Bohemian

 

Any popular restaurant must decide how to ration access to its scarcest resource: seats. The two most common strategies are accepting reservations and taking walk-ins—first-come, first-served. Even those basic strategies have variations, from the funky online reservation system at Momofuku Ko, to the transferrable tickets sold at Grant Achatz’s Next.

Some restaurants that take reservations the old-fashioned way—by phone—are in such high demand that a prime-time table is practically inaccessible by normal means. Blue Hill Stone Barns takes reservations two months to the day in advance, and routinely fills up within minutes. You won’t find me anytime soon at Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare, the tasting menu at Roberta’s, or the three-day-a-week pop-up Frej, to name a few: there are too many hoops to jump.

Taking walk-ins is said to be more “democratic,” but the hassle we endured recently, just for the privilege of eating at Danji in Hell’s Kitchen, is a reminder that this often isn’t any fun at all.

At first blush, the door at the Japanese restaurant Bohemian seems more seems more impenetrable than all of these put together. There’s no listed telephone number, and it takes creative googling to find the website, the hopelessly unguessable playearth.jp, which it shares with sister restaurants in Nishiazabu, Japan, and Bali, Indonesia.

It doesn’t appear to be a restaurant website at all. After a few clicks, you find an explanation, and it’s not encouraging: “Please keep in mind that the location and contact info is not open to the public, so please be referred by somone who has already visited us.

“If there are people feeling, ‘I haven’t been there, but I really want to visit!’ please send us a brief introduction of yourself to the email address below. We may contact you to come over!”

I tried the latter, and within an hour had a favorable response by email, which included the “secret” telephone number. A day or so later, I called and secured a Sunday evening reservation, and that was that.

The system is strange, but try getting someone on the phone at Mario Batali’s Babbo: I remember getting busy signals for weeks, before I finally spoke to a human being. The first time I booked at Per Se, it took 45 minutes to get through—and I had to call exactly at 10:00 a.m. the day that bookings opened for the date I wanted.

I’m not here to defend Bohemian’s Byzantine ways, only to point out that it’s a lot more accessible than many restaurants that ration access using far more traditional methods. Plenty of folks have cracked the code: Bohemian has a 27/25/28 rating on Zagat.

Like everything else about Bohemian, the location is not at all obvious: at the back of a long, mysterious corridor fronted by a NoHo butcher shop on Great Jones Street. You ring a doorbell, and if you’re on the list (walk-ins aren’t accepted), the server admits you.

There are twenty-five seats, most at low-slung tables and sofas, as if you’re the guest in someone’s rec room. We were offered seats at the bar, which might be preferable. It’s a very deep bar, with ample room for placemats and drinks; seating is comfortable.

Despite various news stories and blog posts describing Bohemian as “private” or “mysterious,” they do not discourage publicity, once you finally get in. Illustrated blog posts, like this one, aren’t hard to find. But most reviewers honor the restaurant’s request not to disclose the address or phone number, as will I, even though neither is all that hard to find.

An evening here progresses, more or less, as it would at any restaurant. The izakaya style menu offers various small and medium-size plates, in a wide price range, but not expensive for what you get. (Click on the miniature image above to see more.)

The style of the cuisine might be called fusion, with traditional sushi and sashimi and the ever-present miso black cod, standing alongside “Mac & Cheese,” fresh oysters, and mini-burgers.

We had the six-course tasting menu, which at $55 might be one of the best bargains in town. However, I get the impression it seldom changes, as most of the other reviews I’ve read, featured mostly the same dishes.

  

The three starters were just fine, though not really memorable on their own: a fresh vegetable fondue (above left), an uni croquette (above center), and assorted cold cuts (above right).

But the entrée was one of the best dishes I’ve had all year, a pan roasted branzini with a bounty of seasonal vegetables, including potatoes, asparagus, olives, onions, garlic, Brussels sprouts, and several others I’ve forgotten. The skin of the fish was nicely crisped, and succulent inside.

We were served the whole fish, which (with the vegetables) was more than we could finish. It shows on the à la carte menu at just $28, which I assume is a half portion.

  

The fourth course is the only one for which a choice is offered. I had the mini-burger (above left), described as “Washu,” one of the breeds that appears on most menus as “Wagyu.” Served medium rare, it had a rich, fatty taste, served with two fried potato slivers. The other option was the Ikura Caviar Rice Bowl (above center), a dish so luscious it could almost be dessert.

A simple but effective Almond Pannacotta (above right) with black tapioca concluded the evening.

The restaurant was fully booked on a Sunday evening. Our tasting menu progressed at a comfortable pace. With its relatively small dining room, a couple of servers seemed to have no trouble keeping diners fed and lubricated.

The quality of the food took a notable step up mid-way through, with the arrival of the branzino, which was so good that it might almost have been worth $55 all by itself. To pay that for five courses was remarkable.

