La Focaccia

Note: La Focaccia closed in the summer of 2010.

*

La Focaccia is one of the seemingly infinite neighborhood restaurants that inhabit West Village street corners. It would be a full-time job to sample them all, but La Focaccia caught our eye, thanks to a wood-burning oven, clearly visible from ceiling-height picture windows facing on West Fourth and Bank Streets.

The place has rustic Northern Italian charm, with tile tabletops and a pressed tin ceiling, but tables are cramped tightly, and a room full of hard surfaces amplifies the din. There’s a steady trail of walk-ins, ensuring that no table goes unoccupied for long.

Oddly enough, the bread did not seem to be focaccia—it was thicker than it should be. However, it was soft and served warm, which was good enough.

Portions are on the hearty side. When the server brought two large bowls of gnocchi with pesto sauce ($16; right), we were sure she had misunderstood our request for a single order to split, not two separate orders. Our fears proved unfounded when the bill arrived, and we were charged for just one order of gnocchi.

And it was a perfectly respectable gnocchi that I would be happy to eat again. (The photo was snapped after I’d already eaten half of it.)

Among the entrées, the mixed grill for two ($58) is the choice for those who are indecisive. It’s a massive portion of lamb, chicken, sausage, steak, and vegetables, which we could not finish. We puzzled at the logic of including three lamb chops on a plate designed to be share by two people, especially as the lamb was easily the best of the bunch, with the sausage a close second. The chicken was forgettable, the steak and vegetables pedestrian.

The wine list has plenty of choices if you’re on a budget. A 2003 Salice Salentino at $30 was just fine for our purposes. The unevenness of the food, coupled with the loud surroundings, did not leave us with any urge to return.

La Focaccia (51 Bank Street at West Fourth Street, West Village)

Food: Satisfactory
Service: Good
Ambiance: Charming, if you wear ear plugs
Overall: Satisfactory

In Brief: Beacon

Note: Beacon closed in late 2012 after 13 years in business, due to a rent increase that the restaurant could not absorb.

I had the $35 prix fixe on Thursday, a follow-up to the pre-theater supper we enjoyed there the week before. (I gave much more background in my earlier post.)

I can’t stress enough how solid this place is. They’re not doing anything complicated, but what they do is executed perfectly. I had the wood-roasted oysters, the rotisserie chicken, and the ginger bread pudding. The chef–owner, Waldy Malouf, thinks of the little things, like serving warm milk with coffee.

Beacon (25 W. 56th Street between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, West Midtown)

Food: **
Service: **
Ambiance: **
Overall: **

There’s No Recession at BLT Market

Note: BLT Market closed at the end of 2011. The space is now Auden.

*

Hardly a day goes by without another dozen restaurants practically giving their food away — anything to get customers to part with increasingly scarce cash.

But the recession has not yet arrived at BLT Market, Laurent Tourondel’s haute barnyard on Central Park South. I reserved a table for an informal meal with friends visiting from out of town, but my heart sank when I looked at the online menu. The place is more expensive than ever. If they’ve made any compromise for tough times, I sure-as-hell can’t see it.

Appetizers are $14–19, entrées $26–45 (the majority over $35), side dishes $8–12, desserts $9–12. None of the entrées come with vegetables, so for a three-course meal you could easily spend $70 per head before tax and tip.

You’ll likely go north of $100 if you drink wine, as the expensive list has few options below $70 per bottle. It tops out with an 1870 Château-Lafite-Rothschild at the odd price of $11,111.

You do, at least, get some nice extras, starting with the excellent “pigs in a blanket” amuse (right) and the terrific warm bread stuffed with spinach. I wonder, though, why they haven’t come up with any other amuses: I’ve had the same one twice previously. The novelty this time was a serving of warm, cream-filled doughnut holes after dinner.

Both savory courses were faultless: a Chestnut Apple Celery Root Soup with Mushroom Toast ($16; above left) and Roasted Halibut ($27; above right).

