Brasserie 8½

 

It might seem odd to recomend a restaurant because it is empty. But aside from the very good food, that is one of the principal attractions of Brasserie 8½—at least at dinner.

No one can fault the space, with its grand staircase, drawings by Matisse and Giacometti, and tables that are both comfortable and generously spaced. With the restaurant only 10% full, my friend and I were able to enjoy a quiet conversation, as well as food that deserves a lot more attention than it has been getting.

The name is a cute take-off on the address: it’s at 9 West 57th Street. The restaurant is in the basement, so they call it “Brasserie 8½.” However, the place really isn’t really a “Brasserie” in any normal sense of the word.

When it opened in 1980, critics found the food uneven and occasionally overworked. In The Times, William Grimes awarded one star. Reviews in New York and The New Yorker were similar. But management stood by chef Julian Alonzo is still in place, which in this era is remarkable all by itself. Perhaps with eight years’ experience he has edited out the clunkers, or perhaps we just got lucky with our choices.

 

I loved an asparagus soup ($12) that was as tasty as it was striking to look at, with an oval-shaped glass bowl and concentric circles of green and white foam.

An entrée of Sautéed Diver Sea Scallops “Benedict” ($29) offered three plump scallops, each with a vegetable purée beneath, a fried egg on top, and hunks of crisp braised pork belly in between. This pun on “Eggs Benedict” isn’t unique to this restaurant, but when it’s as well executed as this, who cares if it’s original?

I assume that Brasserie 8½ does a brisker lunch business, which is typical of restaurants in this part of town. I also assume that a self-promotional YouTube video that was posted late last year is part of an attempt to drum up business. If our meal was at all indicative, then management is entitled to crow about it as much as they please.

Brasserie 8½ (9 West 57th Street between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, West Midtown)

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

Ago

Note: Ago was rumored to be closing at the end of January 2009, to give way to a new Italian concept under Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s management. That deal fizzled, and Andrew Carmellini’s hit Italian restaurant, Locanda Verde, replaced it.

The first time I visited Ago (pronounced Ah-go), I only got as far as taking a quick look and picking up a menu. Yesterday, I dropped in for dinner. I was seated immediately, but it was in the front area, where restaurants usually seat their walk-ins. The bar was doing a brisk business, so it was noisy and not at all charming.

Last week, the menu offered a rib-eye steak grilled on the wood-burning oven, for $34. Yesterday, it appeared on the menu as “M.P.” (possibly now a t-bone) and I ordered it without asking the price, which turned out to be a stunning $54—a rather dramatic increase, wouldn’t you say? Given that the menu is just a loose sheet of paper that is clearly being frequently reprinted, why can’t the price of this item be included?

Leaving the price aside, it was a wonderful hunk of meat, with the wood-burning oven imparting a wonderful smokey flavor. But was it worth $54, given that Wolfgang’s offers more-or-less comparable quality for $15 less, just two blocks away? The potatoes are included here, but as they come on the same plate, they quickly get soggy from wallowing in the steak’s juices.

The server was friendly and reasonably attentive, though he missed out on the chance to sell me a second class of the barbera d’asti, by failing to note that the first glass I’d ordered ($14) was empty. When he finally came around, I decided it was time to leave.

Ago (379 Greenwich Street at N. Moore Street, TriBeCa)

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

Valentine's Day at Country

 

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

It’s a little late to be blogging about Valentine’s Day. I hadn’t planned to say anything about our excellent meal at Country, as we went there last year too, and the format was fairly similar.

This time, there were two four-course menus captioned pour lui and pour elle, though we were allowed to mix-and-match between them—we both had the foie gras, for example. I wonder if any gay couples were offended by the presumption that every couple would be a man and a woman?

Willis Loughhead has taken over as executive chef, replacing Doug Psaltis, who left last November. We’re not exactly sure when Loughhead started. His name was printed on the Valentine’s Day menus, but his appointment wasn’t announced in the Times until April 2. “We’ve changed everything,” he told Grub Street.