Bohemian

Food: Traditional Japanese and fusion cuisine
Service: Attentive and personal
Ambiance: The feel of a private club in someone’s home

Rating: ★★
Why? Relaxing and enjoyable. “Secrecy” works to its advantage.

Molyvos

Have you been to Molyvos latelty? Once at the vanguard of the city’s Greek dining scene, in recent years it had fallen into irrelevance, seldom mentioned, a scene for revelers and tourists. Of course, any decent restaurant near the Theater District is going to have customers, but Molyvos surely considered itself better than that.

I don’t know if it was the lack of press or a paltry 19 rating for décor on Zagat that made the owners finally take notice. On my last visit, I don’t remember disliking it. But I recall it was dark and and kitschy, dominated by amphorae and other Greek bric-à-brac. (There’s a slideshow of the old décor at New York.)

The space is now brighter and less cluttered, more in Aegean blues than archeological browns. This isn’t a bid to reclaim the three-star rating the restaurant once had (from Ruth Reichl) when it opened in 1997, before Eric Asimov knocked it back to two, five years later. It remains a Theater District restaurant at its heart, turning out food at too hectic a pace to be as careful and as luxurious as it should be.

But this is still very good Greek cuisine, a genre under-represented in Manhattan, and the wine list is fabulous. The website claims the most extensive selection of Greek wines in the United States: 400 bottles, with no bail-out for timid drinkers hesitant to order labels they don’t recognize. I have certainly never seen more Greek wines on one list. There are nearly 40 wines available by the glass, and should you find yourself at sea, the staff know the list well and give sage advice.

On the menu, there’s a separate category of about a dozen Mezedes, or small plates ($7–10) for the bar crowd. Appetizers are $12–18, entrées $22–36 (most $30 and up), with a separate list of a half-dozen whole fish by the pound, perhaps a trap for the unwary.

I’ve no basis for comparison with older menus, but there’s continuity here: the same executive chef, Jim Botsakos, has been around from the beginning.

 

I didn’t sample the Soupia (cuttlefish) on a bed of orzo ($24; above left), but both my guests said it was far too salty, and it was left half-uneaten. Arni Kokkinisto ($30; above right), a slow-cooked lamb stew, was tender and full of flavor, but an unimpressive presentation at the price.

 

I loved the Barbounia ($30; above left), four whole fish with a rich, wood-grilled flavor. You would expect the fish to be excellent here, as the same owners also run Oceana, midtown’s best seafood restaurant without four stars; and Abboccato, where the seafood is likewise a strength. A side of spinach ($7; above right) was quite good, as well.

Molyvos isn’t suffering for business at all. At 6:30 p.m. on a Monday evening, there was a large banquet at the back of the restaurant. By the time we left, most tables were taken, and there was a lively bar crowd. Post-renovation, Molyvos no longer looks old-fashioned, and its wine list has quietly grown to the best of its kind in New York. The menu must be carefully navigated, but I suspect the whole fish will never let you down.

If you haven’t gone in a while, Molyvos deserves another look.

Molyvos (871 Seventh Avenue between 55th & 56th Streets, West Midtown)

Food: Very good classic Greek cuisine and whole fish
Wine: 400 bottles, 40 by the glass, all Greek; the best of its kind in New York
Service: Knowledgeable and attentive, bearing in mind the size of the place
Ambiance: Bright, modern, less touristy than before

Rating: ★★
Why? For the incomparable wine list and the excellent whole fish

Lani Kai

Note: Lani Kai closed in September 2012. It has been replaced by The Dalloway, a Lesbian-themed bar and lounge.

*

When the Hawaiian-themed Lani Kai opened eighteen months ago in the old Tailor space, it got plenty of publicity, but the major critics ignored it. I dropped in for cocktails in late 2010, but never felt like going back for dinner. A favorable Times review last week made me wonder what I had missed.

Julie Reiner, the owner, is known mainly for a couple of excellent cocktail spots, Flatiron Lounge and Clover Club. But she is from Hawaii, so this seemed like the obvious choice for her first restaurant.

I gather it has been a struggle: the restaurant is routinely available on OpenTable, practically any day, any time. It’s on a dull block in Soho’s southwest corner that doesn’t attract a lot of foot traffic. The cocktails, naturally, are first-rate, but that isn’t enough, especially with a rather large bi-level space to fill.

I suspect that, to most people, Hawaiian cuisine doesn’t set the pulse racing. The image that comes to mind is the luau, often an over-priced, mediocre tourist trap.

Ms. Reiner hired a new chef recently, Japanese native Sawako Okochi, who worked previously as a sous-chef at Annisa. Her challenge is to make the food relevant, while staying within a fairly tight price point: appetizers and sharing plates are $7–15, entrées $19–26.

Cocktails are $13, a good $2–3 less than many locations get away with these days. During Happy Hour they’re even less. The Bearded Lady (below left) was just $10, the 808 State (below center) just $6. Both of these seemed like cruise-ship cocktails to me. I liked the Flatiron Martini (no photo) a lot better.

