“Here’s your seat, Princess,” says the nicest man on planet Earth to my daughter as he hands us the booster seat at “our table” in the corner of Mozzarella’s cozy confines on Valley Street in South Orange.
MDP and I had been going to Mozzarella long before our little lady came along, but it wasn’t until recently that we decided to dine in (see global pandemic for an explanation). Now, it’s part of our weekend routine to stop by Mozzarella for lunch, our experience enriched not only by the top-notch, consistent food but by the lovely hospitality as well.
You know how it is in New Jersey – with Italian-American restaurants on just about every corner next to the bagel place and nail salon – but Mozzarella is serving up something special. I’ve eaten from there countless times and I cannot recall one bad meal.
In this review, I’ll guide you through the standout dishes that I’ve tried over the years. Keep watch of Mozzarella’s menu, as they’re always adding creative, delicious specials (sometimes semi-permanently it seems).
Appetizers
If you ask my daughter what the best starter is, she’ll tell you it’s the mozzarella sticks: truly fresh mozzarella covered in a lightly fried, tightly woven exterior, served with a smooth, creamy sauce – perhaps her favorite thing she’s tried in her three-ish years. The mozzarella sticks are gooey with just enough bite to satisfy kids and adults alike.
My two favorites are the white PEI mussels and garlic parmesan wings.
Who doesn’t love a good bowl of mussels? While I’ve had the red mussels at Mozzarella, my typical preference is for a white wine broth, and much like everything here, it’s rich in flavor. The mussels are always perfectly cooked, nearly exploding from their opened shells. The dish also comes with a few pieces of grilled bread slathered with a tangy, vivid pesto, a perfect vessel for sponging up the delectable broth.
With the garlic parmesan wings – one wing dish option among several – you’ll get six to the order, and I can assure you this is only sufficient for two people. They’re baked, tender, and abundant with a garlic kick. Melted butter serves as the adhesive for the double punch of garlic and salty parmesan, a recipe designed for addiction.
If you’re interested in calamari, I’d suggest the Rhode Island version, which comes with hot cherry peppers and garlic for a delightful twist.
Honey pepper brussels are sublimely roasted and doused in sweetness, an appetizer option that puts a vegetable in the spotlight, if that’s your thing.
Pizza
The perennial question who has the best pizza in SOMA? comes up every now and again on the community Facebook groups. While the locals love a Sabatino pie, just down the road from Mozzarella, I’d suggest getting pizza here any day. At Mozzarella, pizza is a work of art with flavors to match its beauty.
Typically, MDP and my daughter share a margherita pizza, which is what you think it is: fresh mozzarella, tomato sauce, and a bit of basil. The crust is pretty thin and made with a flavorful dough. Ingredients are fresh, which you experience with anything you order from Mozzarella. A+ pizza for sure.
Mozzarella recognizes the diverse palates and preferences of our community, so also offers a vegan pizza, as well as a cauliflower crust rendition. I absolutely love the cauliflower crust pizza – thin, crisp, a perfect base for their outrageous toppings.
MDP has gotten both the calzone and stromboli, and is definitely a fan of both. As noted, their dough recipe is a notch above, so even more bread-forward “pizza items” are excellent.
Sandwiches
Though it’s been a long time since I’ve had one, the chicken parm sandwich at Mozzarella is one of the best sandwiches I’ve ever had. The bread is crusty yet serves as a perfect pocket to the delicious pan-friend chicken cutlet with melted fresh mozzarella and bright marinara on top. The cheesesteak sandwich also uses this divine bread and delivers a scrumptious bite.
MDP has had the Nashville-style hot chicken sandwich a few times – definitely spicy thanks to the Mike’s hot sauce and turned-up mayo – and he’s always walked away a happy customer.
You may be thinking, A sandwich is a good lunch-time food. I’d note that these sandwiches are quite sturdy and robust in all their deliciousness so come hungry if you try one for lunch.
Salads
I’ve tried many salads at Mozzarella and loved all of them. My two favorites are the kale Greek salad and a special they’ve had for a bit now (possibly because I keep ordering it), the roasted cauliflower arugula salad.
With the kale salad, you get baby kale – the best kind – with ample pieces of cucumber, bell pepper, and tomato that are joined by olives and feta cheese. They don’t skimp on the feta at all, so this feels like an authentic Greek salad to me. The lemon vinaigrette is light and vibrant to increase the overall floral experience of the salad.
The roasted cauliflower on the arugula salad is so delicious, wow. This is a pretty simple salad, with only toasted walnuts and feta as the other ingredients – and as we know, often the most simple things in life are the best ones. This one comes with a sherry vinaigrette, which is a little sweeter than the lemon dressing noted above.
Typically, I order salmon with salads, but their grilled chicken is quite good, as well.
Pasta
As if you couldn’t tell so far, thought and care go into so much of the experience of Mozzarella, and that’s evident when ordering pasta. They offer many types of pasta to choose from – ranging from long ones to whole wheat ones – to fully meet you where you are when it comes to your tolerance for twirling spaghetti.
MDP has long been a fan of the simple spaghetti garlic and olive oil dish, which is so much more flavorful than it sounds.
Other standouts include the baked ziti and pesto pasta. Mozzarella says the pesto is nut-free, yet it’s a very well-rounded basil pesto that’s a bit creamier than I’ve seen at other restaurants.
Entrees
You may have caught on by now that everything at Mozzarella is superlative, and the entrees are no different. Among them, the pear chicken is my runaway favorite. The sublimely prepared roasted chicken breast’s flavor is enhanced by notes of rosemary and the tender pear. It’s accompanied by their sauteed vegetables – button mushrooms, zucchini, and carrot, all well-seasoned and delightfully tossed in olive oil – and slightly sweet mashed sweet potatoes. This dish is likely a sleeper on their menu, given the array of options, but not to be overlooked.
Occasionally, they’ll add a steak as a special and you’re in for a treat if you’re lucky enough to see it on the menu. Like all dishes at Mozzarella, sufficient care is taken with cooking the steak to your preferred temperature, and it even holds up as takeout.
Tried-and-true dishes like the chicken parm with pasta always delight. You’ll get two pounded chicken breasts that are ever so lightly breaded and pan-fried, with fresh mozzarella and their signature bright tomato marinara on top – very good.
You also can’t go wrong with any fish entrée. I’ve tried several of their salmon specials, including one with roasted tomatoes, and they’re always flavorful, with the salmon never being overcooked.
While I’ve yet to order dessert, I expect any you try are outrageous. Maybe next weekend my daughter and I can split the vanilla bean gelato.
Whether you’re in SOMA or from around the area, Mozzarella is a must-try. Their food is fresh, flavorful, and consistent, no matter how busy they are. While street parking on Valley is a bit hit or miss, you can always order takeout right from their website or delivery from one of the eats apps (expect it to be much more expensive than pick up), and I can confirm that their food is stellar no matter where you eat it.
Everyone who goes to Boccone South talks about Silvio.
Who’s Silvio? you may wonder.
Well, he’s the gravel-voiced restauranteur who greets everyone that walks in through Boccone’s doors like they’re at once old friends and royalty. I recall the first time MDP and I went to Boccone, back when they were on South Orange Avenue. After Silvio recited the specials – in a similar way as a gifted orator delivers a soaring speech – I said to Dan, “Isn’t he special” – in a warm kind of way that has heart emojis in between the words if real life were iMessage.
We’ve been following Boccone on their journey from their longstanding home in South Orange to a short stint in Short Hills and now to their latest location in Livingston. What’s been constant in all of these storefronts has been Silvio’s superlative hospitality and the quality of the food.
If you haven’t been to Boccone yet, run. Don’t walk. And don’t be distracted by the large sign for a dentist looming at their current location, an easy to miss strip mall type deal on Mount Pleasant Avenue. Though small and intimate their new space may be, they’re serving the unequivocal best Italian food in the area. (I said it.)
So let’s dig in.
Boccone has a robust menu with the expected standards like calamari and veal milanese. They also offer many daily specials, which seem to always include a burrata (so don’t sweat that it’s not on their online menu; they’ll have it when you go, I’m sure!) and several delectable proteins to consider, ranging from grand dishes like osso bucco to fresh fish specials that may include Mahi Mahi.
It’s decidedly BYOB, but when I last went, I ordered an unsweetened iced tea and Silvio said he’d make a fresh batch for me just because I asked for it (a stunning move and quite good, too).
After you order, a wait staff will bring over a bread basket and the most delicious roasted garlic-infused olive oil. The bread serves as a blank canvas to this sublime dipping oil. When you think of “[something]-infused,” you may imagine tasting light notes of [something]. At Boccone, they take this concept to an entirely new level, submerging the roasted garlic in the sea of olive oil when they bring it over to your table. Although I no longer eat bread, I could not resist trying a piece (or several?) just to experience the unique olive oil when we last went.
One of my favorite appetizers at Boccone is the eggplant rollatini. I think eggplant is a bit deceptive – what’s so hard about making this taste good, right? If you’ve never made it yourself, you’d be surprised by how bitter it can taste if you do not cook it just right. Yet at Boccone, the eggplant slices are supple and seamlessly blend with the melted mozzarella and ricotta, to deliver a sumptuous, silky bite. The bright marinara sauce is a necessary foil to cut through the richness of the rest of the dish. We got a bit of black pepper ground on top, since whenever a dish is delivered to your table, wait staff are quick to follow with a pepper mill or bowl of parmesan cheese, depending on what you’ve ordered. Yes, please.
Sure, plenty of Italian restaurants do pasta well, but nobody beats the rigatoni at Boccone. Although the ingredients list is simple – fresh rigatoni, broccoli rabe, Italian sausage, red pepper flakes, garlic, and EVOO – the sum of this dish is far greater than its parts. There’s something about the just-enough liquid in the dish – and maybe your wait staff put a little cheese on for you, too – that ties up the overall flavor profile of the dish in a neat, irresistible bow. Portions are ample at Boccone, yet you’d be a fool to leave one bite behind. Thinking back to the many times I’ve been to Boccone, I may have ordered the rigatoni at one point and then only ordered that dish any other time I’d been there. Many compelling pasta dishes grace the menu, yet this one drew me in like a siren while at sea. You can’t go wrong with it. And once you try it, like me, you’ll never turn back.
