Best of New York 2013 • Eating

• Reynard

  80 Wythe Ave., at N. 11th St., Williamsburg; 718-460-8004

  Sean Rembold’s French fries ($6) are dispatched from his open kitchen dark and caramelized enough that you might mistake them for sweet-potato fries�a resemblance that so enraged the innate pommes frites sensibilities of a table of northern Europeans one recent night that they took their serving as a personal affront. For the rest of us, though, the stack of locally sourced, crisp-yet-creamy skin-on spuds seems kind of perfect: twice-fried in the traditional fashion, with an especially leisurely break between canola-oil dips; seasoned aggressively, as all fries should be; and served with the requisite bowl of housemade aïoli. If there is a secret, it’s a counterintuitive one in this local-and-seasonal era. Rembold finds that the less fresh his �wintered� potatoes are, the sweeter they taste. This might not be an epiphany of Noma’s �vintage carrot� magnitude, but the cellar age of your French-fried potato is something to contemplate the next time a craving strikes.

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