  

The wine list is pretty bare-bones. A Pouilly-Fuissé was $29; it came in a decorative wooden ice bucket (above right).

The Pu-Pu platter plus a side order of pork buns was enough for the three of us to eat. There’s a choice of seven items that can go on the platter, of which you choose four, but they all have a different à la carte price. The crab wantons ($8) were the best of these. Baby back ribs ($13) were thick and meaty. Chicken wings ($10) and Chicken yakitori skewers ($8) were just fine, as were the pork buns ($8 for two). The platter also comes with a mound of chips (which dominate the front of the photo).

But for the most part, this has the distinct feel of beach-resort food, prepared with a bit more care, but ultimately not very memorable. I say this without having sampled the entrées, but The Times thought that those were even less exciting.

We had a quite early reservation on a Tuesday evening and had the place mostly to ourselves, except for a rather loud group taking up most of the communal table. I spotted Ms. Reiner briefly, but she was working mostly out of sight.

The space has been remodeled slightly, but the bones of the old Tailor space are quite apparent. There is now a small bar on the ground floor at the back of the dining room, and as before, a large cocktail lounge downstairs. I assume that this space gets a lot busier later in the evening and on weekends.

I might drop in again one of these days, more for the cocktails than the food, although there is plenty to snack on if you don’t want to drink on an empty stomach.

Lani Kai (525 Broome Street between Sixth Avenue & Thompson Street, SoHo)

Food: Populist Hawaiian cuisine that transports you to a Honululu beach
Cocktails: The real reason for coming here, but I’d avoid the cruise-ship ones
Service: Fine
Ambiance: Upscale Club-Med

Rating: ★
Why? Good for cocktails — but so are a lot of places 

The Bread Man at Il Buco Alimentari e Vineria

In Pete Wells’s ecstatic three-star review of Il Buco Alimentari e Vineria, he was rapturous about the bread:

Is it … logical to fall for a restaurant because of sliced bread in a basket? It was remarkable stuff, with the gradually unfolding nuances of taste that are achieved only through a slow and patient fermentation of dough with wild yeast.

In my own review, I was respectful but far less excited:

The bread service is pretty good, but not quite deserving of critic Wells’s near-orgasmic description. It’s made in in-house and a tad fresher than you’ll get most places, but hardly anything to change your life.

This led to an email from Kamel Saci, the head bread baker at Il Buco A&V. From the photo in my review, he inferred I’d been served the ciabatta, a “very good” but “simple” example of his work, and asked if I’d revisit the restaurant for a “bread tasting.”

Mr. Saci works from 3:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., so we agreed I would drop in on a Saturday at about noon, near the end of his shift.

I little reckoned what I was in for. After I arrived, Mr. Saci emerged from the restaurant’s basement with a huge box, about twenty inches square, and led me to the second-floor dining room (which is unused during the day). The box contained about a dozen loaves of bread, all in different flavors and styles.

 

Over the next half-hour or so, Mr. Saci patiently cut a half-slice of bread from each loaf, delivering a mini-lecture on how it is made. My favorites were the parmigiana reggiano, black & green olive, and walnut & raisin breads, but this is without disparagement to the others, nearly all of which were very good. (There were one or two not to my liking, but it would be silly to complain when there are a dozen to choose from.)

Mr. Saci says that nowhere in town, outside of wholesale bakeries, makes so many different kinds of bread in house. I have no reason to doubt this. Even at restaurants reknowned for their bread service (Bouley, for example), I’ve never seen more than five or six choices at any given time.

But most of the breads I tried are not offered to the dinner guest. This is the drawback of a restaurant that doubles as a grocery, and wasn’t prepared to be quite as popular as it has become. By dinner time, the more interesting breads are gone. I had a fascinating lesson in the science of bread-baking, but most people couldn’t duplicate my experience.

 

After our tasting was over, Mr. Saci took me down two flights of stairs into the sub-basement, where there is a prep kitchen (above left) and the bread ovens (above right). The dough at Il Buco A&V is house-made and fermented with a natural leaven (not yeast), a process that takes 24 to 36 hours. He would prefer 48 hours, but I gather the cooler where the bread cures overnight (below left) doesn’t have enough space for that.

A circuitous route brought Mr. Saci, a French native, to Il Buco A&V. After several years on the ultimate fighting circuit, he took up baking in 1999. After training in Bordeaux, he eventually moved to London, where he supplied the breads for Pierre Gagnaire and Joël Robuchon. He then moved to Barcelona to open “the best bakery in Spain,” and in 2009 to a wholesale bakery in Miami, before coming to New York in 2011 to open Il Buco A&V.

  

After our tasting was over, Mr. Saci sent me home with about 10 pounds of bread, which we enjoyed over the next several days. Needless to say, we could not finish all of it. Several loaves are now in the freezer, which would probably make Mr. Saci cringe.

So, there are very good things, great things, going on in Il Buco A&V’s subterranean bakery. But it’s a pity that so little is left by dinner time.