There is no mystery about why BLT Market is so expensive: the dining room was full on a Wednesday evening. The chef de cuisine these days is Ed Cotton, formerly of the Michelin-starred Veritas. His work here has flown beneath the radar, as the original reviews pre-dated his arrival, and I don’t believe any of the critics have been back. The Times never reviewed the place at all, an omission that ought to be rectified.

I think there are better options for your money, but if you happen to dine at BLT Market you won’t feel cheated. Everything is well executed, the service is excellent, and the faux barnyard décor is easy on the eyes, if not especially original.

BLT Market (1430 Sixth Avenue at Central Park South, West Midtown)

Food: **
Service: **
Ambiance: **
Overall: **

Almond

[Kreiger via Eater]

At the risk of repeating myself, casual French cuisine seems to be making a comeback. It is all the more remarkable, given that most of the city’s critics don’t give a damn (“French = boring”).

This week’s exhibit: Almond, which opened about four months ago, cloned from a popular Hamptons restaurant. It occupies the cursed space that has been home to three Jeffrey Chodorow failures (Rocco’s, Brasserio Caviar & Banana, and Borough Food & Drink). Chodorow still owns the space, but as far as we can tell, he has no other role in this new venture. As long as he stays away, Almond should have a chance.

The critics have mostly ignored Almond, as you’d expect for any French brasserie that doesn’t have a well known chef (such as Ducasse, Bouley, or Boulud). Bob Lape awarded two stars in Crain’s, while Frank Bruni relegated it to Dining Briefs.

I was smitten the moment I arrived, and the hostesses offered to seat me, although I was twenty minutes early. It so happened there were plenty of empty tables, but in a Chodorow-run restaurant that would not stop them from shooing you to the bar, which at 7:40 p.m. was completely full. Later on, the restaurant filled up too—not completely, but better than most places we’ve visited lately.

The menu consists of French brasserie standards at recession prices, with starters $9–14 and entrées $15–29 (most $18–24). There’s a broad selection of side dishes ($7). Burgers and sandwiches are $15.

Both appetizers were wonderful: Duck Confit with creamy lentils and banyuls vinegar ($12; above left) and Salt Cod Croquettes with saffron aioli ($10; above right).

Aged New York Strip ($29; above left) was one of the better non-steakhouse steaks we’ve had in quite some time, and the fries were perfect. Daube of Lamb Belly ($23; above right) was competent comfort food; it tasted better than it looked.

The space is not especially charming or memorable, and it gets loud when full, but service was just fine. The wine list has plenty of decent choices below $50, including the 2005 Languedoc we had for $38.

Almond (12 E. 22nd Street between Broadway & Park Avenue S., Flatiron District)

Food: *
Service: *
Ambiance: *
Overall: *

Trigo

[Krieger via Eater]

Note: Well, that was fast. Less than three months in, Trigo closed. It was replaced by Bar Artisanal (a branch of Chef Terrance Brennan’s cheese-happy restaurant franchise), and later by Pelea Mexicana.

*

The instant we walked into Trigo, we knew that it was planned before the recession. It’s a cavernous space, decked out in medieval gloom, with towering ceilings and wooden arches. It’s termed a Mediterranean brasserie, with the food seeming more Italian than anything else. The chef, Michael Garrett, has stints at Aquavit and Merkato 55 on his C.V.

The menu has a bunch of categories, and the server tried to steer us into a four-course meal. We were having none of that. Three small starters and an entrée apiece was more than enough.

House-cured gravlax ($11; above left) was too small a portion to make an impression. Wild Boar prosciutto ($9; above right) was perfectly fine. The star of the appetizers, though, was a Lamb Tart ($14; above right), made in the restaurant’s wood-burning oven. If you visit Trigo, go straight for anything that comes out of that oven.

We concluded with two pasta entrées, Lobster Parpadelle ($26; above left) and Linguine with Clams ($23; above right), both of which struck us as hearty nourishment but not food worth going out of the way for.

