Fedora

Gabriel Stulman hadn’t planned to open another restaurant so soon. After launching Joseph Leonard in late 2009 and Jeffrey’s Grocery in late 2010, he was in no rush to expand his empire. But when 90-year-old Fedora Donato decided to retire from the West Village space she’d occupied since 1952, Stulman felt he had to take it.

The new Fedora has very little in common with the old, but it was a shrewd move to keep the iconic name, as Keith McNally did at nearby Minetta Tavern. I’m not sure how much of the décor he kept, aside from the neon sign outdoors, but the renovation took more than half a year.

The deep, narrow space, as now re-decorated, features a long, pretty bar (which serves a full menu) on one side and and an odd assortment of tables—some wood, others marble; some square, others round—on the other.

Much like David Chang, Stulman has become a savant for the no-reservations movement, giving a variety of (usually self-serving) reasons why they aren’t taken at Joseph Leonard or Jeffrey’s. He’s changed his tune at Fedora, or perhaps is changing it daily. Less than a month ago, Adam Platt wrote in New York that reservations are taken only for parties of four or more. Currently, they’re taken for parties of two or more, but only on the same day.

I am actually surprised that he relented. I was seated without a reservation at 6:15 p.m. on a Friday evening, but the place was full shortly thereafter, and the hostess turned away a steady stream of walk-ins. There is very little waiting space when the bar is full, and perhaps he now takes reservations to avoid alienating his neighbors, who might be annoyed by a long queue on the formerly quiet street. Make no mistake: queue, they would. Fedora is as big a hit as all of Stulman’s other places.

The kitchen, no longer Italian, is run by Mehdi Brunet-Benkritly, an alumnus of the famed Montreal restaurant Au Pied de Cochon. (Another PdC vet runs the hit Long Island City diner, M. Wells.) The menu isn’t a knock-off of his old haunt at all: there isn’t a single foie gras dish, whereas Au Pied do Cochon serves it by the bucket. Appetizers are $9–14, entrés $20–28 (not counting the obligatory côte de boeuf for two, $85), side dishes $8.

I adored the Cured Spanish Mackerel ($12; above left), served on a bed of puréed avocado with crushed chips for textural contrast. But a fine Crisped Duck Leg (above right) was ruined in a heavy slurry of barbecue sauce, a misconceived dish if ever there was one, and at $22 it is not exactly a bargain for such a small portion. The conceit of serving every dish in a bowl, whether it’s suitable or not, is not exactly endearing.

The staff is friendly and well trained. It is surely not their fault that the bread service consisted of two meager slices smaller than the palm of my hand, with soft butter that you’re expected to spread with the same knife given out for the appetizer. The two-page wine list is international, and fairly priced by my reckoning (see Decanted for more). The server offered a taste before pouring a glass of a Chateau Smith, a courtesy many expensive restaurants shamefully omit.

For all its limitations, I was prepared to love Fedora. I had a terrific dish and a dud, and at this point I can’t say which one was the aberration.

Fedora (239 W. 4th Street near W. 10th Street, West Village)

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

Brats & the Little Cheese Pub

Note: Brats closed in May 2011, and the Little Cheese Pub expanded into the space. The Little Cheese Pub has since been sold.

*

Brats and the Little Cheese Pub, though technically separate restaurants, might as well be discussed together. They have the same chef, occupy adjacent Chelsea storefronts, and opened within three months of one another.

And they share a theme seen a lot lately, common to places like Macbar, the Meatball Shop, and Crif Dogs: a narrow focus on many versions of just one dish: wieners and sausages at Brats; cheese at the Little Cheese Pub. The chef, Daniel Angerer, has a serious, full-service restaurant, the Austrian-themed Klee Brasserie. I found it underwhelming, but that was four years ago, and much may have changed since then.

That Angerer would open a cheese pub is ripe with irony, as he is best known for putting a recipe for breast milk cheese (his wife’s) on his blog. After the story was picked up in the Post, the health department told him to take the human cheese off the market. He later denied he had served it in his restaurant, but Gael Greene got a private tasting:

Surprise. It’s not the flavor that shocks me—indeed, it is quite bland, slightly sweet, the mild taste overwhelmed by the accompanying apricot preserves and a sprinkle of paprika. It’s the unexpected texture that’s so off-putting. Strangely soft, bouncy, like panna cotta.