Many of the so-called secondi dishes are outstanding, including the can’t-go-wrong chicken parmigiana and chicken scarpariello. During my last dining experience, I ordered the rib eye Boccone. The dish comes with that divine roasted garlic (from the olive oil experience, yes it’s an *experience*), sun-dried tomatoes that add both texture and zing, capers, broccoli rabe, and fries. I substituted their sauteed spinach – served in a tangle with the broccoli rabe, though no complaints here since it was all well-salted and delicious – for the fries. Though a fattier cut than other steaks, rib eye is undoubtedly flavorful, and the deft immersion of garlic throughout the dish elevates the flavor profile of the steak. I ordered it medium rare and it was cooked to my preferred temperature. You may think steak shouldn’t be at the top of your list of options at an Italian restaurant, but Boccone’s offering supersedes many true steakhouses, in my view.
Boccone also has a lovely, diverse dessert menu with housemade favorites like cannolis. Although we passed on our latest outing, I recall every one we previously tried to be truly outstanding.
Anyone in Essex County – or from further away as it’s worth the trip – must go to Boccone. Since I sense their new location may result in less visibility for them, I’m going to make a point of getting a babysitter more often just so MDP and I can regularly dine there. Who *doesn’t* want to be treated like a queen and eat a meal fit for one too?
When GUTS was first released in 2023, I remember thinking, “This is the album of the year.” I hadn’t heard anything so lyrically tight in a long time, and I loved the cross-genre appeal of the entire record. So when the GRAMMY nominations came out and Olivia Rodrigo snagged a bunch, including one for Album of the Year, I figured she’d be taking home multiple trophies once the ceremony rolled around.
We now know she took home none. On the night of the GRAMMYs ceremony, Rodrigo performed her mega-hit “vampire” – a genius demonstration of her confessional songwriting style as well as an illustration of her peerless vocal range – probably a little shaken up by winning nothing thus far, while Taylor Swift (winner of AOTY later that night) sang along in the first few rows.
And I’ve been reflecting on why Rodrigo’s outstanding, critically acclaimed, fan-favorite album was so sorely snubbed.
Something I’ve realized is that GUTS – which spans sounds ranging from opera through punk rock, pop, and guitar ballads – won’t fit in to whatever narrow criteria the supposed premier authority on music excellence uses. And it doesn’t matter, actually, since what Rodrigo created with GUTS – and now, somehow improved with the GUTS (spilled) release – is a masterpiece. Few artists are able to create an album that’s so thoroughly excellent throughout every song, with each expertly wrought turn of phrase, across the span of their careers. Never mind when they’re only 20.
I sincerely thank Rodrigo for giving me an opportunity to take a closer look at GUTS with her latest release (as I clearly missed an opportunity last year). For the record, I am here for this trend of artists giving us what landed on the editing room floor. As I hear more of these deluxe/updated/unreleased tracks albums, I realize that, for the artist, these songs were always part of the entire album experience. Somewhere along the way, they were cut and quickly forgotten once promotional tours and Instagram posts and late-night talk show appearances came around. But I find hearing Rodrigo’s unreleased songs clarifies the original, always-there intent of the album.
OG GUTS Tracks
Across the OG GUTS tracks, Rodrigo’s songwriting is taut, introspective, unflinching. In my view, GUTS is actually a memoir set to rhyme and melody. It paints the portrait of a person who has conducted deep self-reflection, as well as a skilled writer who can make such experiences sticky with their audience while imparting life learnings.
Like so many great memoirists, Rodrigo is the protagonist of every song and grounds us in present tense as she chronicles her experiences, which are often mistakes she’s made. This approach brings the listener in to the moment with her, and given that her experiences are part and parcel for our shared human experience, her listeners instantly feel connected to her, as they see themselves in the world she articulates in plainspoken lyrics. Her writing skill is most impressive when she simultaneously shows her broken, bruised reality and seamlessly imparts the lesson she’s learned, often a turn of phrase or two later. For many artists, this way in which she forges a strong connection with her audience is considered the core aim of songwriting – or really, any writing.
In my experience, some memoir writers can be skilled at cataloguing their experiences – harmful or beneficial, whatever they are – but there’s no there there. (Conveniently, New York magazine published this objectively terrible essay to illustrate the very point I’m making here.) This could be because the writer may not have enough perspective on their situation to be able to frame it in a way that offers any takeaway to the reader other than, “Wow sucks for you.” When the experience is not yet ripe, it’s not ready to be picked. (Follow me for more writing tips.)
Yet Rodrigo expertly harnesses her experiences, shines a harsh spotlight on what she may regard as her worst behavior thus creating a kind of looking-glass mirror, and demonstrates perspective as she brings us along her journey, all in the span of approximately three minutes per song. Let’s recall that Rodrigo is just now old enough to legally purchase alcohol. Such wisdom often takes years to earn, and for some may never come at all. (Spend a minute thinking about the adults you know.)
The center of the album, which directly addresses the work she’s done to reflect on her life choices and serves as the axis for all other songs to revolve around, is “making the bed” – a smart metaphor for coming to terms with your life and choices, and determining whether it’s what you want (or need); then putting in the work to course correct as needed. In this song, as well as others, the listener is simultaneously in the trenches with Rodrigo, ranging from a lover’s gaslighting behavior through the regretful end of a once-hopeful friendship, while also gaining an understanding of what those very experiences mean to the songwriter and perhaps in the listener’s own life as well.
Let’s look more closely at the skilled memoir writing on GUTS through one example. Rodrigo takes on the persisting rot of unattainable beauty standards in “pretty isn’t pretty,” an uptempo pop song.
I’ve excerpted below the chorus, which puts her effective songwriting ability on full display:
When pretty isn’t pretty enough, what do you do?
And everybody’s keepin’ it up, so you think it’s you
I could change up my body and change up my face
I could try every lipstick in every shade
But I’d always feel the same
‘Cause pretty isn’t pretty enough anyway
From the first line of the chorus, she invites the listener in to a topic as timeless as the story of Adam and Eve. It’s a question nearly every American woman has pondered at least once in their life, demonstrating Rodrigo’s knack for tapping in to universally held experiences. What I find really interesting about her delivery of this topic is she’s written lyrics about her own self-confidence about her appearance, so her telling of this story is particularly meaningful because, even she, as one of the most beautiful people in the world, is affected by unrealistic beauty myths. In the next line, she portrays how systemic the issue is. As someone who has spent considerable time thinking and reading about gender, I find this take to be staggering and evolved, and I can’t think of another song that connects the dots so seamlessly. She ends that line by pointing out what so many people feel: I am the outlier. I am not pretty enough. The problem must be me.
But then she takes us through her well-earned wisdom by putting herself at the center of the story. She tells us the things she has done – “change up my body and change up my face” – and even conveys how ridiculous these pursuits are by saying “I could try every lipstick in every shade.” Although she – and so many of her listeners – take painstaking efforts to supersede the system, the results often have no bearing on how they feel about themselves.
The kicker is the final line: “’Cause pretty isn’t pretty enough anyway.” This is the money shot and demonstrates just how wise she is. She started the chorus by bringing the listener to ground zero of her experience that is inescapable for all of us and leaves the listener with an astute takeaway: It’s all a sham.
GUTS (spilled) Tracks
I may be on to something about her position as a memoirist, given how she chose to update the title of her outstanding core album. As covered, her deft ability to communicate relatable experiences and convey her evolved perspective is much more than this (pejorative?) meaning that “spilling my guts” implies.
Upon hearing these five new songs, I came upon a revelation that this is not a pop album at all, and it was never intended to be. She bends the idea of genre through the sonic variety throughout the OG tracks, which extends in to the new ones. Take the last song “so american,” whose opening frenetic guitar pulses, like a flickering flame in the wind, sound like they’re straight out of any Sleater-Kinney album.
While it’s challenging to pick my favorite of these new songs (since I love them all), I’ll cover observations about a few.
Wisely, she pushed out a new music video for “Obsessed,” the first of the new songs, to coincide with the release of GUTS (spilled). This song shows her hallmark approach to songwriting – unflinching, hard-to-witness vignettes, showing the very worst impulses one can possibly have (and ones many people may see in themselves) – on steroids. Although she’s in a relationship that may be relatively stable (“And I know that you love me”), she’s preoccupied with her partner’s ex-girlfriend, citing hilarious details such as, “’Cause I know her star sign, I know her blood type.” The very act of writing a litany of cringeworthy behaviors serves as a mirror for her – as well as her listeners. Of course, her excessive use of hyperbole does shine a light on the question: Is it her or is the guy the problem?
The other song I’ll cover is “scared of my guitar,” which may speak most directly to her relationship with songwriting than any other song we’ve heard from her. Here she shows us a relatable experience for some: being with a partner that’s not quite right for you but it is preferred to being alone. Every time I hear this song, I marvel at the expert writing, as well as how talented her vocals are. When we get to the chorus, she sings:
But I’m so scared of my guitar
‘Cause it cuts right through to the heart
Yeah, it knows me too well so I got no excuse
I can’t lie to it the same way that I lie to you
I’m struck by her wise perspective here. Consistently evident across her songs, she pulls us in to the moment with her, so we feel like we’re experiencing it together, yet she’s hovering above, observing the situation for what it is. In this song, she shows us that the experience of songwriting – where she’s her most authentic – stands in contrast to her behavior within her relationship. She knows what it sounds like – potentially problematic to some – but her act of articulating this experience in stark terms, one that may be relatable to many, is empowering to her and her listeners.
