NYCReview
photo credit: Kate Previte
M. Wells
There’s a tinge of Willy Wonka at M. Wells, if the candymaker made a mid-career pivot from sugar and chocolate to offal and foie gras. Every meal at this Québécois bistro (yes, there is poutine, and yes, you should get it) is playful, decadent, and a little unhinged.
M. Wells has been a neighborhood presence in Long Island City for more than a decade, and we’re so glad it’s stuck around—first as a diner, next as a dinette inside MoMA PS1, and then as a steakhouse in its current location in a converted auto-body garage. Through 14 years of block parties, pop-up shops, and grand Thanksgiving traditions (frozen French-Canadian pies stuffed with beef, chicken and pork), they’ve kept up an irrepressible undercurrent of weirdness, which coexists with a homey, unpretentious charm.
photo credit: Kate Previte
photo credit: Kate Previte
photo credit: Kate Previte
photo credit: Kate Previte
photo credit: Kate Previte
There’s something strange and wonderful everywhere you look in the improbably gorgeous dining room, which has chandeliers and brick walls painted scarlet. It’s like the lyrics of “My Favorite Things” crossed with an oddities shop: a clog, a comically large vermouth bottle, a tiny chest of drawers, a pair of hockey skates, a two-headed rabbit.
The minimally descriptive, constantly changing menu is full of surprises too, like the juicy, appealingly gruesome tête de porcelet. When was the last time you saw a pig head grinning at you from across a dining room? Even their celebrated caesar isn’t quite what you might expect, made with smoked herring and so much parm that it would seem like a joke, if the salad weren’t so delicious—not a dusting, but enough for the entire school district to declare a snow day.
photo credit: Kate Previte
photo credit: Kate Previte
photo credit: Kate Previte
photo credit: Kate Previte
You can still order steak, if you’re so inclined: The bavette is quite good, and the fries and shiitake butter it comes with are even better. But it’s also one of the least exciting things on offer at a restaurant where you can, and should, be eating very exciting things. When a date night or special occasion could benefit from a meal that's as unpredictable as it is delicious, M. Wells is your golden ticket.
Food Rundown
Milk Punch
photo credit: Kate Previte
Mortadella Mille-Feuille
Asparagus And Chicharron Salad
photo credit: Kate Previte
Duck Tartare
Le Burger Des Rêves
photo credit: Kate Previte