Merc in top form
Meals have joined always-stellar drinks as reason to revisit busy Saratoga spot
Despite personnel losses, other changes due to the pandemic, The Merc in Saratoga Springs is a great place to visit, and more tellingly, revisit.
There’s something really wonderful about telling friends you had a good meal, particularly when you rattle off the plates, the friendly service, the cocktails that were well-composed — neither weak nor too sweet. It’s a genuine tip of the hat to The Merc on Broadway in Saratoga Springs that even if the food isn’t shouting innovation and modernity, they’re putting wellexecuted plates in the care of a smooth, friendly staff that seems happy to be there.
And that’s in the height of track season when crowds are thronging sidewalks, table waits are long, patrons aren’t always pleasant and COVID-19 is having a snarky second (third? fourth?) act. But The Merc is one of the best new restaurants I’ve visited since dining resumed, even though it’s an established business. After closing twice and losing most of its former staff, its newness is largely pandemic-born.
Let me back up. I like The Merc space — always have, since it was Professor Moriarty’s, then Cantina, and Lillian’s in a former time. I like its storied entrance doors, tiled entryway floors, tin ceiling and long, bull-nosed bar. So in good looks alone, it’s long had style. But in 2019, when I reviewed The Merc — then known as The Mercantile Kitchen & Bar — it excelled at an all-day brunch and marvelous cocktails but struggled to make dinner a visit-worthy show.
Now, dinner has us smiling from apps to dessert. That started with our request to move from a pleasant but tiny indoor table, quiet and romantic in its own way, to the slightly elevated sidewalk patio that corrals us from heaving foot traffic but lets us enjoy a warm summer night. Staff moved us with smiles, our server waiting as we debated cocktails or wine. She returned as quickly with a tamarind-licked Thai gin-and-tonic and Em’s Gem, an egg-frothed, pisco-pomegranate cocktail, without spilling a drop.
The Merc lost its former bar manager, whose skills were honed at Manhattan’s NoMad Hotel, but acquired Emily Coholan, formerly of Malcolm’s in Schenectady, whose balanced cocktails stand out in their own right. Like its new, streamlined name, The Merc’s small operational team — owner Chris Luriea, Coholan and new head chef Connor DeMarco, who joined during