Quite a few of the menu items currently shown on the Country website strongly resemble those served on Valentine’s Day, such as the Apple Velouté, the Chicken, the Sea Scallop, and the Bison. It struck us then as a first-class meal (especially for a holiday), though not perhaps the same extraordinary experience that Country seemed to us when it was new.

My girlfriend and I still love Country, and we look forward to sampling Chef Loughhead’s menu again on a more relaxed occasion.

Country (90 Madison Avenue at 29th Street, Flatiron District)

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

Eighty One

Note: Eighty One closed after service on Easter Sunday, April 4, 2010. The space is now occupied by Calle Ocho, which moved from its former home on Columbus Avenue.

*

The Upper West Side isn’t known for destination dining, but that has changed with the arrival of three wonderful new places, all within the first three months of 2008: Dovetail, Bar Boulud, and now Eighty One.

So far, Eighty One is a hit, with prime-time tables regularly selling out on opentable.com. Longer-term, Eighty One could face tougher challenges. Bar Boulud, with its modest prices and its Lincoln Center perch, is almost surely there for the long haul. Dovetail, which is about four blocks south of Eighty One, racked up nine stars from the city’s major restaurant critics; it’s a bit cheaper and a lot more casual than Eighty One.

At Eighty One, entrée prices average in the mid-thirties. If you want black truffles shaved over any of them, it will set you back another $42. Appetizers are $15–19, but another section of the menu, peculiarly named “Tasting Collection,” offers another half-dozen appetizer-sized items from $15–39. These aren’t “neighborhood” prices. Luckily, Eighty One resides in the tony Excelsior Hotel, from whence it will no doubt draw many of its customers.

The décor screams “upscale chic,” though we felt that the deep red-velvet hues sucked up the available light, and made the dining room seem a bit depressing. (The drapes were drawn when we visited.)

Amuse-bouche

Chef/owner Ed Brown runs the kitchen, coming off a thirteen-year stint at Rockefeller Center’s Sea Grill. Chef de Cuisine Juan Cuevas has stints at Alain Ducasse, Bruno Jamais, and most recently Blue Hill on his resume. They’re doing a terrific job, serving what I assume is intended to be three-star food, but to which most critics will probably give two.

We loved the amuse-bouche, a square of Hiramasu crudo with a Hawaiian seaweed salad. Bread service came with nice soft butter at room temperature, but the accompanying bread rolls were pedestrian.

 
Sea Scallop & Foie Gras Ravioli (left); Tuna Tartare Tasting (right)

I started with the Sea Scallop and Foie Gras Ravioli ($16) in a straw wine sauce, a buttery ethereal pleasure.

My girlfriend had the Tuna Tartare Tasting ($21), with three half-dollar-sized cylinders of tuna, each in a different preparation. Our favorite the one on the left, with an Indonesian soy sauce, wasabi leaves and a dollop of cream. The other two weren’t bad either: blood orange (center) and olive oil with chervil (right).

 
Lamb Three Ways (left); Dry-Aged Black Angus Sirloin (right)

Lamb Three Ways ($39) was a beautifully composed plate, with sheep’s milk ricotta gnocchi, pine nuts, wild mushrooms and braised butternut lettuce hearts. There was a wonderfully smooth potato purée, served on the side. The “three ways” conceit is becoming a bit cliché, and perhaps it would be better to hit a home run with just one way. I loved the juicy and well marbled rack of lamb, but neither the roasted loin nor the confit shoulder rocked my world.

My girlfriend was happy with a Dry-Aged Black Angus Sirloin ($37), which also included the short rib.  We didn’t quite understand the point of an accompanying Caesar wedge with aged parmigiano. The preparation was just fine, but it would have made more sense as a salad or mid-course.

The wine list includes plenty of bottles at reasonable prices, though you can splurge if you want to. We enjoyed a 2003 Château Lafleur Pomerol ($60). I don’t believe I’ve ordered a Pomerol before, but this bottle made me want to explore more of them.

Service was generally smooth and professional, but the staff paid decidedly less attention to us near the end of our meal, after the restaurant had started to fill up. Our appetizers came out awfully fast (it seemed like just moments), so we had almost half-an-hour to kill later on, before we headed over to Lincoln Center for our show.