I can’t find serious fault with anything Trigo served, but it was unexciting (except for the lamb tart). With a $32 bottle of wine, the total came to $115 before tax and tip, a bit more than I care to pay for food this boring. The space was never more than half full, but by the time we left the hard surfaces made it loud indeed.

Trigo (268 West Broadway at Lispenard St. & Sixth Avenue, TriBeCa)

Food: Satisfactory
Service: Satisfactory
Ambiance: Loud
Overall: Satisfactory

Valentine's Day at Corton

Note: Click here for a more recent review of Corton.

The restaurant industry calls major holidays “amateur night.” Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and New Year’s Eve are the biggest culprits. Restaurants are overrun with customers who don’t eat out a lot. Many places charge outsized prices for less-interesting versions of their normal menus—because they can get away with it, because it’s easier, or because they figure that customers want “safe” food.

If you dine out all year long, choosing a restaurant on “amateur night” is a challenge. I’ve had some good luck, but I’ve also been burned. I’ll accept a price premium, but I don’t want to pay twice as much for food half as good as usual.

We guessed that Paul Liebrandt, the chef at Corton, wouldn’t be capable of serving boring Valentine’s Day food. The tasting menu price was jacked up to $205 (it’s $120 normally), but at least Liebrandt didn’t compromise. If anything, the food seems to have improved since our last visit. With three stars from Frank Bruni in the bag, maybe he feels like he can let his creative side roam free again.

I didn’t want to disrupt a relaxing evening with photos. You can see the menu on the right (click for a larger image). The Sweetbread and White Chocolate Palette were spectacular, the Turbot and Pheasant very good. An amuse that I can only call “foie gras soup” was outstanding. For the rest, I’ll let the printed menu speak for itself. Liebrandt’s platings occasionally get too cute, with daubs of sauce no larger than a nickel that you can barely taste, but that’s more an observation than a drawback.

My eyes landed on a $60 Ladoix burgundy, and sommelier Elizabeth Harcourt’s eyes lit up—one of her favorites, she said. After we ordered it, we understood why.

My only complaints are picky, but given Corton’s aspirations I’ll state them anyway. The timing of the courses was a bit lumpy, with the first few coming out too quickly, and then some awfully long pauses later on. We didn’t mind the pauses, but the earlier courses needed better spacing. And some of the runners need a brush-up on their mechanics: plates should be served and cleared from the side, not across the table. One server refilled my wine glass before my girlfriend’s.

For the record, Drew Nieporent was in the house, seating customers and busing tables. I had wondered if he would still be working the floor after the review cycle was over, but for now, he is. He told us that he turned away 300 covers, which I could well believe. Corton is one of the few high-end places that does not seem to have seriously suffered in the recession. Getting three stars from every critic in town will do that.

Based on this meal, I would say Corton is still getting better. Given how good it was already, that is a high compliment indeed.

Corton (239 West Broadway between Walker & White Streets, TriBeCa)

Food: ***
Service: ***
Ambiance: ***
Overall: ***

Beacon

Note: Click here for a more recent visit to Beacon.

Beacon, a midtown steakhouse, was completely off my radar until eGullet’s “Fat Guy” raved about the tasting menu served on Thursday nights. It’s currently $98 for 12 courses, including winees. That would be a remarkable value even if a few of the courses were duds—not that they are. Subsequent reports bore out Fat Guy’s recommendation (Frank Bruni reviewed it late last year), but it was impossible to get in (only 6 seats, only on Thursdays), and I don’t usually fancy such a heavy meal on a weeknight.

From the beginning, Beacon was more than just an average steakhouse. In the Times, William Grimes awarded two stars in 1999: “Organized around an open kitchen and a huge wood-burning oven, it delivers uncomplicated, big-flavored food, emphasizing fresh, seasonal ingredients. That’s all, and that’s enough.”