With GUTS (spilled), It’s evident that Rodrigo wants to reinforce that she can be supremely versatile through the sounds she wraps around her lyrics, and yet her core approach to songwriting remains consistent, confessional yet wise, and tight no matter the melody. I am thrilled we’re just at the beginning of her career, so we can learn from her as she helps us evolve together.
The “hierarchy of needs” theory articulates the levers of human motivation. Moving from the pyramid base upward, they change from deficiency needs (a means to an end) to growth ones (psychological in nature). Self-actualization – achieving one’s full potential – is at the top.
Though self-actualization may be rare, it is a worthy goal. But what does it look like? Think about it as being uniquely open – to change; to having regrets and living in a way that reduces the need to have them; to being vulnerable; to making difficult decisions, with clarity; to accepting your own and others’ flaws; to looking beyond worldly possessions; to feeling fulfilled, whether you’re standing at the top of a mountain or your whole house burns to the ground.
I share these ruminations about self-actualization because that idea is at the center of Kacey Musgraves’s outstanding latest release, Deeper Well. Across the album, we see her wrangling with her journey, imparting well-earned wisdom through lyrics that flow like water from a faucet. Although the instrumental music throughout Deeper Well is beautiful, it serves as a backdrop for Musgraves to deliver existential meditations in everyman’s terms with her ethereal voice.
From a pure songwriting standpoint, this is her best album yet. I’ve chosen to look at a handful of standout songs from Deeper Well that speak to its core.
“Deeper Well”
In the title track, Musgraves shows us her path toward self-actualization, which is what finding a “deeper well” is all about. From growing up in a “world that was as flat as a plate” to tossing her gravity bong, she walks us through the decisions she’s made – like “sayin’ goodbye to the people that I feel are real good at wastin’ my time” – in service of setting boundaries so she could focus on taking care of herself.
In the second turn of the bridge, which uses the same chord pattern as the first turn with different lyrics, she sings:
So I’m gettin’ rid of the habits that I feel
Are real good at wastin’ my time
No regrets, baby, I just think that maybe
It’s natural when things lose their shine
So other things can glow
I’ve gotten older now, I know
How to take care of myself
I found a deeper well
Wielding a hallmark of her songwriting approach, she uses idiomatic phrases like “it’s natural when things lose their shine” to penetrate the collective unconsciousness and unlock our shared understanding of the phrase. But then, she creates an entirely new meaning as she heads into the next line: “So other things can glow.” She’s telling us: even when it’s challenging to do so, letting go of what no longer serves you is the best decision you can make and helps you see all the other parts of your life more clearly.
“Sway”
I love how Musgraves positions this song “Sway” – a metaphor for resilience – because it’s about her journey toward discovery with help from others, and her willingness to grow.
In the chorus, she sings:
Maybe one day
I’ll learn how to sway
Like a palm tree in the wind
I won’t break, I’ll just bend
And I’ll sway
I’ll sway
We’ve long seen her use metaphor to make her point. Going back to her debut, Same Trailer, Different Park, her award-winning song, “Merry Go ‘Round,” deftly paints a picture of a specific socioeconomic place, weaving a story of the well-worn cycle of poor choices and poverty, in the same way a child spins around a playground structure every American knows.
“Dinner with Friends”
Here is a songwriter contending with the things – which aren’t possessions at all – she’d miss once she dies. The list includes “the face that somebody makes when you give ‘em a gift,” “the feeling you feel when you’re looking at something you made,” and “my home state of Texas, the sky there, the horses and dogs, but none of their laws.” It is an evolved, developed self who can create this inventory of moments shared, concepts, and ideals and count them – and nothing more – as the “the things I would miss from the other side.” Musgraves’s peerless ability to transform complex ideas into everyday language is on full display in these lyrics.
“The Architect”
I could probably write an entire post about this song because it’s one of the most brilliant I’ve ever heard. Musgraves asks: Do we have control over our own destiny? In the hands of another songwriter – and they’ve tried – the intent may come across as admirable but fall short of effective. With Musgraves taking on one of mankind’s greatest questions through another metaphor no less, the results are extraordinary. “The architect” may be the universe, a god, fate, something else aligned to your personal beliefs. Could it even be you? No matter who you are, you’ve pondered this question at least once in your life, demonstrating Musgraves’s ability to reach a broad part of the population with her songwriting approach.
It’s challenging to excerpt one section of this song to represent its genius, but here we go:
I thought that I was too broken
And maybe too hard to love
I was in a weird place, then I saw the right face
And the stars and the planets lined up
Does it happen by chance, is it all happenstance?
Do we have any say in this mess?
Is it too late to make some more space?
Can I speak to the architect?
This life that we make, is it random or fate?
Can I speak to the architect?
Is there an architect?
In the stanza above, we see a person grappling with a hard question about herself: Can I ever be loved? It may be the “face” she saw wasn’t a new lover’s, but rather her own – of someone with self-esteem, fulfillment, and resilience. The last turn of the chorus illustrates once again her ability to distill down colossal topics into clear, accessible language set to perfect meter and rhyme for anyone to relate to.
“Nothing to Be Scared Of”
That fear in the back of your head: Am I asking for too much of this person? Do they have anything to want or give? This song addresses the idea of vulnerability head on – something that is “nothing to be scared of” from Musgraves’s point of view. In the first stanza, I love her use of “I’ve got my own patterns / Maybe I can stop them,” which demonstrates the continuous reflection and difficult work she’s done to interrupt those irresistible, creature-comfort habits that can dictate the direction of your life.
In the first turn of the chorus she sings:
Come to me and drop your bags
And I’ll help you unpack them
You’re the only one I want to give my love
There’s nothing to be scared of
Master of the metaphor yet again, she uses “your bags” to convey our common understanding of “emotional baggage” – the good, bad, and ugly of our lives that we must bring to our relationships with others, often reluctantly. Here we see her meeting her lover where they are so they can “unpack them” together and share their own unvarnished truths with one another, however jagged around the corners. In the second turn of the chorus, she talks about her own bags, an important revelation signaling her investment in and the perceived importance of working on herself.
A final observation: On all of Musgraves’s prior albums, she’d sing the first turn of the chorus one way (perhaps as written) and then vary the note progression the next time it comes around. This tactic is prominent on Golden Hour. Just a little going up instead of going down – very subtle but keeps the listener engaged. On Deeper Well, the variation across the chorus is often in the lyrics themselves while her delivery of the notes remains constant. Given that her songwriting (with her voice as the medium) is the central driving force of the album, this particular approach makes perfect sense to me.
Every few years, I get an itch and ask no one in particular, “When is Kacey Musgraves going to come out with a new album?” While I’ll be playing Deeper Well on repeat for the foreseeable future (let’s say until April 19, 2024), I’m already excited to hear what she does next. In my opinion, she may be one of the greatest living songwriters. Throughout her oeuvre, she’s demonstrated that she can bring her unique approach to any subject matter, ranging from nosy neighbors in trailer parks to learning how to evolve while also giving yourself grace.
Finding a good lunch spot can be surprisingly hard. Long ago, I swore off Yelp (and even created a blog, Yelp: Reviewed, that served as commentary for how unhelpful — and often bizarre — their reviews are). These days, I use a combination of frequently sordid (unappetizing?) Jersey eats Instagram accounts and local Facebook groups to find new places to eat. Occasionally, I’ll use the ol’ “lunch near me” prompt in Google to find endless options (many not open, many not serving lunch) as a shot in the dark.
Today, I had the pleasure of inviting one of my all-time favorite conversationalists to lunch: my mom. She lives in my hometown of Union, NJ, so I considered driving us to a local downtown in search of a restaurant. Before taking that step, I tried searching for lunch places in Kenilworth, a small neighboring town to Union, that may exist solely to fill the oddly shaped geographical gap between Union and Cranford. Chat & Griddle, a place I had never heard of, popped up, on the speed-trap Boulevard no less, so I thought we’d give it a shot.
Situated a ways beyond the three-block strip of shops on the Boulevard, heading toward Nomahegan Park, Chat & Griddle is easy to miss. “This used to be a candy store,” said my mom, knower of all things nearby, as we walked in. Instead of a sit-down service place, this is more of a Valley Street Eatery type place, where you order at the front and snag a seat at one of the 10 or so tables, or a counter spot.
Chat & Griddle is open every day for breakfast and lunch except for Monday, and they proudly state that breakfast is served all day on the menu plastered on the wall. The owner/chef helpfully provided a paper menu to me when he saw me taking a photo of the wall (as Chat & Griddle does not have a website, at least not yet, but you can order via their online menu on Google; I didn’t see it listed on UberEats but they are on Instagram!).
Behind the service counter, there’s a Boylan soda fountain machine, with drinks ranging from root beer through lemonade and beyond, something I’ve actually never seen, but speaks to the good aesthetic instincts Chat & Griddle has. Bags of chips and baked goods are available where you order. Grab a bottle of water or a Coke or Snapple product on the way in, if root beer and the like aren’t your thing.
Once I had thoroughly studied the menu, searching for a non-sandwich item, I walked over to the counter to order. Before I could get there, an ecstatic 20-something man in shorts (it was 60 degrees today), effusively praised the owner/chef for their Taylor ham, egg, and cheese (THEC) sandwich. “This is the best ever. Nobody makes it better than this,” he exclaimed. His soliloquy went on for about three minutes, and it occurred to me that he may have just walked in to compliment the sandwich; he was neither ordering nor finishing a meal. Hey, you do you, man. When it appeared he had run out of superlatives for their THEC, I placed my order, while my mom sat at a table.
Like all things I love, Chat & Griddle is good at managing expectations. The menu notes that all food is made by hand – something that shows in both the presentation and craftmanship of what we ordered – to suggest that you might need to wait a bit. After about 15 minutes, one of the guys behind the counter brought out our food.