Of the three new Upper West Side restaurants that I mentioned at the top of this post, Dovetail and Eighty One are the most similar, with broadly comparable culinary ambitions, and located within a few blocks of each other near the Museum of Natural History. Indeed, based on one visit apiece, I can’t really separate the two in terms of food, though the service and ambiance at Eighty One are considerably better—with prices to match.

Most of the critics in town will have their swords drawn when they review an expensive place with luxury trappings.  That explains why Adam Platt awarded two stars to Eighty One, though he had given Dovetail three. I suspect that Frank Bruni will do the same. I give them identical 2½-star ratings. You can decide for yourself if Eighty One’s more comfortable atmosphere and smoother service is worth a few extra dollars.

Eighty One (45 W. 81st Street between Columbus Avenue & Central Park West, Upper West Side)

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

Bar Boulud

The restaurant scene around Lincoln Center—rather, the lack of it—is inexplicable. Its theaters and auditoriums, with about 10,000 seats between them, are in use almost every night of the year. The programs they put on appeal to the city’s most affluent and sophisticated people. Many of them need to eat dinner.

Yet, the vast majority of the restaurants on the surrounding blocks are dull, if not awful. If you broaden your search to Columbus Circle and the Upper West Side, there are certainly plenty of pre-show dining options. But I can’t conceive of a reason why the restaurants in the immediate vicinity should be so depressing. Until recently, Picholine and Shun Lee West were the only ones I could seriously recommend.

Enter Bar Boulud, the most recent creation of über-chef Daniel Boulud. As he did at his previous three New York restaurants, he seems to have grasped exactly what the neighborhood needed. Both the food and ambiance are casual, and equally suited to a quick pre-show meal or a snack afterwards.

But Bar Boulud has become a destination in itself, which in this neighborhood is almost unheard of. Reservations have been tough to get—it took me nearly three months. And unlike most restaurants catering to a pre-theater crowd, we saw no appreciable clearing-out after 8:00 p.m.

GougèresSylvain Gasdon’s chacuterie menu has garnered rave reviews, including two stars from Frank Bruni in the Times. But hardly anyone has raved about the standard appetizers and entrées. Bruni said “there’s little wow from the kitchen, which turns out treatments of salmon, sea bass and roasted chicken that, while not quite losers, are definitely snoozers.”

I loved the Pâté Grand-mère the last time I visited, so I persuaded my girlfriend to join me for an all-charcuterie dinner. It wasn’t a tough sell, as we both love to order pâtés and terrines wherever they’re served. And no restaurant offers anything like the variety on offer at Bar Boulud.

Dégustation de Charcuterie

The items on the charcuterie menu run anywhere from $5–18, or you can get a good sample with either of two dégustation plates ($22, $46). We ordered the larger of these, which appeared to have a bit of almost everything.

They only thing they don’t supply is the roadmap. There were sixteen pieces on the plate, and even the server wasn’t sure what they all were. His explanation went by awfully quickly, and we could barely hear him in the loud room. So we gave up trying to figure out exactly what we were eating, though I can tell you that the pâtés are on the right side of the photo, the more gelatinous terrines on the left.

Anyhow, it is all excellent. There were two different mustards and a basket of bread, but I was happy to enjoy the pâtés and terrines on their own.

 
Rillons Croustillants au Poivre (left); Cervelas Lyonnais en Brioche (right)

There are also a few hot dishes on the charcuterie menu. Rillons Croustillants au Poivre ($12), or pork belly with pepper, was predictably good, though I thought it should be a bit warmer.

Cervelas Lyonnais en Brioche ($14) is a Lyon sausage baked into a brioche (see photo, right). I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but it’s a fun dish. The menu promised black truffle, but if it was in there, it was a trace amount that my taste buds couldn’t detect.

Besides charcuterie, the other theme at Bar Boulud is wine. Indeed, the long, narrow room is in the shape of a wine bottle. The first time I visited, I was surprised to find just four reds and four whites by the glass, a curious choice for a restaurant focused on wine. That has now been rectified: there are more like ten of each ($10–22).