If you’re not paying close attention, you could easily walk into the Little Cheese Pub expecting Brats, or vice versa. Indeed, I’d already taken a seat, and had to ask the server why the Cheese Pub menu seemed to have none of the wieners I was looking for.

The Little Cheese Pub resembles a conventional wine/beer bar, with its dark wood faux rural chic décor. There are several long communal tables and a number of two-tops with bar stools. You can order composed cheese platters, cheeses à la carte, or one of a half-dozen varieties of mac & cheese. The French Man Mac ($13; below left), served in a hot skillet, is better than it looks, with morbier cheese, balsam onions, and a hefty duck meat ball.

At Brats, there are eight sausage and wiener entrées, all house-made, $6.95–10.95, from a conventional bratwurst to a French duck sausage. An entertaining illustrated menu shows photos of the dogs, alongside models in seductive poses, with balloon quotes showing “wiener” double ententres.

The server said a similar menu is on the way for the milkshakes, which include such flavors as vanilla with bacon confetti, PB&J with honey popcorn, and the Volcano (not for children), infused with tobacco.

I ordered the Dragon (above right), a pork sausage with pickled kimchee cabbage, pea shoots, and a spicy sriracha mustard—not your standard hot dog, but I enjoyed its slow, tangy burn.

There’s a variety of side dishes (none of which I tried), and a generous selection of wines and beers. They’re all under $10, which makes sense, bearing in mind that this is basically an upscale hot dog stand. Most of the seating in the narrow space is at the bar.

Brats (362 W. 23rd St. between Eighth & Ninth Avenues, Chelsea)
The Little Cheese Pub (362½ W. 23rd St. between Eighth & Ninth Avenues, Chelsea)

Ditch Plains

Note: Ditch Plains on the Upper West Side closed in September 2014, due to an unaffordable rent increase. Ditch Plains in the West Village remains open.

*

Ditch Plains opened last month on the Upper West Side. The critics will ignore it, because it’s a clone of Ditch Plains in the West Village, which is now five years old. In a way, that’s a shame. It’s not that chef Marc Murphy is doing anything original, but a civilized restaurant from a chef with some ability, where you can dine happily on $20 entrées, deserves a shout-out.

Murphy is obviously not a risk-taker, in more ways than one. Rather than try his hand at something new, he replicated a concept that was already successful downtown. That was the formula too, when he cloned his Tribeca hit Landmarc at the Time-Warner Center. The menus at these restaurants don’t change very often, and they hew mainly to readily recognized comfort-food classics that don’t challenge the diner.

Murphy obviously has talent, and you have to wonder what he could do, if he ventured outside of his comfort zone. Instead, he makes news by winning the judges’ vote at the South Beach Burger Bash. Mind you, even winning a burger contest requires ability. It’s obviously not a fluke, as Peter Meehan of the Times loved the burger too, in an otherwise lukewarm review of the original Ditch Plains. (The restaurant got a more favorable reception from the Underground Gourmet in New York.)

The obscure name refers to a beach in Montauk. Despite the burger and a few other sops to landlubbers, Ditch Plains is supposed to evoke a seafood shack, albeit a pretty large one with 165 seats. The most expensive entrées are a lobster roll ($26) and a marinated skirt steak ($24); all of the others are $22 or less.

My friend, who was not aware of the West Village branch, thought that the menu was designed to appeal to children—hence, mac and cheese, hot dogs, wings, chili, and so forth. I think it’s just a coincidence, but the restaurant is perfect for the stereotype Upper West Side stroller-toting couple. Indeed, you’ll probably be sharing the dining room with young families, which is either a selling point or a drawback, depending on your perspective.

It’s also close enough for a casual, inexpensive meal before the opera: less costly and less crowded than the Lincoln Center restaurants. Reservations aren’t taken for parties smaller than six, but we had no trouble walking in on a Friday evening. When we left, at around 7:15 p.m., the dining room was about half full.

The kitchen turned out a very good bowl of mussels and fries ($20) and a perfectly respectable grilled fish (red snapper, I believe; $20). An appetizer of spicy pork meatballs ($13) was the highlight, an ample portion slathered in fontina cheese and tomato sauce, with grilled sourdough bread.