I ordered the chimichurri steak bowl, which was served on a plate, but I recognize that anything made with a grain base is considered a “bowl” in 2024. In addition to the steak (flavorful if a tad fatty), the dish comes with a hearty serving of fine quinoa, baby spinach, guacamole, grape tomatoes, feta cheese, and two fried eggs. It also comes with potatoes, which I asked to be omitted.
I thought the dish was fantastic. I was impressed by how fresh everything tasted, and the combination of flavors created an elevated experience. I had never thought to have a bit of spinach, guacamole, chimichurri, egg, and steak in one bite, yet I’d highly recommend it! The chimichurri itself was quite bright and served as a solid complement to the overall flavor profile.
My mom ordered a cheddar burger that arrived on a sturdy, fresh-baked bun. Although the menu has a fancy burger that I bet is delicious, my mom wanted something more low-key, and the person taking our order happily complied with a custom option. The beef patty was neither too thin nor too tall, and like its proportions, it was cooked perfectly. Just as my dish was overflowing with freshness, the vibrancy of the green leaf lettuce and tomato basically jumped off the plate. On the side, there was an ample portion of fries that were salted just right.
I left Chat & Griddle thinking about when I could return. Based on what I saw, Chat & Griddle takes great care with everything that leaves their kitchen, including the artfully plated, must-try pancakes. I can see where the THEC lover I encountered was coming from, as Chat & Griddle has many variations of the sandwich on their menu – something for the traditionalist, the adventurer, and even the strange (see the one with powdered sugar). They even have a kids’ menu, making it a low-stress breakfast and lunch destination for the whole family.
Although the experience of Chat & Griddle is unpretentious, the flavor aesthetics are refined and advanced. In fact, I cannot think of a restaurant I’ve been to in Cranford or Westfield lately that I enjoyed more than this, so check it out!
When we entered Coda Kitchen and Bar, my glasses immediately steamed up, and I couldn’t see. MDP and I had just escaped from the pouring rain, having walked a few blocks from the parking lot. High-tops near the front and the rectangular bar were all but full. The music may have been a little too loud as to be jarring in my somewhat disoriented state. All of that dissipated when the host warmly welcomed us and sat us at a table for two near the back of the restaurant.
Although I had been to Coda many times before, I hadn’t seen the full scope of the space. Set off from the bar and high-top area by a tall wooden divider, the main dining room is a long, medium-width room, with tables for two and four – a modular setup to efficiently accommodate bigger parties – nestled along both sides of the area. Although there were diners on each side of our table, the experience was anything but claustrophobic.
A few minutes after we sat down, a smiling waiter came to our table with water and promptly left, a signal that, unlike other restaurants in the area, Coda wants customers to feel a sense of hospitality instead of communicating they’d like to turn over tables quickly. Having ordered takeout from Coda many times in recent months, we already had a good idea of the lengthy, comprehensive menu spanning two full pages of small, tightly wound font. MDP and I quickly made our selections, and he turned to the handsome leather-bound drink menu to identify a beer on tap.
For appetizers, we ordered the seared scallops and hummus platter. For the seared scallops, there are four to an order – a perfect portion size for two people. The scallops are presented in the context of a few dollops of cauliflower puree and a hearty serving of the cranberry-ginger vinaigrette, which was, for me, the highlight of the dish. While the ginger and garlic flavors of the scallops were slightly muted, the robust, vibrant cranberry-ginger sauce provided a powerful palate impact on its own, eliciting memories of family gatherings and transporting me to another time and place. I’d say the dish is quite successful.
Having ordered the hummus platter for takeout, we knew we were in for a treat. Reader, this is a hummus platter like no other. Set aside your expectations for flaccid celery sticks and too-tough carrot wedges. The Coda hummus platter is a work of art. The long plate was overflowing with the beautiful array of vegetables Coda provides with the hummus. In addition to the expected carrots and pita, they offer raw broccoli, beet slices, pitted Kalamata olives, cucumber sticks, and crisp red pepper pieces. Let’s not forget the main draw: the hummus itself. Have you ever had hummus that had too much tahini, or perhaps not enough? The Coda hummus offers a satisfying, understated flavor that deftly balances the typical hummus ingredients to create much more than a sum of its parts. I could see this appetizer being overlooked in the context of the many available choices. Don’t sleep on it.
For entrees, MDP ordered the slow roasted salmon, while I opted for the hanger steak with chimichurri. The presentation of the salmon was quite breathtaking. The long filet was carefully set atop the quinoa, kale, cauliflower puree, and beets. MDP said the dish was exquisite.
Something that I’ve really come to appreciate about Coda is how willing they are to accommodate substitutions. Typically, the hanger steak is accompanied by wedge fries and sautéed broccoli. I asked for two servings of broccoli in lieu of the fries, and I was happily served my requested sides with no fuss or conversation. The seamless experience of ordering the dish to my preference has made me a loyal customer to Coda even before our most recent outing.
So what about the steak? It was, in a word, divine. Prepared to the temperature I requested, the steak was juicy, tender, like butter. The star of this dish is the outrageously delectable chimichurri. Much like Coda’s well-calibrated hummus, the chimichurri also balances all of its ingredients to create a satisfying, garlic-forward flavor. As for the broccoli, it is delicious. Infused with garlic notes, it’s tender but providing enough of a crisp bite to be ultra-satisfying. Finally, a few roasted tomatoes are served as an accoutrements to the dish and they were surprisingly delicious.
Given how outrageous all of the food was, we had to order dessert, so we opted for the key lime pie. Much like the dinner menu, the dessert menu offers a diverse, comprehensive list to choose from. I found the key lime pie slice they gave us to be much bigger than I would have expected (or seen, such as from the Fox & Falcon who procures their desserts from David Burke’s Dixie Lee Bakery). Creamy, tangy, dense but light at the same time – it was perfect. The graham cracker crust offers a foil to the custard, delivering a soft case for the pie without making it feel too heavy.
I’d rate our experience at Coda a 9/10 overall. In addition, unlike many restaurants (understandably), Coda takes extraordinary care in packing food for takeout. For example, their superlative free range roast chicken is packed in a takeout container that keeps the chicken separate from the sides, and the rich rosemary-garlic gravy is thoughtfully provided in a separate container.
It’s easy to see why Coda has endured in Maplewood Village for so many years, while others have come and gone. Even on a rainy night, the restaurant was humming with happy diners. After our experience last night, I may go as far to say that Coda may be my favorite restaurant in Maplewood.
When 1989 (hereafter called 1989 OG) came out in 2014, it was a smashing success. The album sold about a million copies in its first week, and went on to earn Taylor her second Album of the Year Award at the GRAMMYs. It was called a pop tour de force and the rumored relationship at the center of the album – a short-lived fling with Harry Styles – dominated how it was discussed.
Leading up to 2014, Taylor’s celebrity star was rising. Her relationship with Styles – who may have been slightly more famous at the time – was front page news, and her surveilled whereabouts were promoted on gossip blogs for the sake of the clicks. When she implied she was done with men and decided to create a girl squad with famous models, it was the talk of the town.
Interestingly enough, although her rise to fame became kitchen table conversation, fewreviewers of 1989 OG grasped what can now be understood as the point of the album: the often complicated experience of stratospheric fame and how to navigate it. Though “Shake It Off” and “Blank Space” – two lead singles from the album – directly addressed the experience of being as famous as she was – critics focused less on the meaning she was trying to impart and more on the superficial aspects of the album at the time.
I expect this void in understanding may have been because many of us weren’t taking Taylor seriously as a songwriter in 2014. Throughout her canon – what I’m now calling her oeuvre since university classes are being taught about her – she’s treated the album as a unit of art. For her, putting together an album is like completing a puzzle: as the pieces come together, the picture emerges. When we consider the vault tracks – songs she had written with the intention of putting them on their era’s album – it makes sense that they now help us better understand each album’s story.
Just as all other Taylor’s Version vault tracks have added a layer of meaning to her canon, the 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (hereafter called 1989 TV) vault tracks crystallize her then-newfound experience with global fame and surveillance, as well as coming to terms with being an “object,” and create a touchstone for understanding the entire album. As I hypothesized in my review of Speak Now TV, we continue to see the vault tracks as blueprints for her future work, too. Let’s take a closer look.
“Slut!”
When Taylor first released the track list for 1989 TV, this song caught my eye. Before we dive in to the lyrics, consider how media outlets were reporting on Taylor back then (and continue to, see any article about her relationship with Travis Kelce): “Taylor Swift seen with Harry Styles outside her New York City apartment on a morning coffee run” (I wrote this but any blog at the time may as well have). I find this overt objectification – and implied shaming – of celebrity women fascinating, mostly because there’s so much plausible deniability in how the media chooses to do it. Obviously, the point of describing a photo in this way is to call attention to their sexual relationship, yet the language isn’t explicit (surely we all thought they stayed up late doing each other’s hair, right?). The inclusion of “Slut!” on 1989 TV – and the emphatic use of an exclamation point in the song title, which perfectly captures what the media is actually saying – corroborates the idea that she was grappling with her stardom on its own, as well as in the context of a talked-about relationship, and found it pretty fucking awful.
The song’s slowed-down pace stands in contrast to some of the more urgent, upbeat tracks elsewhere on 1989 OG, but the core themes remain. “Slut!” covers the tension she experienced with being a high-profile person in a high-profile relationship, and how to reconcile the two. At the end of the first verse – which includes carefully chosen markers of a life of fame and celebrity – she sings, “What if all I need is you?” The verse appears to be presenting what reporters may have been asking her: You have fame, beauty, money, model friends, a successful career – what more could you want in life?