Wines by the bottle are focused on Burgundy and the Rhone Valley, plus “cousin wines” made elsewhere from similar grapes. Each section of the list is divided into “Discoveries” (less expensive), “Classics” (more) and “Legends” (most). Among the “Discoveries” are numerous bottles below $50, and even one as low as $29. We were happy with a Rhone that the server recommended at just $40. It has been a very long time since I saw a decent bottle in a restaurant at that price.

We are fans of Bar Boulud, but there are some definite drawbacks. There is just a small waiting area at the front, where patrons scrum to announce themselves to the hostess, check and retrieve coats, wait to be seated, and order drinks. Several tables adjoin that area, including the one where we were seated. It has all the ambiance of a train station.

Tables are quite close together, and the staff seem to be over-taxed. I ordered a martini; it took fifteen minutes to arrive. I heard one patron say, “We’ve been waiting twenty minutes for our coats. Can we just go downstairs and look for them ourselves?” I wasn’t given a claim-check for mine, and I feared the worst, but miraculously the attendant quickly found it.

Boulud had his own china made for Bar Boulud, but they’re stingy about using it. We had to eat the charcuterie on our bread plates, and the server didn’t replace the knives we’d used to spread the butter. We couldn’t tell if this was a considered choice, or just one of the many service lapses the restaurant is quickly becoming famous for.

Despite the occasional miscue, Bar Boulud is probably the second-best Lincoln Center restaurant (after Picholine). For its charcuterie menu alone, it’s a worthy destination even if you don’t have a show to go see afterwards. My girlfriend remarked, “It’s a good thing this isn’t in our neighborhood, or I’d be eating here every day.”

Bar Boulud (1900 Broadway near 63rd Street, Upper West Side)

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

First Look: Ago

Note: Click here for a later visit to Ago.

The long-anticipated restauarant Ago opened this week in Robert DeNiro’s Greenwich Hotel. I work across the street, so I thought I’d drop in for a drink before heading uptown for dinner. There were plenty of empty tables at 6:30 p.m., but the bar was packed. I didn’t care to stand around, so I just picked up a menu and left.

The name, pronounced “Ah-go,” comes from the chef Agostino Sciandri, who heads up the original restaurant in West Hollywood. Since it opened a decade ago, branches have sprouted in Las Vegas and South Beach. The New York outpost, which feels like it has been under construction forever, has garnered tons of coverage on Eater and Grub Street.

It’s hard to comprehend all that excitement for a chain of trattorias serving standard Italian food. I didn’t see any pathbreaking items on the menu, but by today’s standards it’s inexpensive, with only one entrée north of $30 (the ribeye steak). Salads and antipasti are $10–21, pizzas and panini $14–16, primi $12–21, secondi $25–34.

Ago (379 Greenwich Street at N. Moore Street, TriBeCa)

Scarlatto

My son and I dropped in on Scarlatto the other night. It was an unplanned visit: we were in the area and were hungry.

The space used to be Pierre au Tunnel. I believe I dined there once. It closed in 2005 after a remarkable 55-year run. I remember it as a somewhat drab and faded space, as those old French bistros tend to be. The Scarlatto team spruced it up nicely, with comfortable chairs, exposed brick, and black-and-white photos of movie stars on the walls.

Alas, those movie-star photos are just one of the many theater-district clichés that Scarlatto fails to avoid. There’s the slightly grimy menu with multiple inserts that look like they’ve passed through too many hands, and the gruff service by staff conditioned to get patrons to their shows by 8:00 p.m. You get that same service, even if you tell them (as we did) that you have no deadline.

But the food is considerably better than it needs to be, in a neighborhood where most of the Italian restaurants follow a standard playbook. Chef Roberto Passon doesn’t take many chances here, though a few items (stewed rabbit, sautéed chicken livers) go beyond the Little Italy classics.

We went for old standards and were pleasantly surprised. Veal Osso Buco ($36) was as good a rendition of that dish as I have ever had. My son, who is not easily pleased, gave Veal Scaloppine ($16) the thumbs-up.