In common with Murphy’s other restaurants, the wine list features an abundance of half bottles, an innovation at the time that others have copied (Bar Henry, Ciano), albeit not widely. That might be the most original thing Murphy has done.

Ditch Plains (100 W. 82nd Street at Columbus Avenue, Upper West Side)

Food: ★
Service: ★
Ambiance: ★
Overall: ★

La Petite Maison

Note: La Petite Maison closed in July 2012 after a brief, undistinguished run.

Did you ever get the sense that Sam Sifton, the New York Times critic, doesn’t like food? Perhaps that would explain why his columns waste anywhere from a third to half the space reviewing the guests, rather than the restaurant.

This was the case last week, when he awarded one star to La Petite Maison, the import from Nice that opened recently in the old townhouse (formerly owned by the Rockefellers) that was once home to Aquavit and Grayz.

The photo on the left headlined the review, suggesting that La Petite Maison is a big party that just happens to serve food. Perhaps that’s the case some evenings, but not last Thursday. Instead, we found a normal adult restaurant, doing brisk business, not unlike many successful places that get the benefit of a fair review without such a misleading photo.

Admittedly, the name’s a bit of a dodge. The bi-level house isn’t petite at all. It’s loud when full, and the tables are so tightly packed that you’ll need the agility of a belly dancer to make your way across the room. We had probably the best table in the house, a four-top in the corner, set for a couple: at least the sound came at us from two directions, rather than four.

The old Grayz décor, which will be missed by no one, was jettisoned in favor of a bright, modern-looking room with handsome, Warholesque artwork on the walls, and crisp, white tablecloths. It’s not for twentysomethings. Downtowners will despise the obvious midtown vibe, but it’s nice to see a new place that’s not a clone of ten others you’ve been to.

It is a clone of one particular place, La Petite Maison in Nice. Alain Allegretti, of the eponymous (and sadly closed) Allegretti, was brought in as consulting chef. The nature or duration of his duties is unclear, but the menu has very little of his influence. It’s mostly a carbon copy of what they serve at the mother ship. (A Provençal soup seems to be his main contribution.)

Sticker shock may be the initial reaction, with appetizers $9–22 and entrées $24–45. If you’re getting tired of the recent trend of “entrées for two,” you may be irritated that five out of fifteen entrées are in that format. There is also a separate section dedicated to truffles, wherein you can indulge your taste for truffled eggs ($45), truffled macaroni ($55), or a truffle sandwich ($85). Roasted shrimp at $42 may seem inexplicable, but you can also dine quite economically on Cesar [sic] salad for $13, or black tagliolini with shrimp and sea urchin for $24.

Indeed, more of the items are sensibly priced than not, when adjusted for midtown rents. Salade Niçoise ($15) and Zucchini Blossom Beignets ($15) were good recreations of familiar classics. Chateaubriand for two ($70) was arguably a bargain: it’s slightly better, but much more expensive at Keens ($106), and these days there aren’t many places that serve this old favorite at all. And Keens doesn’t include the wonderful side dish of mashed potatoes, which was as soft and creamy as any you’ll find.

We experienced none of the obnoxious upselling that Sam Sifton complained about. Nevertheless, there were some odd service lapses. Baguettes (very good) came in a paper bag, without butter or bread plates. The chateaubriand came with two sauces (unnanounced), which I took to be the traditional au poivre and Bearnaise. But they came in water glasses, without serving spoons: most odd. And for $70, you’d think they could actually serve the steak, rather than just dropping a skillet into the center of the table. Our server disappeared for long intervals. Apparently, they didn’t mind that we occupied our table for almost three hours.

The menu is a bit cheap-looking, and is written in slightly awkward English, but the receipt is in French. I have to assume that they intended to use French all along, and chickened out at the last minute. This strikes me as a misjudgment: those who patronize French restaurants usually want the real thing. Some diners might not know that courgette means zucchini (that’s what translations are for), but is Salade Niçoise so intimidating that it needs to be replaced with “Traditional salad of Nice”?

These may seem like small points, but this is, after all, a French restaurant, where dinner for two will exceed $100 a head, assuming you don’t drink water. The wine list isn’t long, but if it’s short on bargains, it’s well worth exploring. How many restaurants offer a 1998 Château Vannières, much less at $85?

