The best part of a meal at Frena in Hell’s Kitchen comes right at the beginning, when their hummus—which has the texture of ice cream that’s been out of the freezer for exactly 23 minutes—arrives at your table alongside a hot slab of bread, fresh from the wood-burning oven. The fluffy bread, all gussied up with olive oil and flakey salt, is too hot to tear. But burned fingers be damned, because dunking this volcanic bread into their tahini-rich hummus is about as necessary an experience as brushing your teeth twice a day. The meal never quite hits that high again. The main courses are good, if a bit small for the price, but we’d recommend making a meal of the bread, a few dips, and a couple of smaller plates. Frena is best for covering a glass of Turkish pet nat or Moroccan syrah with olive oil fingerprints, grabbing some apps, and getting out in time to make your 7:30pm curtain. If you’re seated in the area by the kitchen, you’ll get treated to a little pre-theater show yourself, watching the cooks work. Most of the menu passes through a big oven (which was the centerpiece of Frena’s previous life as Taboon), and the light-drenched room is filled with vines that spread over the ceiling.