Like many restaurants, Beacon has felt the bite of the recession. The $35 “Restaurant Week” menu has been extended at least until the end of February, and perhaps indefinitely. Deals abound, such as a $44 pp. family style meal on Sunday evenings, with bottles of wine under $35, and no corkage if you bring your own.

The normal menu features dry-aged Niman Ranch steaks, but there’s a wide variety of other choices, most of them revolving around the wood-burning oven.

The chef/owner, Waldy Malouf, has a lot of seats to fill. On a recent Tuesday evening, the vast tri-level space was perhaps 60% occupied, which is better than many restaurants, but probably not good enough, given midtown rents. I also suspect that many patrons are doing as we did, and ordering at the bottom end of the menu.

A mixed green salad with herb vinaigrette and goat cheese (below left) was all you could ask of a $13 salad. The burger and fries ($21; below right) were terrific. It’s Niman Ranch beef and tastes dry-aged. I couldn’t help but compare it to the over-hyped LaFreida Black Label blend served at City Burger.

The Beacon burger is $5 more than the City Burger product. But City Burger is a fast-food joint with styrofoam containers, plastic trays, and minimal counter seating. Beacon is a full-service restaurant, with waiters, white tablecloths, cloth napkins, silverware, three kinds of homemade bread, etc. On top of that, their burger was better (thicker, juicier, tastier) than the one Mr. Cutlets has been shilling at City Burger, and their fries were better too.

It was about as impressive as a salad, burger, and fries can be.

Beacon (25 W. 56th Street between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, West Midtown)

Centro Vinoteca

[Kalina via Eater]

Note: Centro Vinoteca closed in March 2013. The following review was written under chef Leah Cohen, who left the restaurant in September 2009.

*

Centro Vinoteca is one of those restaurants that raises immediate suspicion, with its achingly long 18-month gestation and a game of musical chefs before it served its first meal in the summer of 2007. Frank Bruni’s middling one-star review did nothing to pique my curiosity.

Last fall, founding chef Anne Burrell—she of the blonde spikey hair, perhaps best known as Mario Batali’s sidekick on Iron Chef—left the restaurant. Apparently all of her TV gigs were interfering with more important matters—like, you know, cooking. No successor was announced, but the owners quietly passed the baton to sous chef Leah Cohen (left), whom they knew — although we did not — was about to appear as a “cheftestant” on Season 5 of Bravo’s Top Chef.

Cohen has had an eventful season on the show. As of this writing, she has made it to the final five, out of an original cast of seventeen. She is not a bad chef, but she will probably be remembered for getting caught on camera playing tonsil hockey with a fellow cheftestant. Most observers expect her to be sent home well before the finale, as she has barely scraped by in the last several challenges.

Of course, the episodes we watch now were taped months ago. As of today, Cohen is chef de cuisine at Centro Vinoteca, and the restaurant’s website doesn’t fail to remind you. I don’t know how many people visit the restaurant to see her—as if you could actually “see” anything—but they are milking it for all it’s worth.

We paid a visit on Saturday evening. Okay, I’ll admit it: I wanted to see what Cohen’s food was like, apart from the contrived and time constrained challenges imposed on TV. Whether due to Cohen’s minor celebrity turn or other reasons, the restaurant was as crowded as any we have been in lately. It is a noisy, cramped space, and not especially pleasant. (An upstairs dining room appears to be a bit more civilized.)

For a casual Italian joint, prices here are a tad on the high side, with antipasti $10–16, primi $14–18, and secondi $22–36. The menu appears to be changing regularly. Many of the items mentioned in the Bruni review have been replaced.

 

Both pastas were very strong: a kabocha squash ravioli with walnuts ($14; above left) and a squid ink tagliatelle with baby squid, shrimp and cockles ($18; above right). But both pastas got cold too quickly, as the plates had not been pre-warmed.

