-the-heels diner at the corner of 21st and 49th Avenue in Long Island City, which sits at the head of the Sunnyside Yards -- formerly the world's largest rail yard, now mainly derelict.
M. Wells: big gastronomic doings in a nondescript diner.
But inside is M. Wells, the new faux diner birthed in part by a veteran of the famed Au Pied de Cochon restaurant, for nearly a decade the hottest and most pork-intensive ticket in Montreal dining.
As with the exterior, the interior of the diner has been little changed, reflecting the affection of the proprietors for the vernacular architecture of the '60s. The only discernible changes are that one row of booths has been ripped out in favor of a couple of communal wooden tables, and a decorative line of bone-white antique soup tureens is displayed, suggesting that the rustic, French-inflected country cooking of Quebec is partly what's being translated into the diner medium. It's an enthralling concept.
Belying the commonplace nature of the premises, some of the most innovative cooking in the city is going on there.
The place is currently pursuing a new kind of soft opening. In the initial days, ingress was limited to 7 a.m. till noon, but now the hours have been extended to 3 p.m. The menu, too, is undergoing a gradual expansion. "We've been adding items one at a time to the menu," our waitress told me and my colleague Peter Meehan, running her index finger along the list of 17 entrées and desserts. "There are some new lunch things on there now," she continued.
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