You cannot go much farther west in Manhattan without getting wet or being washed up on the shores of New Jersey. But that did not discourage Californian Adam Block from creating his first restaurant, Print, off the lobby of the Kimpton Hotel Group’s Ink48 in the shell of an old printing factory in the no-man’s land of Eleventh Avenue. For us it’s a straight five minute cab from our Upper West Side pad and though I don’t see a sign when we stop at 48th, a doorman emerges to escort us inside. At the moment you can even park on the street.  In fact, the chef wrangler credited with casting the stars in Time Warner’s restaurant collection seems to relish the bubble of isolation.  “I was waiting to see if I needed to put our name outside,” he says.
 
       “But it looks like we’re not getting much foot traffic.”

        Block moved into the Rockwell Group’s mid-century modern makeover with its industrial aesthetic. The slashes of wood that pave the wall in the room next to where we are seated are old wooden font cases. Those are Wegner Wishbone chairs. Rockwell came up with the copper-topped tables wrapped in recycled iron. Block kept them bare except for a black runner held tight by magnets. When the sun pours in you can see the apple green and rich yellow touches that are barely discernible in the dinner dim. Were Mahattan restaurants always this dark? I don’t think so.

        Meanwhile Block hasn’t missed a hot buzz word here. Print is green. The menu emphasis is local. It’s farm to table with its own fulltime forager. It’s affordable. The wine glasses are tasting punts made of recycled glass. Even the business cards are recycled paper. The bread, picked up daily from Sullivan Street Bakery a block away, has about the smallest carbon footprint you can measure. He’s proud of the period china by Heath Ceramics and of references to printing, “an era gone by.”

        But beyond political correctness, the food by the husband-and-wife tag team of toques – Charles and Heather Carlucci-Rodriguez -- is mostly good and sometimes wonderful.  You don’t need to have religion to love what’s coming out of the kitchen tonight. The salt buzz hasn’t hit here yet so we do send back a ramekin of housemade butter for some without a rubble of salt crystals embedded on top. The Jonah crab salad with avocado on discs of cucumber is fresh and rich and priced at a gentle $10, among appetizers that start at $8 for a simple, satisfying broccoli soup or the voluptuous mascarpone-souped up polenta with mushrooms. A highly original triggerfish tartare with radish and melon and mint pleases me and my mate but not our companions.

        More freethinking governs the goat cheese gnocchi with pancetta and pea leaves, an entrée for me.  And the seared scallops are “rarish” as requested, with artichoke, roasted tomatoes and little islands of tapenade on the plate to “salt” the sweet sea food. My mate sees roasted root vegetables on the menu and asks if they can substitute for spinach. Of course, the server agrees. No hesitation. The vegetables are luscious too. From entrées, all $27 or under, cippolini onions, escarole and sun chokes bring the garden to seared iron steak in a slightly too industrial balsamic reduction. I’m happier with braised short ribs on mashed potatoes with carrots, watermelon radish and a gremolata.

        As fans who remember Carlucci-Rodriguez’ three-star pastry days at L’Impero, Veritas and Judson Grill, we are eager to sample desserts like bittersweet chocolate tart with white chocolate ice milk and chocolate olive oil mousse. Caramelized pineapple with Sauterne zabaglione and grapefruit marmelata may not look like much with that tuile hat on top but I love the tangy bouquet of flavors. Frozen hazelnut parfait with maple yogurt mousse, espresso syrup and warm grappa candied chestnuts sprawls in its bowl but that yogurt mousse is amazing.  The chestnuts, the server confides, “are homemade in Minneapolis.”
Isn’t that a big carbon footprint? I ask Carlucci-Rodriguez.

      “Well, actually they’re grown by the Department of Agroforestry at the University of Missouri and the man who brought them was flying to New York anyway for his daughter’s graduation.  It was an enormous amount of chestnuts.  I’m glad the season is changing.”

        She’d opted out of three star pastry five years ago to open Lassi, a sliver of an Indian take-out counter in the Village with its own passionate following, but she liked Block’s ideas for Print.  “And the Lassi lease was up anyway.”  So now the kitchen is composting, hoping ultimately to do its own rooftop garden. The house forager, Johanna Kolodny, has orders to forage directly at the farms, not at the farmers’ market. “It’s very luxurious,” Carlucci-Rodriguez admits.  “But  if you can afford it, why not.”

       These mornings she leaves her husband and their new baby still sleeping and  arrives early to do focaccia for lunch, the chocolate bread for dinner and maple bacon sticky buns that are already the signature of Print breakfast.