La Petite Maison could do a better job of embracing and celebrating its Niçoise heritage. In a month or two, the party revelers that Sifton complained about will have moved on to the Next Big Thing, and we’ll be left with a comfortable, upscale French restaurant for midtown adults.

La Petite Maison (13–15 W. 54th Street between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, West Midtown)

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

Burger Joint at Le Parker Meridien

Is there a more incongruous restaurant than the Burger Joint at Le Parker Meridien? The rest of the hotel is midtown swanky, with its $18 cocktails, its $1,000 frittata, and a pretentious lobby sign leading to “Rue 56.”

Behind an unmarked velvet curtain is a real “joint,” decorated with movie posters that could’ve come from a dorm room, and graffiti on the walls that could’ve come from a bathroom stall. There’s nothing upscale about it at all, but people have been lining up for the burgers since it opened without ceremony in 2002.

If you didn’t know it was there, you’d wonder what could possibly be behind that curtain worth waiting for. “Wait,” they do. Even at 3:00 p.m. on a Sunday—surely the definition of slack time—there was a solid twenty-minute line, snaking through the hotel lobby. My friend and I ordered Old Cubans in the lounge, while waiting for the queue to subside. What’s all the fuss about?

For your trouble, you get a medium-thickness all-beef cheesburger for $7.35, with a satisfying crust and a smoky char-grilled flavor. Excellent fries are $3.67. A pickle the thickness of a baseball bat (OK, not quite) is $1.38. A fresh brownie that two can easily share is $2.30. And all of that, for two people, is not much more than Norma’s charges for an order of French Toast.

It takes them less time to make a burger & fries than it takes you to consume them, so the joint’s dozen-or-so tables are perpetually packed. My friend Kelly had the system down pat. One person stands in line for food; the other hovers by a table where it appears they’re nearly finished, ready to pounce as soon as the previous occupants vacate. That system worked fine in mid-afternoon, but at lunchtime, I have to assume that most people take their burgers elsewhere. (Kelly said they do not allow Burger Joint food in the Parker Meridien lobby.)

It’s a very good burger, especially at the price, and certainly an “only-in-New York” experience.

Burger Joint (119 W. 56th St. between Sixth & Seventh Avenues, West Midtown)

First Look: Social Eatz

Note: Social Eatz closed in March 2013. Another concept from the same chef is expected to replace it.

*

Social Eatz is the new restaurant from Top Chef alumnus Angelo Sosa. After coming within a whisper of winning Season 7, he came back for the current “All Stars” season, and was eliminated about two-thirds of the way through.

He has bounced around a bit. His last place, a sandwich shop called Xie Xie, lasted only a shade over a year, although a problem with air conditioning in the building—not any deficiency in Sosa’s food or its popularity—was the reason it closed.

The menu at Social Eatz is casual and inexpensive, with all of its various categories ending in a ‘z’, like “soup’z,” “salad’z,” “app’z,” “burger’z,” “taco’z,” and so forth. The most expensive item is $12—the Bibimbap (Korean for “mixed meal”) Burger. You’d have to try really hard to spend more than $25 a head.

Sosa has been giving out a lot of free food, especially at lunch time. Last Thursday, the restaurant’s first night officially open, they weren’t charging anyone. I think I was recognized, but the staff said that every meal was on the house.

The cuisine is somewhat difficult to classify, with a mixture of American and Asian influences, and yes, tacos. Culinary styles are cross-polinated in most of the dishes, an approach that could crash and burn if the spices get even slightly out of whack. I liked both items I tried, and I have to assume Sosa is really cooking here—at least for now—as I didn’t see him schmoozing in the dining room.

Hot Wings ($9) are glazed in a tamarind, garlic, shallot, plum sugar, and Japanese togaroshi sauce, the latter incorporating red chili, roasted orange peel, and black sesame. You can’t make out all of the individual flavors, but they work together brilliantly. In Korean Beef Tacos ($9), tender skirt steak is marinated in a sweet/savory sauce and served in a house-made soft tortilla with spicy bean sprout kimchee.

Service was very good, especially for a restaurant this inexpensive. The host checked my coat, and there were cloth napkins. Staff seemed to know the menu well. After I finished the wings, the server brought out a hot towel for me to wipe off the barbecue sauce. That’s not bad for a place where the food bill would have been $18. (Alcohol wasn’t available, as the liquor license hadn’t come through yet.)

