In Ian Fleming’s 1953 novel “Casino Royale,” a suave agent of international espionage named James Bond orders a very specific martini: “Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?”
In 1957, the USSR launched the first satellite to orbit the Earth, a marvel they called Sputnik. The following year, a newly minted U.S. agency called NASA responded with a program to put an American in space and, by the heady early years of the 1960s, they did exactly that.
NASA called that program Mercury, which also happens to be the name of a new Ponce City Market restaurant helmed by chef Mike Blydenstein and partner-beverage director Julian Goglia.
The Mercury is, more than any new restaurant I can recall visiting recently, a period piece of a very specific vintage. The light fixtures are of an atomic-age style sometimes called “Sputnik” in the trade. The dining room is so finely attuned to low, clean lines and Danish teak that it could be a mid-century modern showroom.
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