New stylish spot on Saratoga strip
Rhea relaxed, tasty, fun and just right for summer
Above all, Rhea in Saratoga Springs is fun. It’s fun to sit outside at its prime Broadway location in the former Saratoga Stadium, near Druthers and The Adelphi Hotel. It’s fun to fill your table with a crush of largely Asian shared plates. It’s fun to watch bartenders crafting Japanese-inspired cocktails spiked with shochu and sake or flavored with plum and togarashi spice.
There's a relaxed vibe, from the design to the planters trailing from ceiling and walls. It’s certainly a slightly madcap menu that looks Asian with ramen bowls and bao (buns), then doglegs unexpectedly with gochujang fried chicken or eggplant
Parm as fillings and a delicious presentation of short-rib wontons wearing the silky lingerie of slowsweated French onion soup.
Like Seneca, its New American sibling around the corner on Division Street, Rhea's stylish design is evidence of deep-pocketed Saratoga investors, with the look continuing a wood-clad outside through to a 30-seat, horseshoe-shaped bar and leather booths once the entire front disappears in concertina folds.
Rhea is one of two post-pandemic babies for the husbandand-wife chef-owners, Mike and Michelle Spain, who recently welcomed a baby to their family. The Asian theme connects to their pandemic pivot as a takeout noodle shop, after their to-go Pierogie Shoppe found delivery delays meant pierogies did not travel well.
One glance at the Rhea menu and I felt sure Mike was inspired by itameshi, Japan’s passion for Italian food, where “wafu” (meaning Japanese-style) added to any Italian classic means you’ll find find spaghetti topped with crisp seaweed, shisho ribbons and umami-blasted soy butter instead of Parmesan, or salty umeboshi plums in place of torn basil.
At Rhea, you can order udon carbonara, the thick noodles coated with curried miso cream and nori cured egg yolk cuddling bacon lardons, or a cheesesteak lo mein marrying wok-seared steak with noodles and Provolone cheese. Later, Mike explains their inspiration are the ingredients and techniques found across global cuisines. The idea for eggplant Parm bao came from a delivery of slim Japanese eggplants “just the right size to slice” and place in the bao’s single sockpuppet fold. "Rhea is not really an Asian restaurant. It’s globally influenced — sort of seeing what happens when you use Asian techniques, or cook with a wok, with familiar ingredients,” he said.
With that, you get combos like Rhea’s Japanese-Mexican birria ramen which uses the same spice-rubbed and smoked short ribs as the French onion wonton soup. When you rock up to Rhea, you really are entering the mind of a chef.
In a nod to a heavily staffed kitchen, there are multistage processes at work: Soft-boiled miso eggs for the ramen bowls take 24 to 48 hours to cure. Ramen broths start with an overnight simmer of chicken and pork bones later fortified with aromatics and tare, the multi-use Japanese sauce made with mirin, brown sugar, sake and soy. I’m almost surprised to hear it, because the umami depth doesn’t come through.
We hunt for the promised flavors in the udon carbonara, crisp bacon lardons working overtime to deliver needed salt to a largely neutral dish, and the udon is too soft to have any backbone of its own. A smashedcucumber salad sports a sauce of soy, tahini, chile oil and truffle, which we expect to pack heat and flavor but hits only a single note. Though pleasant and cooling in its own way, it begs for a contrast of acid or something sweet.
Where the kitchen excels in its execution of meats. The smoked short rib brings umami joy to French onion wontons, and excellent pork belly in ramen and bao benefits from a 24-hour togarashi spice rub and 24 hours sous vide for tender, steak-like bites.
The kitchen is making the alkaline ramen noodles in-house — a labor intensive task that isn’t yet hitting the spot. They’re too soft, leaving a pasty residue on the tongue. Japanese-made Sun Noodles are the secret of most U.S. ramen shops and could be a smart move here given the crucial science behind kansui dough. Though I was hoping for the broth to sing at first waft, it missed more complex aromatic notes, maybe ginger or dashi, tasting like an excellent meaty scratch-kitchen stock. Finally, though Chinese-five-spice chocolate eclairs deliver a sweet ending, the spice is subtle enough to miss other than the application, again, of togarashi in the spiced peanuts on top. A matcha creme brulee badly misses the mark with a fishy matcha taste, instead of clean, grassy notes, a telltale sign of heat-denatured green tea.
Rhea’s cocktails are coming in hot in the hands of Emilie Vavrek, a familiar face from the bar over at Flatbread Social, and there’s an admirable selection of canned sake, wine and beer. A yuzu gin and tonic is
Blacked green beans are topped with wasabi, toasted almonds and crisp shallots at Rhea in Saratoga Springs.
perfect for summer, relying only on yuzu extract and curls of citrus peel. The bourbon Saratogarashi borrows togarashi, plum, chile and ginger from the kitchen, nicely juxtaposing heat and sweet; a tequila and mezcal Sesame Smeshame, promising ginger juice, sesame and mint, comes out too quiet, closer to a classic tequila and lime Ranch Water than any sesame influence.
Sitting in the front dining area watching the crowds of Saratoga Springs pour by, I consider the sum of our shared spread. It took a good year for Seneca to properly hit its stride; at Rhea, open simce late April, the specials like eggplant Parm bao or wasabihorseradish shaved beef sliders remain in an experimental stage. The industry is still navigating supply chain issues and ingredient costs. But we’d had quick, attentive service, passed and shared plates, laughed throughout and enjoyed the view and vibe. As I said, Rhea is fun.
Fusion cooking is at the heart of the American experience, from those lauded LA's Korean-Mexican taco trucks to the very recent addition of a Guatemalan menu at Saratoga Springs’ West Ave Chicken. In Japan, itemashi is an unapologetic embrace of Western cuisine with a uniquely Japanese twist. In that vein, Rhea is unapologetically doing its own global thing.
But sitting there, I had other thoughts, ones I will distinguish from my thoughts about Rhea.
For a town viewed as a dining destination, Saratoga Springs is limited in culinary range. Though there are admirable kitchens turning out creative plates or running fermentation programs, it’s hard to name a single recommendation for pho, Caribbean or African food. As Saratoga Springs gets wealthier and whiter, real estate prices continue to soar, and opportunities continue to shrink for the type of inexpensive global eateries you’d find on most city blocks.
There’s certainly customer demand: Celebrity chef David Burke offers a popular sushi menu at The Adelphi Hotel; former 15 Church executive chef Brady Duhame operated Buddha Noodle out of The Sinclair; chefowner Jasper Alexander Hattie’s and Hattie’s Chicken Shack went up against TV chef Bobby Flay; and during the pandemic we saw bao bun pop ups at Franklin Social and Seneca’s ramen noodles to go. All are white owned.
This is not an argument about that polarizing word “authenticity.” There’s always adaptation for immigrants working with American ingredients, just as immigrant restaurateurs like chef Aneesa Waheed of Tara Kitchen often share. Ordering desi pizza in L.A., kebabs in Germany or Indo-Chinese dishes is to taste culture, colonization and diaspora. But if Saratoga Springs can make room only for pricey restaurants serving white twists on sushi or fried chicken and collard greens, it won’t matter on which side of the street you sit this summer. It’s starting to feel increasingly one-dimensional, and, as the town grows, it ought to be a wake-up call.