I’m not sure why Sosa is content to do this kind of food, when he is clearly capable of much more. For now, this is the idiom in which he chooses to work. His brand of fusion cuisine won’t be to all tastes: to some, his palate may be too sweet, or not tart enough. But you’ve got to hand it to a guy who is serving food of this quality, in a decent-looking midtown space, for about $20 a head.

Social Eatz (232 E. 53rd Street between Second & Third Avenues, East Midtown)

Spasso

Note: Chef Craig Wallen left Spasso in February 2013. Ed Carew replaced him.

*

There’s a bit of Italian fatigue in the city right now, no question about it. Perhaps the glut of new high-end Italian places in late 2010 pushed Spasso, which opened Christmas week, right off the radar.

But on the strength of one visit, albeit solo, Spasso punches well above its weight class. All three of the items I tried resembled familiar dishes, but none were slavish copies of those found elsewhere. All were prepared with flair and technical precision.

This comes as no surprise, when you consider the talent behind Spasso. The chef, Craig Wallen, was previously chef de cuisine at Convivio and L’Impero, and worked at Gramercy Tavern and Lupa. The co-owner and partner, Bobby Werhane, was at Dell’anima, L’Artusi, and Choptank. That’s an impressive resume (ok, maybe not Choptank).

This food could have found a home at the Michelin-starred and recently closed Convivio, where Chris Cannon would have charged more, for portions half the size. Antipasti are $8–15, pastas $15–20, entrées $22–29, side dishes $8.

House-made Stracciatella ($9; left), or stretched mozzarella in olive oil, was like a cold cheese soup, with ribbons of cheese resembling tagliatelle. You spread it on the grilled bread provided, or just eat it with a fork, as if it were the pasta course.

Charred Octopus ($15; above left) was tender and smokey, and nicely complemented by cucumbers, yogurt, and mint. Beautiful orechiette ($19; above right) joined forces with rock shrimp and crab meat, with bread crumbs adding a satisfying crunch. It was a crime to leave half of it behind, but I’d overdone it on the first two courses.

Wines by the glass were a bargain too, with real choices having a few years of age on them, and none over $13.

The space is casual, but the tables have tablecloths, and the service is more polished than it needs to be. Most people seated at either of the two separate bars (one of them near an open kitchen), are there to eat, the places already set with that in mind. Even on a Sunday evening, the space was bustling.

There is much more to Spasso, but if the rest of the menu is as good as this, I can’t wait to try more of it.

Spasso (551 Hudson Street at Perry Street, West Village)

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

Hotel Griffou

Note: This is a review under chef David Santos, who left the restaurant in August 2011. After chef shuffles too numerous to mention, the restaurant closed in August 2012.

*

If only the owners of Hotel Griffou had had the good sense to hire David Santos as chef from the get-go. Instead, they hired a journeyman best not named, who got zero-star reviews from both the Times and New York.

Those owners, veterans of sceney joints like Freemans, the Waverly Inn, and La Esquina, may have thought the scene would follow them there, never mind the food. It didn’t, and the restaurant got a re-boot.

Enter Santos, who was last seen marrying his Portuguese heritage to French technique at 5 & Diamond, where his cuisine was too challenging for the neighborhood. It fits right in at Hotel Griffou. The crowds, if not at capacity, are slowly catching on.

Too bad it’s almost impossible to get the critics to re-visit. They’d have to rename the restaurant for that. But if the critics ever do return, they’ll find an excellent menu completely changed from the one that got no stars in 2009.

Hotel Griffou isn’t a hotel at all. It’s named for a boarding house that occupied the site in the 1870s. It has had many other names since then, most recently Marylou’s. The place is laid out as a series of connected rooms, each decorated in a different theme: library, salon, bat cave (just kidding). They’re a bit kitschy, but cute all the same. There’s not another space quite like it.

The food is on the expensive side, with appetizers $11–18, entrées $24–45, or an $18 burger. Long-term success depends on attracting and retaining a clientele that recognizes the technique and craftsmanship in Santos’s dishes. This isn’t just a neighborhood canteen.

