Blue Plate Specials

IF I'D BEEN ALIVE during the 1930s, I might say with authority that Blue Mill Tavern, the new West Village restaurant in an old West Village space, is a blast from the past. Since I wasn't there, I rely for that statement on that era's existing architecture and stills of silver-screen stars at cosmopolitan dinner clubs. While I would be inclined to liken dining at Blue Mill to a Purple Rose of Cairo-like experience-that is, stepping into a world that is not one's own-for my sister the dinner evoked a different Woody Allen movie. "I felt like the Robin Williams character in Deconstructing Harry," she told me after giving it a few days' thought. "The one who's all out of focus. Being there was surreal."

The soft lighting, ceiling fans spinning to Django Rheinhart's jazz, a surplus of warm polished woods in Art Deco shapes, tiny supper lamps on each dining table-these elements and more mix to create a fully realized esthetic that goes beyond retro. Unlike the postmodern back-to-the-past touches of restaurants such as Freeman's, which imagines that every turn-of-the-century Midwesterner favored taxidermy and log cabins, Blue Mill delivers style that encourages pleasure to come from the harmony of total immersion rather than the jolt of a wink and nudge.

Depending on what you're looking for, you may find this sense of temporal displacement as irksome as it is disarming. Although I was fully enjoying myself, the atmosphere at Blue Mill was transporting enough to be disorienting, and there were moments when I had to remind myself where I was. At least the historic West Village, with its frozen-in-time landmark blocks and winding, impractically narrow streets, was the correct setting.

What initially lured me to Blue Mill was the promise of a blue-plate special. I don't think I have ever had one, and while I realize it's probably the same as any other meal, the term conjured images of heavy diner plates and Depression-era victuals. We were disappointed to find that the blue-plate specials had not yet been phased into the Blue Mill menu. There were also several sides that were printed on the menu, but not offered the night of our visit. The menu itself, large enough to shield you from the sun on a good day at the beach, is worthy of mention, as was the stylish paper sheath that covered each tablecloth. Both featured crisp, rounded, royal-blue letters on a background of spic-and-span white, punctuated by streamlined machine-age stripes.

As you probably imagined, the items on Blue Mill's menu, like the decorative touches, are thoughtfully, authentically dated. (The same goes for the cocktail menu-the bored 50s housewife in me appreciated the sidecar, a refreshing mix of brandy, triple sec and lemon juice). Chef Pitita Lago reached back into the annals of American dining and dug up some priceless finds. The upper crusty Waldorf salad ($14) would be supremely gimmicky if it weren't executed so well. Using the original recipe (with the permission of the hotel, of course), a texturally bright combination of sliced celery, apples (though slightly mealy), walnuts and popping halved grapes were coated in a mixture of mayonnaise, sour cream, lemon juice and sugar and served atop a bed of green leaf lettuce. Not only did the salad actually work, but seeing how the other half lived decades ago gives us jaded New York diners a break from our own brand of sophistication and a window into a less tired version.

The rest of the meal followed in this straightforward, meat-and-potatoes manner. The oyster stew ($9) was exceptional. If you are expecting uneventful bits of canned oysters in soup, you will be happily surprised. Served in a classic cream reduction subtly yet flavorfully enhanced with Worcestershire sauce, cayenne pepper and sherry, these just-shucked bluepoints, plump bordering on bloated, tasted sweeter and fresher than the sea. I've read about the times in New York when oysters were so abundant that they were a poor man's food, and this simple, unstingy treatment of what's now a luxury item evoked those fabled days.

Another excellently rendered original was the Maryland crab cake appetizer ($9), made from an old family recipe from-where else?-Baltimore. It doesn't get much more American than breadcrumbs, Hellman's mayonnaise, Worcestershire sauce, fresh crabmeat and Old Bay seasoning. The patties were crisp on the outside, and the insides were fluffy with choice bits of crabmeat.

From the ranch, we tried venison ($24), a dense puck of meat prepared juicy and lean with some mean scalloped potatoes (eagerly awaited and greeted by my dinner companions), braised red cabbage and brussels sprouts. Perhaps the most classic selection of the evening was the marvelously titled Queen prime rib ($22), 22 ounces of rib-eye steak (the "King" is 33 ounces), a deliciously predictable hunk of cooked red meat simmering in its own juices. The only missteps were the deflated popover that accompanied it, which tasted oddly of matzoh balls, and the absentee creamed spinach, a designated side that never showed. Tasty browned scallops served on a bed of succotash ($19), a savory confetti of lima beans, corn, tomatoes, chives and smoked bacon, was the lightest entree of the evening, but succulent enough to foster envy among the table's meat-eaters.

At this rate you're probably wondering: Who needs dessert? Our selections reminded us what the final course looked like before Julia Child wrote Mastering the Art of French Cooking: layer cake. Chocolate layer cake with thick white icing in the middle, thick chocolate icing on top, and a dollop of whipped cream on the side was alright, but never transcended my impression of it as an upscale Devil Dog. Likewise, the coconut cream cake, white cake with the same confectioner's sugary cream and requisite coconut flakes was also agreeable but heavy-handed. Although we could easily have done without, we were curious to see what would have followed our mid-century counterparts' blue-plate specials. o