Aside from the Osso Buco, which was a daily special, prices are quite reasonable. Appetizers are $8–14, salads $7–10, soups $8, pastas $10–19, entrees $15–21, side dishes $5–7. The pre-theater three-course prix fixe is $29. I didn’t order wine, but I noticed that the wine list, too, had plenty of inexpensive options.

The critics all ignored Scarlatto, as they do most theater district restaurants. Had the identical restaurant opened in the Meatpacking District, it would have warranted at least a mention. For pre-show Italian that is a cut above most of the neighborhood, Scarlatto is worth a look. If you’re not going to the theater, I’d recommend waiting until 8:00 p.m., after the crowds have departed.

My son, who just turned 13, is already getting the hang of how the stars work. He said, “My guess is one star, because even though it’s good, there are lots of other places doing it.” True enough—though not in the theater district.

Scarlatto (250 W. 47th Street between Broadway & Eighth Avenue, Theater District)

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

Mia Dona

Note: Click here for a later review of Mia Dona. It wasn’t as impressive the second time.

Restauranteur Donatella Arpaia and Chef Michael Psilakis have been busy. Every few months, they seem to be closing one restaurant and opening another.

Donatella Arpaia and Michael Psilakis

In less than five years, Arpaia has opened six restaurants. One closed, and she severed ties with another, leaving her with four. In less than four years, Psilakis has opened five restaurants. Two closed, leaving him with three, all partnered with Arpaia. One of them, Kefi, will be moving shortly, and they intend to open yet another restaurant in the current Kefi space.

Got that?

Mia Dona is their latest creation. It was supposed to replace Dona, which was a hit, but lost its lease not long after it opened. As it was at Dona, the cuisine at Mia Dona is Italian, though interpreted through Psilakis’s Mediterranean–Greek lens. But Mia Dona is really a much different concept, despite the superficial similarities. Dona was much more elegant and nearly twice as expensive. I wasn’t wowed at Dona, though I realize many others liked it better than I did.

At Mia Dona, you almost have to pinch yourself when you see the prices. Could this be true? Appetizers are $8–13; pastas are $10–12 as appetizers or $15–17 as entrees; meat and fish entrees are $17–24; side dishes are $8–9. The wine list has plenty of decent bottles under $50. Compare this to Dona in mid-2006, where entrees topped out at $45, and a four-course dinner was $75.

The front dining room [thewanderingeater]

Of course, something has been lost, too. The tablecloths are gone, and there’s a motley assortment of unmatched china and cheap wine glasses. A single hostess has the dual role of greeting guests and checking coats. The casually dressed servers are a bit pushy and somewhat bumbling. The restaurant has been open for five weeks, so perhaps some of these things will improve.

The decor is a confused jumble: three rooms, each of which looks as if it were entrusted to a different decorator. Some of the choices are odd indeed: blonde wood paneling and zebra-skin carpeting? That’s the back room. We were in the front room, which has bare brick walls, no carpeting, and colorful enamel dishes hanging from the walls.

Bread Service

With as many projects as Psilakis has in flight, you have to wonder how much time he spends in any of his kitchens. Yet, I’ve seen three menus—two on the Internet (here, here) and the one I brought home with me—and all are different. So it seems he still has time to innovate, or he has able deputies who do so in his stead.

Compared to the opening menu, most of the appetizers, pastas, and seafood entrees have changed, at least to some degree, and many of them considerably. (The meat entrees have remained pretty much the same.) The appetizer I ordered, which was perhaps the most remarkable item we tried, must be a new creation, as nothing even remotely like it is on either of the Internet menus. Psilakis continutes to astonish.

We liked the bread service, which came with two contrasting warm breads and a clove of warm garlic.

 
Bigoli (left); Warm Calf’s Tongue (right)

When I ordered Warm Calf’s Tongue ($10), I scarcely imagined what I was in for. Yes, there’s calf’s tongue, but also mushrooms, pecorino romano, a soft poached egg. That’s what the menu said, but there is apparently quite a bit more in there, including green vegetables and chili peppers. It’s a remarkable creation, and so hearty that it could almost be an entree.