My friend Kelly had the fresh oysters off the specials list (above left), but I had to try the Tuna Bolognese ($14; above right), a stunning dish the food boards are in love with. A classic tagliatelle with Italian tomato sauce, and the added delight of shredded, high-grade tuna, it deserves all the accolades it can get.

The kitchen sent out an extra mid-course, a luscious Organic Poached Duck Egg with gnocchi and arugula pesto (normally $11; above left); and meaty, Seared Sea Scallops with roasted pineapple, jalapeño, and piquillo tempura (normally $16; above right).

Roast Suckling Pig ($30; above left) was a tender, hearty entrée, with its accompaniments of butternut squash, sunchokes, hazelnuts, and brandied plums. So-called Peking Style Duck ($32; above right) was mildly disappointing, as the presence of a token pancake wasn’t enough to remind me of that iconic dish. The duck itself was beautifully done, and gained nothing from the comparison to a preparation it doesn’t really resemble.

Of the desserts we tried (all $10), two very good ones balanced one dud. We enjoyed the Coconut Pineapple Chiboust with Spiced Rum Ice Cream (above left), and an extra one the kitchen sent out, the Chocolate Hazelnut Brioche Pudding with Hazelnut Anglaise and Tahitian vanilla Bean Ice Cream (above center). But a Poppyseed Soufflé (above right) was ruined by an inedible, sickly-sweet Limoncello Sorbet, and it was not a particularly good soufflé either.

We were known to the house, and received very good service, but I didn’t notice any difference at the other tables. The crowded bar was a completely different story. There, we struggled to get the bartender’s attention, and the $15 cocktails were just average.

If your perception of Hotel Griffou is colored by the early reviews of a chef no longer there, you should put them out of your mind. David Santos is now serving destination food, well worth the trouble of going out of your way to visit.

Hotel Griffou (21 W. 9th Street between Fifth & Sixth Avenues, Greenwich Village)

First Look: Teqa

Teqa is a new tacos-and-tequila place on the western edge of Kips Bay. Someone with talent is doing their P.R., as the restaurant managed the rare feat of getting the chef’s photo into Florence Fabricant’s weekly New York Times column, Off the Menu.

That chef is Lisa Schoen, who has worked as a Food Network stylist and as the private chef for Saturday Night Live, the Rosie O’Donnell Show, and for New York Yankees star Derek Jeter. She also appeared on the Food Network competition show Chopped. This is her first restaurant, as far as I can tell.

The owner is Derek Axelrod, who has worked as head of product placement for his family’s company, French Connection apparel. The website says that he “built a number of restaurants,” without naming them. The site is not shy about getting to the point: if Teqa succeeds, it will be “expanded to other locations,” that is, cloned.

The dining room is attractive, with dark wood tables, dim lighting, and a spacious bar with 100 tequilas on display. (The illustration, above left, is a concept rendering from the website; the actual space looks a bit different.) Mercifully, the sound track is quiet enough to allow a conversation without having to yell.

I don’t usually visit restaurants on the first night of service, as I’d rather give them time to work out the kinks. But I had a craving for this type of food, and I figured that tacos and guacamole were fairly low-risk bets. There were minor service glitches that I won’t even bother to mention. Teqa was running well, for an opening night.

An initial reaction is that such a nice space could offer more than just appetizers, tacos, salads, and sandwiches. Not that there’s anything wrong with the food I sampled, which was very good for the price, but I think a broader menu would work well here.

Another reaction is that the kitchen can afford to amp up the heat. Two kinds of “Guac & Chips” ($11) are offered: “Mellow or MEGA-WATT.” I ordered the latter, which I found pleasantly spicy. But those who expect a three-alarm fire from the words “mega-watt” might be a bit disappointed.

I had the same issue with a Spicy Cucumber Margarita ($11), which didn’t live up to its billing. When I pointed this out, the bartender made an extra-spicy version of their oddly named “Tommy’s Margarita” ($9), which was much more like it. I am not really sure what accounts for the $2 price difference between the two.

A side order of fries (sent out as a comp; normally $8) was an unexpected delight. They had all the heat that was missing from the other dishes. A visit for the fries alone would be well worth it.