She notes the tension between stardom and love, and demonstrates where they intersect in the chorus:
But if I’m all dressed up
They might as well be lookin’ at us
And if they call me a slut
You know it might be worth it for once
Here she’s stating that this life of celebrity will result in the media reporting on her every romantic escapade – and she’s come to be resigned to this reality. In the intimate space of her relationship, the best outlook she can have is, in this instance, it might actually “be worth it for once.” In a way, she’s trying to take ownership of the concept that’s been foisted upon her. The slightly rose-colored glasses outlook is also evident in “Shake It Off,” where she talks about “shaking off” incorrect and insulting critiques of her. It’s important to remember that her next album, reputation, was an effort to fully take back the narrative the media and public had been wresting away from her as she grew in celebrity status on the path to 1989 OG.
In this song, we’re also starting to see Taylor’s fascination with reimagining idioms and other known phrases, something she would do with increasing frequency in later albums (consider the bridge of Lover: “Ladies and gentlemen, will you please stand? / With every guitar string scar on my hand / I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover”). She uses a few in “Slut!” notably “I’ll pay the price, you won’t” prior to the first turn of the chorus. This is a G-rated way of talking about women who have sexual relationships outside of marriage and experience consequences from doing so (and has unfortunately re-entered public lexicon given the fall of Roe and the resulting anti-choice laws that have sprung up in its void). In addition to demonstrating an approach she would continue to experiment with in later songs, it also speaks to the broader theme of the public image she had at the time in the context of being an ultra-famous man’s girlfriend. It begs the question: How can I possibly be both?
“Say Don’t Go”
I sincerely appreciate this song and believe it’s very successful, but I have less to say about it in the context of this review. Nothing to see here, keep scrolling.
“Now That We Don’t Talk”
For me, this vault track is the runaway winner of the batch, mostly because it shows her penchant for exploring unconventional song structures that we “first saw” on folklore. When I first listened to folklore, what made it feel like such a departure from her other work was the risks she appeared to be taking. The reining “queen of the bridge” either eliminated the bridge – the emotional center of her songs – or used what we’d commonly consider to be the “outro” as the gut punch of the song. This approach is clearly articulated on “august” and “illicit affairs” from folklore. But it’s evident that playing with song structure has long been an area of interest for her, pointing to yet another way vault songs serve as blueprints.
What’s striking about “Now That We Don’t Talk” (“NTWDT”) is its direct dialogue with Red TV, specifically “I Bet You Think About Me” (although it also touches on themes elsewhere in Red). First, Taylor’s feeling of being less-than due to her lover is obvious on “NTWDT” as it was on “I Bet You Think About Me.”
Here’s the “outro” for “NTWDT”:
I don’t have to pretend I like acid rock
Or that I’d like to be on a mega yacht
With important men who think important thoughts
Guess maybe I am better off now that we don’t talk
And the only way back to my dignity
Was to turn into a shrouded mystery
Just like I had been when you were chasing me
Guess this is how it has to be now that we don’t talk
(It’s important to note that the idea of misaligned music tastes is a memorable callout from “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.”)
Take a look at the second verse of “I Bet You Think About Me”:
Well, I tried to fit in with your upper-crust circles
Yeah, they let me sit in back when we were in love
Oh, they sit around talkin’ ’bout the meaning of life
And the book that just saved ’em that I hadn’t heard of
What I totally missed in my review of Red TV was that Taylor was first experimenting with the unconventional song structure she used so adeptly on folklore in “I Bet You Think About Me.” Here is the outro of that song:
I bet you think about me when you’re out
At your cool indie music concerts every week
I bet you think about me in your house
With your organic shoes and your million-dollar couch
I bet you think about me when you say
“Oh my God, she’s insane, she wrote a song about me”
I bet you think about me
It is in these final lines of the song – and important to note that the meter shifts away from the prior verses here – where she twists the knife in “Mr. Superior Thinkin’” who made her feel so small and on the outside. “NTWDT” takes a similar approach, where the meter shifts and we get the final emotional blow as the song is ending. It is likely no surprise that she was only able to officially use this unusual and highly effective structure once she was in a position where she calls the shots on what ends up on her albums (folklore was the second album after her departure from Big Machine, and reportedly she positioned it as “surprise, I’m doing this” to her new label, suggesting they had little input on the final product).
“Suburban Legends”
I love this song. My biggest revelation from this one – which also feels in direct dialogue with Red – was that Taylor frequently uses metaphor in her songs. Looking back through her canon, the premise of a song can have both a literal, in-the-moment meaning, as well as serve as a metaphor for a more complex concept. Like many other vault tracks, the use of metaphor in “Suburban Legends” helps to lend understanding to her entire canon.
Where I see metaphor happening on “Suburban Legends” is when we get to the second verse:
I had the fantasy that maybe our mismatched star signs
Would surprise the whole school
When I ended up back at our class reunion
Walkin’ in with you
You’d be more than a chapter in my old diaries
With the pages ripped out
I am standin’ in a 1950s gymnasium
And I can still see you now
Although it’s possible this is based on a lived experience of hers, I find it somewhat hard to believe. Can you imagine two celebrities showing up at a reunion in some random suburban high school? So then I thought about: What does this particular setting conjure? I think it speaks to the fact that her lover was older than she is – someone who might find a milestone year reunion meaningful, unlike her at the time – and communicates that her lover was searching in the past to find out who he was. You can see obvious themes from Red even in this excerpt (the notable mention of astrology is a direct reference to “State of Grace”). This song also appears to be a continuation of the experience outlined in “NTWDT” where she highlights how he was constantly finding himself – unnecessarily in her view:
You grew your hair long
You got new icons
And from the outside
It looks like you’re tryin’ lives on
I miss the old ways
You didn’t have to change
Seeing her canon though the lens of metaphor changes the impact of “Cornelia Street” for me, where the cinematic details of her apartment were meant to represent the creature comforts of a relationship – and what’s at stake when that’s the case.
You might see this as obvious now, but it’s also evident that the car and road details of “Style” serve as a metaphor for how challenging it is to navigate a relationship with someone who was as famous as she was.
“Is It Over Now?”
This is the song we didn’t know we needed. Like so many vault tracks before it, it provides the connective tissue to unlock the meaning of the album it’s tied to.
In the vein of blueprints, “Is It Over Now?” (“IION”) shows us an approach Taylor would later “first take” on folklore: three interconnected songs circling around the same narrative. On folklore, “cardigan,” “august,” and “betty” map a love triangle that’s only uncovered as you get deeper into the album.
On 1989 TV, “IION” is the link between “Style” and “Out of the Woods” that reinforces the central theme of the album: the experience of being an objectified celebrity and trying to create a meaningful life in spite of it.
First, how do we get from “Style” to “Out of the Woods” with this song?
In the chorus of “Style,” Taylor lists the commonly described features of her and her lover (most likely Harry Styles):
You got that James Dean daydream look in your eye
And I got that red lip classic thing that you like
And when we go crashing down, we come back every time
‘Cause we never go out of style, we never go out of style
You got that long hair, slicked back, white T-shirt
And I got that good girl faith and a tight little skirt
And when we go crashing down, we come back every time
‘Cause we never go out of style, we never go out of style
Now that we have the benefit of the vault tracks, it’s become clear to me that these descriptors were not hers or Styles’ for each other. Rather, they mirror the characteristics noted by the media about both celebrities, and communicates how the media reduces celebrities to “objects” (like a sexy white tee and slicked back hair) through its fascination with their beauty. These lyrics suggest the two lovers were meant to value each other’s appearance for these objective markers. Is that really how a relationship works though? Taylor knows very well it isn’t.
In “IION,” Taylor picks up on this objectification, and speaks to how it manifests in her real-life interpersonal relationship:
You dream of my mouth before it called you a lying traitor
You search in every maiden’s bed for somethin’ greater, baby
It’s as if she’s saying, you can only relate to the public image created by the media and society of me, even here, in our bed, in our unseen interpersonal interactions. This vexing realty where public persona may or may not match reality is an area of fascination for her, something she’d further explore on reputation.
“IION” also adds depth to understanding parts of “Style.” In the second verse of “Style,” she sings:
I say, “I heard, oh
That you’ve been out and about with some other girl, some other girl”
He says, “What you heard is true, but I
Can’t stop thinkin’ ’bout you and I”
I said, “I’ve been there too a few times”
The last line is a bit ambiguous. Is she talking about off-on relationships, or was she unfaithful too?
In the “IION” chorus, she spells it out – she, too, was seeing someone else during their relationship:
Was it over when she laid down on your couch?
Was it over when he unbuttoned my blouse?
It is when we get to the second full verse of “IION” when we see the connection to “Out of the Woods” where she directly addresses the accident discussed in that song:
Whеn you lost control (Uh-huh)
Red blood, white snow (Uh-huh)
The “IION” bridge also further crystallizes how we should understand “lights” (and similar) across 1989 TV:
And did you think I didn’t see you?
There were flashin’ lights
At least I had the decency
To keep my nights out of sight
Only rumors ’bout my hips and thighs
And my whispered sighs
Her focus on paparazzi and media attention is strong, but also shows up in “Welcome to New York” (“The lights are so bright but they never blind me”) where she applies her characteristic optimism shown across 1989 OG to the experience of non-stop surveillance. (It’s important to note that New York – the so-called center of the universe, a manifest experience she knows very well – serves as a metaphor, as well.)
The “flashin’ lights” in “IION” are in contrast to the kinds of photos close friends share with each other as discussed in “Out of the Woods”:
You took a Polaroid of us
Then discovered (Then discovered)
The rest of the world was black and white
But we were in screaming color
These snapshots – unlike the ones taken by paparazzi – reveal real people, showing the two lovers in “screaming color.” And yet the tension between public and private manifests.
In a way, “IION” – intentionally positioned last on 1989 TV – unlocks the riddle to the entire album. The core 1989 OG songs try to tell this story, but we really needed the vault – in particular this song – to fully understand it. One consideration about why this song, and the other vault tracks, didn’t make the final cut is that they paint a more complex picture of her experience of celebrity (probably not great) which was in contrast to the all-American beauty image of Taylor at the time. In my review of Speak Now TV, I had a similar thought about why “Castles Crumbling” wasn’t included on the final Speak Now OG. Translation: Probably about money.
