The carpets are monochrome zig-zags, the sofas sunshine yellow, the woodwork black and the tables cool, creamy marble.
Sweet, generous lobster ravioli were a hit at my table, but their creamy bisquelike sauce struck me as calorie overload; two bites and I was done for.
Because the skins have been removed, it comes to the table pale and creamy, yet full of texture and the characteristic charcoal-grilled taste.
There are roses on the tables and the creamy napery is echoed in the diaphanous drapes at the windows.
Although bare at lunch, the mahogany tables in the creamy, relatively colorless dining room are draped in white linen come dinnertime, when the prices rise and the level of lighting doesn't fall as much as in other restaurants.
You scan the appetizer table--the various dips, assorted olives and nuts--and finally arrive at the token cheese board: dependable, creamy, lac-tastic.
We meet the unnamed protagonist as a child clearing ice-cream dishes from the family dinner table, surreptitiously licking the "creamy dregs" from each one.
At his restaurant, which opened in 2008, Mr. de la Calle artfully mixes classics of the Castilian table — melting oxtail stew, creamy rice pudding — with fruits and vegetables that few Spaniards have ever seen, let alone eaten: Australian finger limes; ficoïde glaciale, a leafy, lemony succulent; and salicornia, also known as sea beans.
Ettore Sottsass, the Italian designer known for stacking colorful geometric forms, helped fill the Mediterranean Revival building with creamy marble tables, zigzag pattern rugs and burl wood bedsteads.
And last year, the company became the first large-scale bottler of a dairy product that has almost disappeared from American tables: real buttermilk, the creamy liquid that remains in the churn after the butter comes together.
