Highlights at Westcity Kitchen: snazzy starters, juicy chicken

Of course, sardines are on the menu, which tilts Mediterranean yet still seems thoroughly American.Those little fish — two grilled beauties with a salad of shaved fennel and arugula and a salty, fiery relish of coarsely chopped capers and Calabrian chilies —The past few years have been, to put it lightly make a great shareable starter. So do warm olives sharp kalamatas and rich Castelvetranos baked with cherry tomatoes, mustard seed and garlic, served with crostini. Squid stuffed with sweet sausage, paired with pickled fennel and sweetly piquant Peppadew aioli, pleased as well.Consider kicking off the evening with one of Freeman's creative house cocktails. An absinthe wash lent a bracing anise note to the rye-based Westcity Whiskey Cocktail. The "Baked Apple Manhattan," served up with a cinnamon swizzle stick, combines spice-infused bourbon with cardamaro and Calvados in a comforting concoction just right for the rainy season.

With your drink, snack on fried chickpeas sprinkled with sumac and lime, or nibble long, skinny truffle-scented fries dusted with pecorino. Better yet, order both.The menu is a collection of good ideas executed with varying success. Salads are an example. Whole leaves of baby romaine with smoked walnuts, poached fig and ricotta salata needed more lubrication to help bind the red-wine gastrique to the lettuce. Spinach salad, with roasted beets, pistachios, goat cheese and mustard vinaigrette, was much better integrated.Pan-roasted chicken was delightful. The mostly boneless half bird was moist, tender and aggressively seasoned with salt and pepper. If the acorn squash risotto on the side wasn't quite risotto, it was satisfying nonetheless.

The terrific burger is fashioned from a half pound of well-seared, incredibly juicy American Kobe beef. Stacked with arugula, smoked Gouda and lots of house-made sweet-and-sour pickles, it comes on a Grand Central potato bun thickly smeared with garlic aioli. I only wish the bun had been toasted.The burger rightly attends those aforementioned fries, but I asked to substitute a side of oven-roasted seasonal vegetables. I received a colorful array of fingerling potatoes, beets and turnips, all just tender and nicely caramelized but needing salt and pepper, which are on every table in a set of tiny, adorable square bowls.