It’s hard to say exactly what the cuisine is at Único in Hartsdale. Angolotti, fresh pasta with a smooth filling of duck confit and ricotta, served in duck broth with a touch of cream and shiitake mushrooms, would be perfectly at home in a fine-dining New American restaurant. Dishes like blue-crab dip baked in half an avocado and seared-tuna tostada evoke more of a Mexican-beach-shack vibe. Tiger shrimp, tos-sed in garlic butter and flambéed with brandy, have a Spanish tilt; white-wine-steamed mussels feel more French; and tangy fried goat cheese drizzled with local honey could be considered farm-to-table. The spiced lamb meatballs come with chayote, pistachio, and mint, a combo that straddles the culinary boundaries of Mexico and the Middle East.
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“I always tell people that we do international food,” says Chef Brian Sernatinger. A Pleasantville native, he’s cooked everywhere from Craft in Manhattan to Spain and Mexico, where he opened the original (and still operating) Único in Tulum in 2013. “Everywhere I worked, I learned different cuisines and different dishes,” he explains. “It’s become part of my cooking style. I just make things I like to eat.”
Sernatinger runs the restaurant with his wife, Deyanira, a Mexican artist who created the mural — a man in a chef’s apron with a lion’s head, drinking a glass of wine — that anchors one side of the restaurant. The cocktail list also draws inspiration from Sernatinger’s travels, featuring not-too-sweet red sangria and a Mayan Margarita made with pineapple and jalapeño.
Único
10 N Central Ave., Hartsdale
914.607.3363