Il Buco Alimentari e Vineria (53 Great Jones Street west of Bowery, NoHo)

Danji

Is there a “right way” to ration access to a popular restaurant? Our experience at Danji last weekend makes me wonder about that. (If you don’t want to read a rant about getting seated, page down to the asterisk below.)

Danji doesn’t take reservations, which is hardly a novelty in the casual dining scene. But many such places will at least take a phone number, and offer to phone or text when space frees up. Danji won’t even do that. The frequently-disappearing hostess quoted us a 30–45 minute wait, although it later became clear this was extremely optimistic.

“Can we put in our name?”

“What’s your name?”

“Marc.”

“OK, Marc.” She said it quickly and darted away, obviously not writing it down, not keeping a list, or offering to call whan a table freed up.

Had we elected to wait, there is nothing to do but stand against the wall in the narrow slip of a restaurant, as many do. (It’s even worse down the street at Totto Ramen, where a long line snakes out the door.) Instead, we hiked over to Ardesia for wine and crab dip (excellent!).

When we returned, about an hour later, we found the situation not much changed. A 2-top was vacant, and the hostess was nowhere to be seen. When she re-appeared, she gave it to a party whom she said had been waiting an hour; no indication of where we stood on the (non-existent) list.

We were ready to pack it in after another 20 minutes, before she finally seated us. At least we got one of the few tables, where the banquettes are comfortable (although very cramped) and the chairs have backs. Most of the seating is on stools at the bar or a communal table.

I don’t usually spill so much ink on the process of getting admitted to a restaurant, but we thought the service here was particularly poor—even within the context (with which I do not disapprove) of the no-reservations business model.

*

Having said all that, once you finally make it in here, the food is fine. It is not, in my opinion, good enough to justify the effort of getting in, especially as there aren’t any good bars nearby, where you can cool your heals. (Ardesia is a long walk.) But plenty of people endure the wait every day. Their priorities must be different than mine.

The chef here, Hooni Kim, has a distinguished pedigree, with brief stints (or stages?) at Daniel and Masa. He serves Korean small plates, designed for sharing, in a style somewhat resembling Momofuku Ssäm Bar, but the menu is more static and not nearly as good.

The plates are in two categories, Traditional and Modern, with about ten choices for each, $8–20 apiece (most in the $10–15 range). The menu has the usual nods to sourcing, with shout-outs for Satur Farms, Creekstone Farms, Niman Ranch, and Bell & Evans.

The server suggested that four to six plates was about right for two people, and that we could start small and order more later on. Kudos, at least, for that last bit: most places of this ilk ask for the whole order at once. It takes a while to get seated, but once you’re in they are in no hurry to push you out the door.

And to their credit, the four items we ordered came out in a sensible sequence, one at a time, as opposed to the dreaded “as-and-when they’re ready”; but the sharing plates were not replaced.

 

The first two dishes were from the “Modern” section of the menu. Spicy yellowtail sashimi ($15; above left) packed delightful heat from jalapeño and chochang, which (according to Wikipedia) is “a savory and pungent fermented Korean condiment made from red chili, glutinous rice, fermented soybeans and salt.”

Bossam ($20; above right) would impress you, unless you’d had the much better version of it at Momofuku Ssäm Bar. The idea remains the same: braised pork, scallions, daikon, and cabbage wrap. The pork was terrific, but you get only six bites of it for $20.

 

Our second pair of dishes was from the traditional side of the menu. Poached Sablefish ($18; above left) in spicy daikon was flavorful and tender, although the sauce was a bit goopy.

Short Rib ($14; above right), with fingerlings, pearl onions, and toasted pine nuts, may have been the least satisfying: properly cooked short ribs are pretty easy to come by, and this version did little to distinguish itself.

The wine and sake list is short, on the order of twenty-five bottles. The server recommended the 2010 Cuvée Gyotaku Riesling ($38), a Pinot Blanc from Alsace that pairs well with the food. He offered to keep it on ice at the bar, but was too busy to keep tabs when we needed refills.

The reviews here have been all favorable: a Michelin star, one star from Sam Sifton, two stars from Bloomberg’s Ryan Sutton, and four out of five underground stars in New York. The project was obviously assembled with some care (see this blog chronicling its construction).

But Danji has not dealt well with prosperity. The menu has stagnated, and the servers cannot cope with the crowds. Considered on its own, the food is good enough (and inexpensive enough) to be of interest. But I do not think it is worth bothering with, given the hurdles you must jump to get seated. You can do better elsewhere.

Danji (346 W. 52nd Street between Eighth & Ninth Avenues, Hell’s Kitchen)

Food: Traditional and Modern Korean, adequate but not truly exciting
Wine: 25 bottles of wine and sake, well suited to the cuisine
Service: Hostess with an attitude; competent servers stretched to the limit
Ambiance: A cramped, minimalist space, seating 36, many at communal tables

Rating: Not recommended
Why? The food is good enough, but not worth the extremely long waits

La Quenelle

 

Note: La Quenelle closed after an extremely brief run. The chef, Cyril Reynaud, says he hopes to re-open in a “more intimate setting.”

