CAVIAR IS COOL AGAIN

There's no wrong way to eat it-and it doesn't need to cost your entire paycheck (though we're all for the occasional splurge). Hannah Walhout digs in to the roe resurgence.

- Hannah Walhout

DURING A RECENT dinner at the Bar & Lounge at Caviar Russe (caviarrusse.com; tasting menu $145), I ate almost everything with my hands: tiny, pebble-shaped, twice-baked potatoes; cones of nori filled with scoops of fatty tuna; a hollow disk of crispy cracker filled with smooth uni custard. All were blanketed, naturally, with heaping quantities of salty, sexy, oozy, unctuous caviar.

Caviar Russe, which was founded in New York and imports from sustainable sturgeon farms in Germany, has had this storefront in midtown Manhattan for 25 years the last nine of which have seen the upstairs fine-dining restaurant awarded a Michelin star for its meticulously presented tasting menus. So the lick-your-fingers approach at the new ground-floor venue felt like a novel direction. You can recline on banquettes or post up at the 14-seat bar for optimal Madison Avenue people-watching. Champagne will flow, but it's far from the only accepted pairing; the bartenders will gladly mix you a martini, a Manhattan, or (as I requested during my visit) an icy-cold flute of smooth, extremely expensive vodka.