There is so much more to say about 1989 TV – such as how “New Romantics” was originally written to include the word “anti-hero,” talk about blueprints – but what’s clear about the album we’re now privileged to hear is that it describes the struggle she experienced with attempting to lead a “normal” life in the context of her growing fame. It may have felt like an entirely new conflict to navigate for her at the time. As alluded to above, her next album, reputation, features a Taylor who was no longer optimistic about her level of celebrity and hell-bent on reclaiming her life. I can’t wait until we get reputation TV – written at a particularly interesting period of her fame arc – so we may continue understanding her entire canon with more clarity.
It was the summer of 2009. I had just bought a copy of Fearless (wow, a CD) after becoming enchanted by “Love Story” blaring through the speakers of Duane Reade and everywhere else I went in New York City. And I was falling in love – both with the person who would become my husband and Taylor Swift.
One day, a friend raised the topic of “Love Story” and firmly declared, “There’s no way she wrote this song by herself.” At the time, I considered it to be just one person’s weird and casually cruel comment. Little did I know, this was a widely held belief of many Americans and critics alike. Although Fearless earned Taylor her first Album of the Year award from the GRAMMYs, there was an inkling of doubt about her strength as a songwriter looming large in the collective unconscious.
Taylor has said herself that writing Speak Now, her follow-up to Fearless, was a vindicating endeavor. She set out to write an entire record on her own – without any co-writers – mostly to prove that she could. The resulting masterpiece was an album spanning genres and influences, with enduring standout hits like “Mean” and “Mine,” whose easy, breezy, rolls-off-the tongue lyric of “You made a rebel of a careless man’s careful daughter” continues to be considered one of her best lines ever even today.
In this (extremely long!) review, I cover a few considerations about the original Speak Now album, including its unique status as one of two wholly eclectic Taylor Swift albums to date; her revised delivery on the Taylor’s Version album given her career stature; observations about what may have drove her to record an entire album that’s outside her natural singing range; and a working hypothesis that the vault tracks are in fact blueprints for her future work.
A multi-genre album
One aspect of Speak Now that received little attention upon its release was the wide variety of sounds that appeared on the album. Unlike her previous albums to date, which had a core country sound, Speak Now reflected many genres – ranging from the descendant of Ellie Greenwich’s “Be My Baby” energy in “Speak Now” to pure pop in “Sparks Fly” and even a little bit of rock with “Better Than Revenge” – and yet it was labeled a “country” album at the time.
In my view, the genre-spanning breadth of Speak Now stands out among her body of work as we know it today. Only Lover – her first album that was hers from the jump – touches on so many different sounds and styles. (Some may say evermore reads as eclectic, but I consider it to be experimental.) Every other album – spanning from her debut through Midnights – features a fondant-like wrapper around it, imbuing a uniform sound and smoothed-over experience for the listener that transcends production and is deeply felt at the center of each song. It’s no surprise that, upon her first chance to strike out on her own, she ended up demonstrating her breadth across genres with Speak Now, serving as a kind of roadmap for her future work. As a reminder, Taylor Swift is the only artist to have won Album of the Year in three separate genres (Fearless, country; 1989, pop; and folklore, alternative).
And now we have Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) – henceforth known as SN TV in this review – to consider. SN TV contains all the tracks from the original Speak Now (Deluxe) (“OG SN” henceforth) as well as six previously unheard “From the Vault” tracks. Although the vast majority of songs are identical to the OG SN, this album is labeled as “pop” in Apple Music (see for yourself). I imagine the inclusion of the vault tracks – namely “Electric Touch” and “I Can See You,” which both feel influenced by the indie rock du jour while Taylor was writing SN TV – pushed the whole album over the edge into the miscellaneous category of pop. Yet my hypothesis stands that the album cannot be captured by one single genre label.
Spot the difference: She has arrived
Early reviews of SN TV suggest Taylor’s “adult voice” – richer, fuller, and a bit deeper than her OG SN voice – leaves something to be desired. I attribute these observations to be picking up on the way she’s delivering the lyrics, meaning her whole vocal approach and new sensibility about the songs, rather than her actual voice itself.
With the OG SN, Taylor was on the offense. The earliest tracks were written when she was 18 and she was barely an adult when she recorded it, having been severely stung by media backlash (already then) and imperious provocateurs (Kanye West, et al). In interviews back then, she attributed the album title to the need to just say something. This driving force showed up in her vocals – emphatic, dramatic, pitchy, elongating. Decades later, the world is different. She is different. And she knows very well that she has nothing left to prove.
Take a song like “Mean,” a rallying cry for those who’ve dealt with bullies. Like so many Taylor Swift songs, “Mean” uses textured specificity about her own situation, yet the effect is universal. On the OG SN, her singing is taut and angsty. You can hear her stressing “and a liar” like that friend who always says I told you so. When she played “Mean” on the album’s tour and awards shows, she’d get to the bridge – “Washed up and ranting about the same old bitter things / Drunk and grumbling on about how I can’t sing” – nail the note on “sing,” and give a pregnant pause and a theatrical look that communicated are you serious? before heading triumphantly into the outro.
In contrast, her vocals on the SN TV rendition of “Mean” are pragmatic and straightforward, and there’s no wink-wink, nudge-nudge going on. She even lowers the emotional temperature of the song once she gets to the outro, changing up the chord progression to match that of the first turn of the chorus.
We also hear defused vocal delivery on “Innocent,” a track widely considered to be about Kanye West as an olive branch for that whole VMA debacle. On the OG SN, she’s earnest and sharp. Here, as an older, wiser, and self-actualized person, she’s detached and cool, delivering the lines in a way that suggests she appreciates her craft while also no longer feeling the need to be perceived a certain way just for existing.
Taken together, her revised vocal approach across SN TV reflects an artist who is comfortable knowing she has arrived. The emotional verve that formed the effect of the OG SN is no longer necessary or warranted, and she wants us to know that.
Out of range
Although Taylor’s older, fuller voice results in an improvement on a few tracks – namely “Speak Now” where the original sounded pitchy to me – the OG SN tracks on the new album continue to be way out of her comfortable vocal range. With the exception of “Last Kiss,” all of the songs start down here and eventually land up there. Consider “Enchanted,” which starts low in her range and pushes her beyond what we now know to be her comfort zone.
You may recall some of the prominent female singers at the turn of 2010, among them Rihanna and Beyonce, whose high-pitch shriek sends me off the deep end. While not my personal cup of tea, these women were making waves and plenty of money. Part of me wonders if Taylor felt a need to conform to the range of her contemporaries, for the sake of broad appeal or because of what were perceived as commercial risks in having a more confined vocal range.
Incidentally, her vocals are at ease and in her comfort zone across the SN TV vault tracks, which, given the industry landscape at the time, may be in part why they landed in the vault instead of on the OG SN.
In the vein of knowing her worth – she is “The Man” after all and one of the richest female performers on the planet these days – we’ve seen few songs take her to that out-of-reach range over the past three or so years. “Cruel Summer” off Lover notwithstanding – and given the constant-loop of Eras tour videos in the ether, we know she’s not singing those high notes anyway – the vast majority of her songs, in particular on folklore, evermore, and Midnights, sit in that comfort zone for her, even encouraging her to dig deeper instead of going higher (think of “cardigan” here).
From the Vault: Blueprints for her future work
In interviews with Taylor, she’s said that re-recording her first six albums is an exercise in reclaiming what’s rightfully hers. Now that we have three Taylor’s Version albums in the world, it appears the endeavor serves a larger goal: Demonstrating her strategy and intentionality for her career path.
Tracks labeled as “from the vault” are, according to Taylor, songs that were held back from the final cut of an album, with the intention of using them on the next album. Looking back at her body of work, we can see that the sonic chasm between one album and the next is relatively vast (think Red to 1989 and then to reputation; I recognize folklore and evermore share a similar spirit and they are an exception in her catalogue sequence). So it’s only logical that these extra songs ended up collecting dust on a digital shelf somewhere. Taylor has said she recognizes these vault tracks belong in the time they were written – among the Era that spawned them – thus we’ve had the opportunity to hear these long-forgotten songs from deep in the crypt on the first three Taylor’s Version albums she’s released.
In my view, the vault tracks are actual blueprints for her future work – the careful maps she uses to build the next concept, the next turn of phrase, the next style. For example, we first heard the phrase “casually cruel” used in “All Too Well” from Red, yet Taylor had been intending to use that phrase years earlier, during the Fearless Era, as evidenced by its use on “Mr. Perfectly Fine,” one of the Fearless TV vault tracks. On Lover, she invokes the Shakespearean idiom “all’s well that ends well” for the “first time,” when in fact it was part of the original rendition of “All Too Well,” the 10-minute masterpiece that’s been seared in our brains since the release of Red TV.
In a similar vein, we see the mastermind behind the masterpieces in the SN TV vault tracks, as well. I’ve selected three to tell this story.
“I Can See You”
There’s something refreshing about the apathy in Taylor’s opening utterances of “I Can See You” – simply “uh-uh, uh, uh” delivered without emotion – over a mid-aughts guitar line sent straight from Franz Ferdinand and their kin. The song is about seduction, in the most sensual of terms – “’Cause I see you waitin’ down the hall from me / And I could see you up against the wall with me” – and it’s really no surprise that this song revealing a sexed up Taylor Swift didn’t meet the criteria for her brand image at the time when the OG SN was released.
Around 2009 (and perhaps until very recently), Taylor was perceived as innocent, chaste, or even sexless. It was only when we got reputation that the world could see her as she’s long seen herself, apparently: someone who seduces and can be seduced. On “dress,” she sings:
Only bought this dress so you could take it off
Take it off
Carve your name in my bedpost
‘Cause I don’t want to be your best friend
(Side note: Weirdly, most reviews I read of reputation didn’t mention this shift in image at all, perhaps it went unnoticed or could not be believed.) Now that we’re in 2023, we have constant loops of Taylor performing “Vigilante Shit” from the Eras tour on TikTok, a routine rife with sexually explicit choreography. It’s simple, really: The world was not ready for a sexy Taylor Swift in 2010 and now we are.