*

During the Great Recession and its long aftermath, one chef after another substituted grand ambitions for humbler ones. You can’t blame the chefs for this: they have families to feed. Still, you can’t help cringing every time it happens. Or celebrating the opposite.

Enter La Quenelle, chef Cyril Renaud’s return to his métier after three years serving crêpes and flipping burgers.

The backstory in brief: Renaud worked for six years as chef de cuisine at Bouley and another four as executive chef at La Caravelle, where he earned three stars. Then in 2000, Renaud opened Fleur de Sel in a jewel box space in the Flatiron District. William Grimes awarded two stars; a Michelin star followed. I dined there twice, the first an ill-advised Christmas Eve (the usual rule about holiday meals) and a much better visit in 2006, to which I gave three stars.

In 2009, the chef added a casual spot around the corner, Bar Breton, dedicated to savory crêpes (called galettes), small plates, and of course a burger. We liked it—for what it was—but no one would mistake it for his flagship. But shortly thereafter, Fleur de Sel closed; unsurprisingly, the chef cited the economy.

Almost three years to the day, Renaud shuttered Bar Breton and re-christened it La Quenelle, returning to the more elegant classic French cuisine he was known for in the first place. (It’s named for the quenelles, a dish for which he was especially well known at La Caravelle.)

La Quenelle is necessarily a compromise, in many respects. It’s built on the bones of a much less elegant space, though he’s added tablecloths, lowered the lighting, and decorated it with his own paintings, which Grimes (at Fleur de Sel) called “wobbly efforts in the manner of van Gogh.” I’m not sure if the chandelier (above left) built from inverted glassware is Renaud’s work, but it’s a beaut.

He’s trying to bring back a more elegant class of service that Fleur de Sel had nailed, but the staff are still learning. When asked if he could transfer the bar tab to our table, the bartender took on a pained look, as if his dog had just died. “We prefer that you settle it here.” But after a conference with the manager, he transferred it anyway.

Memo to staff: no restaurant should tell you what it prefers: if you can accommodate what the customer has requested, just do it; better yet, offer before they ask. (When the Pink Pig dined here, a few days before we did, a similar request was not granted.)

The menu resurrects memories of Fleur de Sel to a considerable extent, but at a lower price point. Tellingly, although all the mains are above $25, only one surpasses the psychologically crucial $30 barrier. Appetizers are $13–17, and a five-course tasting menu is $75. In contrast, the last meal I had at Fleur de Sel was $79 prix fixe for three courses—and that was six years ago.

The lower prices probably limit the quality of the ingredients in ways I’m not able to articulate, but to me, this meal was a pretty good approximation of Fleur de Sel’s best.

 

I started with a Foie Gras trio ($18; above left), with a torchon, a terrine of glazed artichoke and black truffles, and another with smoked almonds. My girlfriend had the Burgundy Snail & Polenta ($15; above right) with a red wine maple sugar reduction and parmesan tuile. Both dishes were labor intensive, beautifully plated, and excellent.

 

So too were Maine Sea Scallops ($30; above left), with curry roasted carrots, fresh grapefruit, curry foam, and artichoke chips. The Quenelle de Brochet ($29; above right) is the chef’s signature dish, as well as the restaurant, so it is no surprise it’s superb: a delicate fish dumpling in a seafood and roots risotto, and bathed in a lobster foam.

When we don’t want a meal to end, we order dessert. The Mascarpone Banana Mousse ($12; right) with langue du chat, coffee ganache, and a white chocolate crisp, could do battle with the best of the dessert card anywhere in town.

The wine list could be broader and deeper. A 2002 Saint Emilion at $47 was one of the few bargains at the lower end. As they did at Fleur de Sel, the staff kept the wine on a cart in the middle of the dining room, a system that can only work if they are attentive about refilling empty glasses—which they were.

The only reviews so far are from Gael Greene and the aforementioned Pink Pig, both of whom had mixed, although largely positive, reactions. They also sampled more of the cuisine than we did.

Is La Quenelle the rebirth of Fleur de Sel, or a last gasp? Time will tell, but this cuisine is a notoriously tough sell with the professional critics. In the early going, Renaud can fill the place with old friends. Longer term success depends on reaching a new audience.

La Quenelle (254 Fifth Ave. between 28th & 29th Sreets, Gramercy/Flatiron District)

Food: Classic French, beautifully done, by a master of the trade
Wine: Mostly French, with some good bottles, but could use more breadth
Service: An approximation of the old Fleur de Sel, with some rough spots
Ambiance: The casual Bar Breton space, made more elegant and slightly redressed

Rating: ★★★
Why? If you treasure this cuisine (as we do), where else have you to go?

Nice Matin

 

Nice Matin is one of the more puzzling restaurants in New York. It pairs one of the city’s most pedestrian and uninspired menus with one of its most remarkable wine lists.