My girlfriend was impressed with Bigoli ($11), thick pasta noodles with sausage, broccoli rabe, lentils, spicy chiles, and (again) pecorino romano. At least, that’s how it was served yesterday. Tomorrow, Psilakis may come up with something else.

 
Roasted Chicken (left); Roasted Red Snapper (right)

Psilakis does have a way with chicken. The preparation here ($17) is a bit less artistic than the version we had at Anthos, but just as tender and flavorful.

Roasted Red Snapper ($22) was the evening’s only disappointment. The fish was dull, and the skin (which could have imparted flavor) was too tough for my knife to penetrate. The cous cous underneath it were also bland, though mussels and merguez sausage were nice.

Even with side dishes, Psilakis gives you far more than you have any right to expect at the price. Spinach ($8), which could have served five people, was luscious, with béchamel and pecorino (a cheese that recurs in multiple dishes).

At Dona, portions were on the large side, and that’s true here, despite the bargain prices. Psilakis’s cuisine skews towards the beefy and hearty, and we left a bit overfed. We took most of the spinach home, and we were so full that we skipped our usual nightcap.

The wine list isn’t long, but it has plenty of budget-friendly bottles. We settled on a 2003 Chianti ($58). The first page of the list, with a pretentious list of Donatella’s favorites (“Wine I drink while watching my friends on television”), ought to be scrapped. Servers need a bit of training on wine etiquette (hint: pour the lady’s glass first).

Four out of the five things we ordered were excellent, and both appetizers and entrees were priced a good $5 apiece lower than they needed to be at this level of quality and ambition. If the service improves, and if Psilakis continues to lavish as much attention on the menu as he has to date, Mia Dona may rank among the city’s most remarkable restaurants.

Mia Dona (206 E. 58th Street between Second & Third Avenues, East Midtown)

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

Bruce's Cheese Emporium and Café

Bruce’s Cheese Emporium and Café is the ideal beginning of your day on the eastern North Fork of Long Island. It’s a cheese and baked goods store, with a café that serves breakfast and lunch.

They also make a damned good omelette. The specimen shown is soft and fluffy, with goat cheese and sun-dried tomatoes.

Bruce’s Cheese Emporium and Café (208 Main Street, Greenport, New York)

North Fork Table & Inn

The North Fork Table & Inn is a charming bed & breakfast on the North Fork of Long Island, with a restaurant that has food addicts buzzing. It opened two years ago, after four Manhattan restaurant veterans decided they were sick of the big city.

Their credentials are impressive. Gerry Hayden (Aureole, Amuse) is executive chef. His wife, Claudia Fleming (Gramercy Tavern and numerous others), is pastry chef. Their partners, Mike and Mary Mraz (Hearth, Gramercy Tavern), run the front-of-house.

The upstairs had been a B&B under a succession of owners, while various French restaurants had occupied the dining room. The old building needed a gut renovation. The kitchen was too large, the bathrooms inconveniently located. One of the support beams was sagging.

As of 2006, it has all been redone in an understated post-colonial austerity. Both the dining room and the guest rooms are dominated by whites and light tans, with the walls mostly bare. The dining room is elegant and upscale, if you don’t mind floorboards that creak a little bit. There’s a handsome bar which can also accommodate walk-ins for dinner.

The four guest rooms are large, comfortable, and recently renovated. There’s Wi-Fi access and a flat-screen TV. Each room has its own bathroom, also renovated.

The house actually has rooms on two levels, but alas, those on the third floor aren’t available to guests. Had they been renovated too, the North Fork Table & Inn would have been considered a hotel under the zoning laws, rather than a B&B, and a different set of building codes would have applied. The owners considered it, but the cost was prohibitive.

The restaurant garnered plenty of attention, including positive reviews from Andrea Strong, Gael Greene and Newsday. Dining there was the main reason for our trip, though we also took in wineries, visits with my girlfriend’s family, and dinner at another, equally compelling restaurant, The Frisky Oyster.