The idea of a covert love affair was simmering in her for some time, as shown by the way the “I Can See You” story is mirrored in 1989’s “I Know Places.”
On the second verse of “I Can See You,” she sings:
And we kept everything professional
But something’s changed, it’s somethin’ I, I like [note: the delivery of “like” is approximately spoken, giving it a sexy vibe]
They keep watchful eyes on us
So it’s best that we move fast and keep quiet
You won’t believe half the things I see inside my head
Wait ’til you see half the things that haven’t happened yet
For Taylor and her lover on “I Can See You,” there’s an element of excitement in the need to keep their love affair undercover.
On “I Know Places,” the experience with concealing a love affair feels a bit more dire – likely due to the onslaught of public scrutiny of her personal life that transpired after the OG SN was released.
You stand with your hand on my waistline
It’s a scene, and we’re out here in plain sight
I can hear them whisper as we pass by
It’s a bad sign, bad sign
Something happens when everybody finds out
See the vultures circling, dark clouds
Love’s a fragile little flame, it could burn out
It could burn out
‘Cause they got the cages, they got the boxes
And guns
They are the hunters, we are the foxes
And we run
What’s interesting to me is that even in 2008/2009, Taylor – who was often portrayed as someone who made her love affairs very public – could peer into the crystal ball of her future life and see that keeping love a secret was essential (“Romance is not dead if you keep it just yours,” she sings on “Paris” from Midnights (3 am)).
“Castle Crumbling”
In this duet with Paramore’s Hayley Williams, Taylor sings about a fall from grace, likely based on her experience once the media turned on her in the wake of the Kanye West VMAs experience. (Perhaps it’s not so much that the media turned on her, but certainly the media didn’t support her after that either.)
Castle is an intentional metaphor for Taylor, a recurring motif in her prior work, such as “Love Story” (including the memorable video for the song). Even as recently as Midnights, she invokes the idea of a castle, portraying it as her future state in the Cinderella-esque telling of “Bejeweled” from its music video.
Yet, in both the lyrics of “Castles Crumbling” and in her later work – namely from reputation – the fairy tale castle is actually more like a fortress to her, or even Foucault’s panopticon. On its face, the castle may be the site of love and happy endings, but for Taylor, it’s more like a trap, which may speak to the existential prison she lives in due to her extraordinary celebrity status.
In the lead single off reputation, “Look What You Made Me Do” – a song about revenge – Taylor invokes the idea of a castle/fortress/panopticon:
I (I) don’t (don’t) like your kingdom keys (keys)
They (they) once belonged to me (me)
You (you) asked me for a place to sleep
Locked me out and threw a feast (what?)
Later on the reputation track list, on “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things,” she alludes to a fortress yet again:
So why’d you have to rain on my parade?
I’m shaking my head, I’m locking the gates
On “Castles Crumbling,” written nearly a decade before reputation, she is already seeing the “castle” as more of a confining experience:
People look at me like I’m a monster
Now they’re screamin’ at the palace front gates
Used to chant my name
Now they’re screaming that they hate me
Never wanted you to hate me
Given the subject matter of this song, it is not at all surprising to me that it was excluded from the OG SN. For me, it changes the meaning of the entire album, and is contradictory to the earnest spirit of “Long Live,” which celebrates her connection with her fans. In contrast to “Long Live,” Taylor communicates her harmful experience in the public eye on “Castles Crumbling.” Now that we have both tracks to consider, we can see that her relationship with her fans creates a double-edged sword for her, as many great things in life do. At once, she feels deeply connected and gratified by her fans, and also sees the burden of responsibility in living up to a superhuman standard she, as a mortal, cannot attain.
She may have recognized the dissonance in public perception of her if “Castles Crumbling” sat alongside a song like “Speak Now” on the OG SN. What could the media narrative possibly be if these two songs shared a tracklist in 2010?
“Timeless”
I get the sense people see “Timeless” as a throwaway track on SN TV, but it’s worth paying attention to. It recounts the experience of the narrator finding old photos at an antique store that show random lovers enjoying one another, drawing out a story line of what may be characters. The first turn of the chorus goes:
On a crowded street in 1944
And you werе headed off to fight in the war
You still would’ve been mine
We would have been timeless
Telling stories of others is not unfamiliar ground for Taylor in the OG SN Era. From her debut album, “Mary’s Song (Oh My My My)” also invoked the voice of real or imagined characters – that is, of experiences that are not hers – but it felt like an unusual track on an album that led with biographical songwriting. In the song, she sings:
She said, I was seven and you were nine
I looked at you like the stars that shine
In the sky, the pretty lights
And our daddies used to joke about the two of us
Growing up and falling in love and our mamas smiled
And rolled their eyes and said oh my my my
It’s evident writing through the lens of someone else’s experience has been an area of interest and prowess for Taylor. It wasn’t until we got folklore – an album whose central thematic premise is other people’s stories – that people stopped and said, “Wow, she can write about someone else – and really well!” (Reminder: folklore earned Taylor her third Album of the Year award.)
What we see in “Timeless” is that her ability to portray the lives of others through compelling vignettes has always been part of her skillset. Taylor Swift is, and always has been, an expert of the human condition.
On a personal note, “Timeless” is a deeply affecting song for me because it captures the relationship I have with my husband in a way no other song ever has. Nicole’s version:
On a crowded street called Queens Boulevard
We met up one Sunday at an Irish bar
You would have been mine
We would have been timeless
I wrote a hundred emails to your address
And I counted, you didn’t send me less
You’re still gonna be mine.
We’re gonna be timeless.
**
SN TV is a triumphant record that continues weaving the tapestry that is Taylor Swift’s career story and body of work. We’re privileged she’s showing us her blueprints, and I can’t tell if I’m more excited for the next Taylor’s Version album or an entirely new release!
Bonus photo since you got to the end (Congratulations!).
We should have known the world was about to fundamentally change when Taylor Swift announced her Lover Fest tour in 2019. When news broke that she’d be touring to support her recent album Lover, she announced only five dates in the U.S.—an unusual circumstance given she toured globally for her previous albums, usually making a ton of stops in the U.S. At the time, she said the limited tour was due to her mother’s ongoing cancer condition and treatment. I was dismayed to see that the two Lover Fest East dates were scheduled for summer 2020, both at Gillette Stadium, a bit of a hike from New Jersey. I was resigned to breaking my streak of seeing Taylor Swift on every tour since Fearless, and moving on with my life.
But then March 2020 rolled around and well, you know how that went. Lover Fest was rescheduled indefinitely and then canceled.
I mention this bit of history because The Eras tour is Taylor Swift’s first string of live performances since the reputation tour in 2018. That means Taylor Swift has released exactly six albums since 2018: Lover, folklore, evermore, Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Red (Taylor’s Version), and Midnights. When folklore and evermore were released, I fantasized about seeing Taylor in an intimate, small-scale venue, like The Bluebird Café in Nashville, which would be an appropriate environment for the vibe of those two albums. At the same time, this gave me anxiety thinking about the availability of tickets for such a setting. But then she released three more albums – all without a tour to back each – and I then wondered what she would do with her recent material, all the while confident that the resulting tour would be spectacular.
Mastermind that she is, Taylor Swift conceived The Eras tour: a sprawling, three plus hours event, where she spans all of her albums (except her debut, at least in the core set list) in a 44-song extravaganza. There’s a bit of push and pull with the idea of “eras” when it comes to Taylor Swift’s albums, and it doesn’t surprise me that she’s taken a concept spun by her fans and the media and embraced it as her own. I touched on this in my review of Midnights, but, with each album, there’s a new turn of Taylor Swift’s aesthetic. Fearless gave us wavy hair and a sparkly guitar, with a country feel. Red was all about a vibrant pop of her lip color, straight hair, and ultra-skinny jeans, with a genre-spanning vibe. With folklore and evermore – where the idea of hygge is manifest reality – we saw her in shapeless garments and a natural hairdo. As a result of these distinct aesthetics, iconic visual metaphors, and shape-shifting genre hopping, her fans and the media have come to regard a Taylor Swift album release as something more than a new set of songs to burn through, but rather a defined “era,” like the way we think of the Mesozoic Era being when dinosaurs roamed.
It’s evident to me Taylor designed The Eras tour experience to center on her fans. Throughout the show, she sprinkles in a lot of fan-talk, speaking directly to you individually like you’re age-old friends. It’s worth noting that I was seven rows away from the stage and often felt like she was singing directly to me – total swoon. But the songs she’s selected for her set list and the imagery, costumes, and choreography all center on the iconography her fans have built their alter to Taylor Swift around. The show takes you through her album eras – not in chronological order – and begins with Lover. The opening act, “Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince,” is an abbreviated version of the song, and probably forgettable judging by the vast number of videos online for the second song of the night, “Cruel Summer.” Knowing her fans have come to regard “Cruel Summer” as demonstrating her masterful ability to deliver a compelling bridge, she pauses after the second turn of the chorus to invite the audience – some 70,000 people, every night – to “cross the bridge” with her, and not just sing it, but “scream it.” I’ve seen videos of the “Cruel Summer” bridge so many times my two-year old daughter can now sing it in its entirety. Truly iconic.
While she spends a different amount of time on each era, she highlights the songs that may be most representative of each one, through her fans’ eyes, rather than focusing only on the singles. I’ve heard some mumblings online about Taylor giving short shrift to Speak Now, since “Enchanted” is the lone track she sings, but we should expect her to pick more surprise songs from Speak Now going forward, especially once Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) has launched (won’t those fans be in for a treat when she pulls a SN TV vault track into the show). She makes a point of wedging in “Love Story,” a song she’s played consistently since the Fearless tour. It is also interesting to me that I’ve heard her play “I Knew You Were Trouble” on every tour since Red came out, and lucky duck that I am, I’ve also seen her play “Clean” on piano on every tour since 1989.