It was not always thus. In 2003, William Grimes of The Times awarded two stars, praising the Provençal/Niçoise cuisine, while noting that the 140-bottle wine list poorly represented the South of France.

But by 2011, Eric Asimov reported that the wine cellar had swelled to 2,000 bottles, “with perhaps the best list of Bandols and Provençal wines in New York.” The leather-bound wine list is 55 pages. There cannot be more than a couple of dozen restaurants in NYC with such a list; they would almost all be three-star places considerably more expensive than Nice Matin.

It was the wine list that brought me back here, as my dinner in 2005 was so disappointing that I had vowed never to return. Since then the owner, Simon Oren, acquired the substantial cellars of two luxury restaurants that closed, Chanterelle and Country, and he continues to buy at auction where he can.

Nice Matin is the flagship of a network of undistinguished French bistros, the Culinary Tour of France. (Simon Oren also owns the SushiSamba and 5 Napkin Burger chains.) His partner is chef Andy d’Amico, who once earned three stars at Sign of the Dove.

It is difficult to comprehend why Mr. Oren has made such a substantial investment in the wine list, while Mr. d’Amico allows the food to languish. Unlike my meal in 2005, the food this time was at least competently prepared. There were no fireworks on the plate, but no disasters either. I’d have no objection to dining here again.

But the menus are dog-eared and torn; they are obviously not revised very often, except for inflation. Now, I’ve no objection to the French classics—I love them—but the cuisine of southern France has much more to it than the same list of fifteen entrées, year after year, unchanged with the seasons. Put more life in the menu, and Nice Matin could really be something.

I’ve no objection to the prices, either: nothing is more expensive than Steak Frites, at $27.50. Most of the entrées hover around $20, most of the starters around $11. A prix fixe, with limited choices, is $35. Obviously, the quality of the ingredients is limited at these prices.

And there is some carelessness. Fresh bread (above left) comes with butter drizzled in olive oil, a nice touch, but the butter is ice cold.

 

The food, as I said, is worthy of neither praise nor complaint. It was fine. I liked the Escargot ($9.75; above left) a tad better than the Mushroom Tart ($11.75; above right).

 

Both Salmon ($21.50; above left) and Chicken under a Brick ($19.75; above right) are ample portions at practically diner prices. The chicken was quite good, but it was undermined by a pedestrian ragout of couscous, root vegetables, apples, pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries, and herbs.

The casual décor, if not exactly authentic, is attractive and even romantic if you get the right table (we had the booth in the corner). But tables are crammed together, extracting maximum use from every inch of space that the law allows. Grimes complained that it can get noisy in here, and that is still true.

It is passing strange that you can spend $35 a head on food, and then spend hundreds on a first-growth Burgundy. We didn’t go quite that far, ordering a 1984 Santenay Gravière Premier Cru for $77. I don’t know how many places in the city would have that wine, or its equivalent, at that price (or any price), but it can’t be many.

Nice Matin is two restaurants in one, a forgettable French bistro with one of the city’s great wine lists.

Nice Matin (201 W. 79th Street at Amsterdam Avenue, Upper West Side)

Cuisine: French Mediterranean classics, adequately rendered
Wine List: One of the city’s best
Service: Casual, but fine for what it is
Ambance: A cramped but attractive dining room

Rating: ★★
Why? Because of the wine list

Vitae

After nearly two unpublicized decades—working at the likes of Bouley, Gramercy Tavern, and various corporate gigs—chef Edwin Bellanco decided he was ready for his own place: Vitae, meaning life.

Based on an admittedly small sample—one visit—I’d say Bellanco was ready for his own place. The food was excellent, some of the best I’ve had this year in this concededly over-worked idiom, slightly upscale “user-friendly Euro-American fare.”

He’s allied himself with some serious talent: General Manager Emily Iverson came over from Lincoln. The striking modernest décor by Studio CMP cannot have come cheap.

Yet, there are perplexing blunders at Vitae, starting with the name. Google it, and you find it’s easily confused with several other restaurants with a similar (or indeed the same) name. Not until the middle of the second search page is there a lonely link to this restaurant, along with many others to the wrong ones. And with so much expense lavished on the build-out, why is the website out-of-date?

Vitae is clearly designed to appeal to the midtown business crowd, both at dinner and at lunch. That makes sense, given the location. But the proffer is a familiar one—“approachable contemporary cuisine,” “seasonable contemporary American,” etc. Those phrases, so often bandied about, don’t really entice the dining public these days (assuming, for argument’s sake, that they once did). They promise a blank slate, onto which the chef can write whatever he pleases.

There’s not a single thing on the menu—not one blessed thing—that will look unfamiliar to anyone who dines out frequently in Manhattan. The chef can therefore offer only excellence, which he absolutely does.

The menu, priced firmly in the upper-middle, is reprinted daily and is sensibly edited (both encouraging signs), with eight appetizers ($12–18) and nine entrées ($24–28; plus a Creekstone Farms ribeye, $45). Pastas, listed as entrées, are also offered as appetizers for $12; side dishes are $8.