There are eight kinds of tacos, served on house-made soft tortillas (except for the so-called “Old School,” which comes in a hard shell). They cost $13 for three, but you can’t mix and match. I had the Guiness Braised Short Rib tacos, with roasted corn, frizzled leeks, Cojita cheese, and an unspecified “Teqa sauce.” It’s an excellent creation, but in keeping with the evening’s theme, a shade under-seasoned.

I’ll emphasize again that it was the first night of service, and seasoning could very well be adjusted in the coming weeks as the kitchen gets into its routine.

As of today, the front page of the website is a blog entry showing photos of all the celebrities that attended the restaurant’s opening party. That’s the wrong strategy. Diners who chase celebrities have the attention span of a flea: it won’t be long before they move to the Next Big Thing. Long-term success depends on attracting customers who care about the food, not those who care about the Big Names who supposedly have dined there.

On this showing, the food at Teqa is worth showcasing. For someone who hasn’t run a restaurant before, Chef Schoen seems to have her act together. If you’re in the Murray Hill or Kips Bay area, it’s well worth dropping in.

Teqa (447 Third Avenue between 30th & 31st Streets, Kips Bay)

David Burke Kitchen

David Burke, the playful chef who serves cheesecake lollipops and lobster “steaks,” has taken his act to the James Hotel in Soho. His new restaurant, David Burke Kitchen, occupies a charmless basement that could double as a fallout shelter.

“It’s a challenge to make a basement attractive,” he told the Times. I’ll say.

They’ve done their best to gussy it up. There’s a long, handsome bar, widely-spaced bare wood tables, and a fully exposed kitchen. If you’re sufficiently distracted, you might not notice that the space has only tiny slivers for windows, at ceiling level.

Burke has done business with this hotel chain before: their Chicago branch hosts his steak place, David Burke Primehouse. So why did they offer him, and why did he accept, the hotel’s worst space?

The reasons could be related to Burke’s apparent willingness to franchise himself all over the place, whether it’s David Burke at Bloomingdales, the now-closed Hawaiian Tropic Zone (practically a strip club without the lapdances), or a bowling alley. If you pay enough for his celebrity, then you can put the restaurant into whatever godawful space you choose.

Or maybe David Burke Kitchen is meant to be a more serious effort, like David Burke Townhouse (the former David Burke & Donatella) and Fishtail on the Upper East Side. Despite their unevenness, those places are real David Burke restaurants, not just consulting engagements. On the right day, they can be very good.

The menu is full of Burke’s trademark whimsy: Ants on a Log; a pretzle crab cake; prawn sauce made in a duck press. Most of these dishes may even be good, but can it last after he moves onto the next project? He was ever-present in the dining room last Friday night—at least looking the part of a working chef, though I had no illusions that he was actually doing anything but schmooze.

Prices are lower than at his Upper East Side places, but not cheap, with appetizers $12–17, entrées $22–45, and side dishes $7. There was no amuse bouche, but bread service was impressive for a downtown restaurant, with three kinds of bread (I had the cranberry walnut), and what appeared to be house-made butter.

Bison Tartare ($14; below left) was wonderful, topped with egg salad and smoked tomatoes, with fingerling potato crisps on the side.

There is a rabbit in the restaurant’s logo, and an ever-changing rabbit dish has been on every menu I’ve seen. The version I had ($28; above right) crossed the line from inventive to bizarre. Rabbit medallions were stuffed with chorizo sausage, with two King Crab claws on top, a soupy risotto on the bottom, and at least two sauces. The individual components weren’t bad, but it looked and tasted like an entrée designed by committee.

I dined at the bar, where the server was knowledgeable and attentive. The two cocktails I had were well made, if on the expensive side: the Rabbit Hunter ($14) with bourbon, ginger beer, fresh mint, and lime; and The Border ($15), with tequila, mezcal blanco, ginger, agave, and a slice of beef jerky on a spear.

As I’ve noted before, hotel restaurants are lower-risk projects than stand-alone ones, as the hotel subsidizes the space, and its guests provide a captive audience. It’s an open question whether David Burke Kitchen has staying power with fickle downtown diners, especially if Burke himself doesn’t stick around to keep his whimsical menu from running off the rails.

David Burke Kitchen (27 Grand Street at Sixth Avenue, in the James Hotel, Soho)

Food: ★
Service: ★★
Ambiance: ★
Overall: ★