Let’s pause on “Clean.” The two surprise songs for my show were “Welcome to New York” on guitar – further reinforcing the confusion of where the home of the New York Giants and Jets actually is – and “Clean” on piano. The sprightly, upbeat, and definitely cute rendition of “Welcome to New York” put a smile on everyone’s face. But it was “Clean” that quieted the crowd, given how profound the performance was. In 2014, Ingrid Michaelson covered “Clean” on piano at the Billboard Woman of the Year Awards, and it was an eye-opening experience, imbuing so much more emotional weight into the song than the album track where production figured heavily in the overall sound impact. Taylor was in the audience, and surely she was taking notes. I imagine Taylor may have written “Clean” on piano, as the song is certainly designed for the instrument. At The Eras show, Taylor brought flourish into the chorus, with the undulating piano playing – not too heavy-handed, just right – creating space for the emotional impact of the song, promoting a sublime aural experience.
Although I was all smiles, ear to ear, for the entire three plus hours, “Blank Space” was probably my favorite performance. (Can we just recall for a second how brilliant this song is? She took the media narrative about her and turned it around into an incredible pop track that’s unforgettable and seared into Millennials’ brains. I wouldn’t be surprised if “Blank Space” is what ultimately differentiated her from her peers, given that she snagged a second Album of the Year award for 1989.) Here she pulls in the iconic golf club from the absurdist, hilarious, and totally perfect video for the song, once again dropping a visual metaphor her fans to recognize and appreciate. As far as I can tell, there’s been little discussion of the incredible choreography on The Eras tour, including Taylor’s moves, and it needs to be said that it’s perfect throughout the show. For “Blank Space,” Taylor stood on the elevated platform in the center of her football-field length stage and performed choreography. What was so amazing to me was what was happening at the same time: the elevated platform featured screens on its sides, with six “Taylors” wearing different outfits doing the same exact choreography, in sync, as what she was performing live on stage. The level of coordination and attention to detail – as well as the experience she’s able to offer her fans, even those with nose-bleed seats – was stunning and affecting.
In a similar vein, the visual cues from folklore and evermore were embedded in the set design, costume (she had that hygge free-flowing dress situation going on), and choreography. She even brought back that house she used for an awards show performance several years ago when she did a “cardigan” and “willow” mash up. In the reputation era set, she donned a leather cat suit — communicating severity, which aligns with the public perception of the album (although it’s actually a love letter to Joe) — and used set elements from the “Look What You Made Me Do” video onstage, such as jail cells with a representative from each Taylor era (now updated to include the albums since reputation came out).
Knowing Taylor had performed two three-hour shows that weekend, I wasn’t expecting her vocals to sustain the marathon-like experience of the show I attended. However, it’s evident Taylor has done significant work on her vocal stamina and pitch. Even though I was attending the third night in New Jersey, she was perfect. Her pitch was precise, even when the notes were out of her comfort range. You may have noticed that, since folklore, many of Taylor’s latest songs are written in a middle range and don’t stray much higher, with a few exceptions like “Labyrinth” off Midnights (an important note is she didn’t cover this on The Eras tour and I expect she’d never play it live). Any songs that took her beyond her bread-and-butter range were supplemented with back up vocals, which felt pretty seamless to me.
The experience of The Eras tour was one I’ll never forget. It was far and away the best live performance I’ve ever seen. Something we all know is that, although The Eras tour may seem superlative and the apex of her career, she’ll come up with something even better next time. She always does.
David Burke is no stranger to making something old new again. For 85 years, the Dixie Lee Bakery was a local institution in Keansburg, NJ. It was the kind of bakery that had a little bit of everything, ranging from black and white cookies and lobster tails to cupcakes, wedding cakes, and beyond. Although it was regarded as a popular spot among locals, its visibility outside the immediate Bayshore area was limited. That all changed when David Burke claimed ownership of Dixie Lee in May 2022. Over the past 10 or so months, Burke has elevated the bakery’s status, giving it a kind of nostalgic glow in Instagram posts and raising its profile through strategic partnerships with nearby restaurants and community pie-eating contests, all while maintaining the crux of Dixie Lee’s appeal to locals: straightforward counter service and a little something sweet for everyone.
When I heard that Burke was taking over the Fox & Falcon in South Orange, I was intrigued. Burke is well-versed at the area, with 1776 in Morristown getting rave reviews and a previous post at the Orange Lawn Tennis Club just down the road from downtown South Orange. He’s developed a reputation as a restaurant kingmaker all over New Jersey, with eateries following along the shape of the state, from Sea Bright all the way up to West New York and Rumson.
Having lived here for many years, I had been to the Fox & Falcon frequently, always hoping for something more with each visit. The menu was limited, the entrees were a tad pricey, and the sheen it conveyed through its handsome, masculine interior turned out to be hollow when it came to flavors. Rumor had it, that management was taking advantage of its waitstaff in late 2022 — the community around here is very on top of sudden and unexpected closures of all places in SOMA — and it sounded like it was only a matter of time before the Fox & Falcon as I had once known it would close for good.
Last night, MDP and I had a date night — the first one in about eight months — and decided to give the new Fox & Falcon by David Burke a try. I had seen photos of our village president proudly attending a ribbon cutting with Burke earlier this week. When I checked the website, I noticed an expanded menu on the site, with some intriguing options (clothesline bacon, anyone?). I’m glad we made a reservation because every single seat — including surrounding the unusually shaped bar — was taken. I had never seen this space so crowded, and the vibe was one of anticipation and excitement among the patrons. I couldn’t help but notice that the number of tables in the long restaurant space nearly doubled from the previous form of the restaurant; a nod to Burke’s knack for business. (For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s cramped now and may have been overly spacious previously!)
We arrived early so we decided to get a drink at the bar, since, as luck would have it, two satisfied customers had just departed, leaving their half-eaten FOXY burgers on the counter. It took about 15 minutes for the plates to be cleared and for us to receive a menu. As a note, in general, my overall impression of service at the new Fox & Falcon is there are a few kinks to work out. When I asked for a Maker’s Mark (guessing that they’d have this old reliable, as most bars do), I was told they only had two bourbons available, neither of which this bourbon aficionado was thrilled about. Once it has its wits about it, I expect the restaurant to stock typical liquors, so I’ll give them a pass for now! They’ve got negroni on tap — which MDP felt was a little bitter and compensated for with a tad too much sugar — and a healthy draft list, so I’m sure you’ll find something you’ll like when you go!
After we sat down at our table with menus, we settled on the chickpea and herb hummus as an appetizer and took a bit more time to decide on the entrees. Something entirely new with this iteration of the Fox & Falcon is the speed at which service is happening. It’s evident a seasoned restauranteur is now at the helm, given the two minutes flat it took for the waitress to come over and take our appetizer order, and the approximate seven minutes to get our dish. Knowing how to turn over tables well — without customers feeling rushed — is certainly a skill.
The hummus is outstanding. To my surprise, it came with a little, lightly dressed baby kale salad, which was delightful and fresh-tasting. The hummus itself was spread out in a thin layer across the dish, with ample points of pita bread forming a layer over it. I’m not sure I’ve ever had hummus this good. Yes, herbs were there, but the overall flavor profile was far punchier than any flavored hummus I’ve ever had. I suspect this particular appetizer will go under the radar, as it is accompanied by a lot of really intriguing brethren in this dish category (tuna tartare tacos, “wings and rings,” and lobster dumplings, to name a few), but don’t sleep on this one if you’re looking for something relatively light.
Burke has chosen to keep some of the old standbys of the previous Fox & Falcon menu — a few standout pastas, a falafel burger (which was actually quite good), and a burger the restaurant could apply its impramatir to — but has expanded the menu in notable ways. For one, there’s now a few steaks available — TL;DR: the steak is delicious — and there’s also chicken parmesan, baby back ribs and shrimp, and a few other dishes that caught my eye. The overall theme of the menu expansion appears to be more approachable for a wider audience, rather than convey that this place is for exclusive palates only, as the previous owner seemed to communicate.
MDP ordered the rigatoni with sausage and broccoli rabe, and he felt the dish was very good. The pasta appeared to be cooked just-right (al dente, for those who wonder what this could possibly mean). His only complaint was the “woodiness” of the broccoli rabe. This may be one of those quirks the restaurant is still smoothing out, however.
I opted for the 12 oz. sirloin steak, which came with watercress and something called a B1 sauce. I found the steak to be delicious in the parts that were cooked to my preferred temperature (it was a bit unevenly cooked) but I’m not sure I could detect the sauce’s flavor.
We also ordered three sides: broccolini, roasted brussels sprouts (truly roasted!), and the Falcon fries. For me, the simply sauteed broccolini was the winner. Yet the Falcon fries were pretty good and these fries were a vast improvement over the prior Fox & Falcon’s “salt and pepper” kind. Falcon fries are tossed with bacon, shishito peppers, and a few spices, and the resulting effect is robust and delicious.
We couldn’t resist dessert — the menu came to us midway through eating our entrees, positioned as “be sure to save room for dessert” (pretty seamless, I’ll admit) — so we tried the key lime pie. Tangy and creamy, the key lime pie filling was yellow-y goodness and covered with a hearty layer of lightly sugared whipped cream. I found the crust in particular to be quite good.
I highly recommend the Fox & Falcon by David Burke to anyone near and far. Judging by his track record, I expect Burke’s touch on this space known for turnover will be to elevate the restaurant as a destination dinner spot. Now that South Orange is hip as hell — a pretzel shop (!), a storied bakery, a beer hall, and an aerial fitness studio (????) all claim the downtown area as home these days — the Fox & Falcon by David Burke may become a cornerstone of a new wave of interest in SOMA.
Taylor's Ham 