There’s a thousand-bottle wine wall with about a hundred choices in a wide price range, from $30 to $1,050. The host offered to decant even the rather modest Cotes du Rhone we ordered (Alain Voge, Les Peyrouses 2009; $42).

The cocktail list is a mix of classics and house recipes. I don’t normally shoot beverage photos, but did here, to show how little $14 gets you.

 

A Painkiller (above left) was a great drink, but nearly all ice; while a bourbon sidecar (above right) tasted watered down and filled less than two-thirds of the glass.

 

Matters improved significantly when the food arrived, including warm, house-baked bread (above left), which we learn from Dame Greene is slathered in duck fat; and a bracing celery root soup as amuse bouche.

 

There’s a four-course “chef’s tasting” for $65. Everything offered is on the regular menu, but the chef sent out different items to each of us, so we wound up tasting eight dishes, far more than I normally would in one visit.

I loved both appetizers, the Poached Egg (above left) with sunchoke, bacon, and black truffle sauce; and the Seared Diver Scallop (above right) with cauliflower, golden raisin, cashew, and a Thai curry sauce.

 

We enjoyed both pastas, but we give the nod to the Chestnut Agnolotti ($12 as appetizer; above right) with prosciutto and parmesan broth. Ricotta Gnudi ($12; above left) are somewhat hackneyed. This was a decent version of the dish, with walnut pesto, chorizo, and parmesan.

 

Pan Roasted Cod ($24; above left) is bathed in a smoked razor clam chowder with fingerling potatoes. I admired this dish, although my girlfriend thought the chowder a bit overwhelming. Duck ($28; above right) was impeccable, with both the breast and confit of leg, endive marmelade, Brussels sprouts, and parsnip.

 

For dessert, a Chocolate Fondant ($8; above left) with Espresso Crème Anglaise and whipped creme wasn’t bad, but for sheer pleasure was surpassed by an Apple Tart Tatin ($8; above right) with Mascarpone. (The only other desserts on the regular menu are Crème Brûlée or a selection of cheeses.)

The décor is in my opinion stunning (better in person than the photos suggest), though just about anything that opens these days is criticized as outdated unless it’s distressed chic. At dinner time, they do need to lower the lights a bit; this isn’t an airport. The spacious, upholstered bar stools are the most comfortable I’ve experienced in quite a while.

The dining room was perhaps one-third full on a Friday evening, the predictable consequence of opening in a business neighborhood that doesn’t attract leisure diners. The staff was extremely attentive, the predictable consequence of not having enough customers to worry about. But this was only the first week in business, far too soon to pass judgment.

The chef is obviously talented. Let’s hope his business partners can operate a website and get the word out.

Vitae (4 East 46th Street, near Fifth Avenue, East Midtown)

Cuisine: Contemporary Seasonal American
Service: Attentive and experienced; impressive for a week-old place
Ambiance: A striking, modern, comfortable, somewhat upscale room

Rating: ★★

Brabant

Brabant Belgian Brasserie opened in mid-February on an East Midtown side street. Belgian restaurants aren’t a great rarity in New York, but most neighborhoods don’t have one. If you’ve a hankering for Moules Frites and other classics, and a beer menu longer than most places’ wine lists, Brabant might be for you.

The owners here have taken a bet on size. The restaurant seats 120, but it’s divided into several rooms, and doesn’t quite seem that large. There’s a long antique white marble bar (which serves food too), casual seating nearby, and a vaguely rustic dining room in back.

Still, that’s a lot of seats to fill. The populist prices may help. Small plates are $7–12, soups and salads $5–18, appetizers and “sharing plates” $8–21, mussel pots $22, burgers and sandwiches $14–16, other entrées mostly $16–28 (except for the steak: $36), side dishes $6–9. That’s at dinner; they also serve lunch, weekend brunch, and a shorter late-night menu until 2:00 a.m.

The cuisine is broadly traditional, with some nods to contemporary taste. I doubt that the “Sharing Plates” menu category came over from Brussels, and a few dishes seem to be there because New Yorkers much on them at the bar: fried calamari, chicken wings, and of course the burger (a short rib and brisket blend). They even tick the locavore box, with nods to North Fork duckling, Ashley Farms free-range chicken, a Tom Cat Bakery brioche, and so forth.

The wine list—about 25 by the bottle, 10 by the glass—is merely adequate, but inexpensive, with most of the bottles under $50. There are almost 70 beers (eleven on tap), an impressive selection not many restaurants can rival.

The chef here is Armand Vanderstigchel, a Chicago native who was raised in New York and the Netherlands. His website describes him as a cookbook author, media chef, spokesperson, restaurant consultant, TV and radio host, instructor, writer, corporate chef, food judge, and food stylist. That’s not the complete list.