 

Sausage-Stuffed Baby Chicken ($22; above left) suffered from a lack of balance between its two main ingredients. There was about a millimeter of chicken wrapped around far too much of the sausage. It was tender and nicely complemented by a bed of creamy polenta and mushrooms, but the sausage was too powerful a presence.

Ribeye Steak ($36; above right) is a bail-out dish in many restaurants. It was beautifully done here, but my girlfriend said that the potato prosciutto fontina cake underneath it was inedible.

If Centro Vinoteca offered a more quieter atmosphere, I might consider returning to try more of the pastas. They weren’t good enough to compensate for the loud, cramped atmosphere and the uneven entrées.

Centro Vinoteca (74 Seventh Avenue S. at Bleecker/Barrow Streets, West Village)

Food: *
Service: *
Ambiance: unpleasant
Overall: *

Perle

Note: Perle closed in January 2009. The space became “1834 Bar & Burger.”

*

What is it with classic French brasseries these days? In the last year, they’ve been sprouting up all over town, admittedly with mixed success. Just when Adam Platt was ready to dance on the grave of French cuisine, it has returned with a vengeance.

So now comes Perle, deep in the Financial District, on the same row of Colonial-era townhouses as Fraunces Tavern. It sports one of the glitziest websites we’ve seen in a while and a bi-level renovation that cannot have come cheap. The upstairs looks like a Paris transplant, while the bustling wine bar and “boudoir” (a private party room) downstairs have a more “clubby” vibe.

  

There’s nothing original on the menu, but everything we tasted was executed flawlessly, from Poulpes [octopus] Provençale ($11; above left) to a Terrine de Canard ($11; above center and right).

 

Likewise a humble but thoroughly addictive Bœef Bourguignon ($19; above left) and a tender Magret de Canard ($23; above right).

Service was just fine for this type of restaurant. Butter was too cold, but everything else was as it should be. A vegetable side dish went forgotten. We were not charged, but given the large portion sizes it was just as well. An after-dinner drink was comped.

At first, I feared the downstairs wine bar was doing better business than the dining room, but our reservation was early. By the time we left (around 8:20 p.m.) the dining room was about 2/3rds full. A place like this will need word-of-mouth, because it isn’t quite important enough to be a dining destination, and most of the critics are likely to ignore it—not that they should, but it’s the cold reality.

If you like French classics, you’ll probably love Perle.

Perle (62 Pearl Street near Broad Street, Financial District)

Food: *½
Service: *½
Ambiance: *½
Overall: *½

The La Frieda Black Label Burger

Note: City Burger closed in July 2009.

Mister Cutlets, among others, have been giving lots of love to the LaFrieda Black Label Burger. Cutlets calls it the “Bentley of Beef.” According to A Hamburger Today:

The Black Label blend is aimed at high-end restaurants and features an intoxicating mix of skirt, brisket, short rib, and a secret cut that is actually dry aged! It has an extremely generous 70/30 meat-to-fat ratio, making for an ethereally succulent burger.

It is most curious that a secret blend allegedly aimed at high-end restaurants is available only at the lowest-end restaurant, City Burger in midtown. It’s a slip of a space with less ambiance (though better service) than the average McDonald’s. The only seating is at either of two narrow counters, one of which is along the glass wall. I kept on my winter coat, and I was still freezing.

This Bentley of Burgers comes in a styrofoam box. I’ve nothing against styrofoam at fast food restaurants, but I struggle to comprehend why this ultra-secret, heavily hyped blend is served nowhere else. Anyhow, it is a very good burger, a bit on the small side, with a hint of dry-aged flavor and a foie gras-like richness. The bun that City Burger uses doesn’t quite stand up to such a juicy piece of meat (more photos here and here).

The Black Label Burger sells for $12.99, twice the cost of the regular burger. With french fries ($2.75) and a diet soda ($1.95), the bill came to $19.17. And just one word of caution: City Burger is closed on weekends—as I found out to my dismay when I stopped by on a Saturday evening.

City Burger (1410 Broadway near 39th Street, West Midtown)