“Northforkopoly” (click to expand)

We chose to visit in late winter, mainly because we wouldn’t have had a prayer of getting in during the summer. Had we been bored, we could’ve settled in for a game of Northforkopoly, the local version of Monopoly (board and pieces supplied) though we’d need to have our heads examined if we could find nothing better to do.

We arrived to find bucket with a bottle of water on ice, but there’s no mini-bar or coffee maker. For that you have to go downstairs. Breakfast is served from 8:00–9:30 a.m., though when we wandered down much later than that, coffee and plenty of Fleming’s breakfast pastries were still available.

Dinner is served Wednesdays through Mondays, lunch Saturdays and Sundays. The lunch menu is similar to the dinner menu, though a bit less expensive and with smaller portions. At dinner, appetizers are mostly $12–18, though the foie gras starter is $25. Mains are $32–38. The five-course tasting menu is a bargain at $75, and though we didn’t order it, we noted that the portion sizes were generous. These prices are quite expensive by Long Island standards, and the restaurant is dependent on being regarded as a “destination” for out-of-town visitors.

 
Raw Hamachi and Seared Foie Gras (left); Potato Gnocchi in a Braised Veal-Tomato Ragout (right)

The menu relies on locally sourced ingredients wherever possible, though in the winter practically everything came from elsewhere. Chef Gerry Hayden paired Raw Hamachi with Seared Hudson Valley Foie Gras ($25), accented with glazed daikon, radish syrup, mustard cress and fleur de sel. I’m not sure if it was a mistake or a considered decision, but the foie gras was more crisped than seared, but its warm, crunchy texture was a terrific foil for the hamachi.

My girlfriend had the Potato Gnocchi in a Braised Veal-Tomato Ragout ($15), which was rich and hearty, but made with a heavier hand than some of the better gnocchi we’d had in the city recently.

 
Long Island Duck Breast (left); Shinn Estate Vinyards “Wild Boar Doe” 2005 (right)

You can’t get any more local than Long Island Duck Breast ($34), which we both chose as our main course. It was painted with a wonderful soy-honey glaze, and the duck slices had a hefty rim of wonderful fat, but I didn’t see the point of the accompanying crisp jasmin rice roll, which was too dull to share the plate with such assertive company.

The wine list is brief and fairly priced. Keeping with our determination to drink only local wines, we chose the wonderful and wittily-named Shinn Estates “Wild Boar Doe” ($55), a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc. Once again, we found that blends are dependable choices on Long Island, especially when you’re ordering a wine you’ve never heard of.

 
Cheese Plate (left): Coconut Tapioca (right)

We finished with the Cheese Plate ($12), which offered three American cheeses: a firm, raw sheep’s milk cheese from California, a crumbly raw cow’s milk cheese from Oregon, and a soft sheep and cow’s milk cheese from the Hudson Valley. The kitchen also sent out servings of the Coconut Tapioca with Passion Fruit Sorbet (normally $11), a terrific end to our meal.

I can’t close without commenting on a remarkable coincidence. A short while after we sat down, the table next to us opened up, and the next couple to arrive was the same couple that had been seated next to us at the Frisky Oyster. It’s not quite as improbable as if it had happened in Manhattan, but the chances of it happening are still awfully low.

Naturally we got to talking, and comparing notes about our meals on consecutive evenings. Which was better, the Frisky Oyster or the North Fork Table & Inn? The North Fork is fancier, more romantic, and more elegant. But what about the food? It’s awfully close, but several of us thought the Frisky Oyster had the North Fork beaten by a nose. Even between the four of us, we tasted only a fraction of the menus at both places, so it’s not a definitive judgment, by any means. You can have—check that, you will have—a terrific meal at either restaurant.

We loved our visit to the North Fork Table & Inn. The owners are outgoing and accessible. This is their passion, and they will do everything they can to make your visit a happy experience. Service is attentive and flawless, as you’d expect in a restaurant with so many Gramercy Tavern alumni in its midst.

We certainly hope to be back.

North Fork Table & Inn (57225 Main Road, Southold, Long Island)

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