So a year from now, it’s a safe bet you aren’t going to find him in Brabant’s kitchen. There’ll be underlings executing his recipes, perhaps not as well as they do now. In the early days, though, Brabant is about as good as a casual Belgian Brasserie could be.

 

Bitterballen ($7; above left) are traditional, but the menu translates: “a Benelux happy hour snack of sirloin-filled round mini croquettes.” It’s a comfort food, really well done.

The Mini Croque Monsieur ($8; above right) is a re-interpreted classic for the bar crowd: four quarter-sandwiches with Ardennes ham, Gruyère, and Béchamel filling, on a brioche. The photo doesn’t give an adequete sense of scale. Many nights, this could be dinner for me.

 

There are five versions of the Mussel Pot, all $22. My girlfriend had the simplest one, with white wine, garlic, and leeks. I didn’t try any of them, but I did try the fries, which I found a bit mushy.

 

The Ragout of Ardennes Wild Boar ($20; above left), served in a ceramic bowl, resembled a cassoulet at first. I wondered if the boar would be chewy, especially at this price point, but it was rich, fatty, and tender, almost resembling pork belly. The housemade chive spätzle that came with it (above right) seemed pedestrian, but you can’t argue with the amount of food you get for twenty bucks.

The place seemed slightly under-staffed, but service was mostly attentive and helpful, and the server’s ordering advice was spot-on. The owner introduced himself: a gentleman I’d not met before, for whom Brabant is the first restaurant on his own. The space was between one-third and half full on a weekday evening, which is not bad, considering the size of it. You want nothing but success for this guy.

Brabant (316 E. 53rd Street at Second Avenue, East Midtown)

Cuisine: Classic Belgian, with a few tweaks for the New York audience
Service: A shade under-staffed, mostly very good
Ambiance: A typical rustic (though large) Brasserie, spread out over several rooms

Rating: ★

RedFarm

I was put off by the lines—the promise of an uncertain wait for one of the few communal seats. That’s why I didn’t visit RedFarm after it opened last August.

I’d liked the dim sum of the talented chef, Joe Ng, at Chinatown Brasserie. It was everything RedFarm isn’t: a big-box place that takes reservations and de-humanizes the cuisine, but was pretty darned good, for what it was—way back in 2007.

Then Pete Wells gave it two stars, and if he’s a critic of limited range, I’m pretty sure he gets casual Chinese: his review of Wong, in early January, was right on the money. So I was ready to give RedFarm a try.

At 6:30 p.m. on a Tuesday evening, all 45 seats were packed, and the host quoted a wait of forty-five minutes to an hour. He offered to take a phone number and text me when a spot opened up (there is no waiting space at all), but I didn’t want it that much. A couple of evenings later, I had better luck. But even at 5:30, there were only about three seats free. That’s how popular RedFarm is.

 

Shrimp and Snowpea Dumplings ($10; above left) might be taken as typical of Chef Ng’s knack for dim sum. They’re not merely cute (with little “eyes” staring back at you), but colorful (the skin is transluscent) and bursting with flavor.

The Creekstone Farms prime dry-aged ribeye steak ($39; above right) is marinated overnight, and served sliced, with crisp french-fry sized mini-spears of asparagus. It isn’t as thick or as musky as the better steakhouses serve, but it is better than you expect it to be.

This isn’t the right way to dine at RedFarm, although it’s the only way I had time for. The dishes are all designed for sharing. Go with three friends. Entrées and rice/noodle dishes are in a wide price range ($15–39), likewise the starters ($6–19) and dim sum ($7–19). Average it out, and you’re likely to spend a lot less per person on than the $49 I did.

Although the décor is bare-bones, it doesn’t feel cheap. What may seem that way is merely a stylistic choice. But it’s a style not designed for comfort or elbow room. Most of the seating is at communal tables; there are a few 2- and 4-person booths. Expect to be very cosy with your neighbor. But the staff are attentive and knowledgeable, within the confines of the format.

The beverage options are fairly limited, with about fifteen bottles of wine and seven beers, but there’s a full bar. Of the three cocktails I tried (all $12), I best liked “Le Club Hot,” with silver tequila, lime juice, agave nectar, jalapeño, and mint.

By the end of the meal, Chef Ng had recognized me, or at least guessed that I was going to be writing about the restaurant. He spoke to me at some length about his forays to the greenmarket, his quest to serve the perfect steak, and so forth. I humbly suggested he do the same with a pork chop.

Although restaurants of this ilk, with their no-reservations policies and cramped seating, are much associated with the younger generation, diners at RedFarm were in a wide age range on the night I visited. It takes patience to dine here, and a willingness to forego many of the standard amenities. So far, people seem to feel it’s worth it.

RedFarm (529 Hudson Street, south of Charles Street, West Village)

Cuisine: “Innovative, Inspired Chinese Cuisine with Greenmarket Sensibility”
Service: Very good, within its limitations (no coat check, reservations not taken)
Ambiance: Bare-bones chic; cramped; not the most comfortable

Rating: ★★