Viva Pancho

On Friday night, I found myself suddenly hungry after a visit to the Times Square Toys “R” Us. The area is pretty much the death valley of fine dining. The wait at Virgil’s Real Barbecue was at least 45 minutes. Next door, a Mexican guy right out of Blazing Saddles was trying to attract patrons to Viva Pancho. I was hungry enough, so I decided to take the plunge.

This was the peak pre-theater hour, and there were plenty of tables free, so I assume you can get into Viva Pancho anytime you want. The walls are covered with vintage Mexican photographs, which offer a respite from the usual Mexican restaurant décor.

The menu is 100% Mexican standards, but I went for the grilled salmon ($16), an off-menu special. You don’t expect much for an entrée under $20, but the salmon was nicely done, and it came with a serving of peas that were far more sweet and moist than usual. Among people who know me, it’s a running joke that I almost never finish the vegetables, but I really loved those peas. Rice was unremarkable, and black beans were too watery.

Sangria comes by the glass, half pitcher, or full pitcher. A half pitcher ($12.95) was enough for four glasses, and the sangria, studded with brandy, was surprisingly good.

I wouldn’t make a special trip for it, but if you’re in the neighborhood and have a Mexican craving,  Viva Pancho is inexpensive and not bad at all.

Viva Pancho (156 W. 44th Street, east of Seventh Avenue, Theater District)

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

Hiatus

My son and I are off to California to visit my brother’s family. After a couple of days there, we’ll take a long drive up the Pacific Coast Highway.

Blog posts will be either scarce or non-existent for the next 10 days.

 So much for that! Our trip started out as a comedy of cancellations.

In the first place, my son was supposed to fly from Tampa to New York on Friday night. Then, we would have flown together from New York to California on Saturday. His trip to New York was cancelled (JetBlue, natch!), so I spent another $280 to fly him on Delta from from Tampa to California direct.

Then, my flight to California on American was cancelled too. Now, here’s the rub: when there are a bunch of cancelled flights during a busy travel period, you’re usually stuck for several days, because all of the later flights are pretty close to fully booked. So, I can’t get out to California till Monday.

Assuming no further snafus, we’ll at least get most of the vacation we planned, although I’ll only have one evening with my brother’s family before we hit the road. 

The Co-op Chronicles: Open House

So, I was intrigued with Cabrini Boulevard in Hudson Heights. An ad in the Times showed an open house at 340 Cabrini Boulevard the following Sunday, so I decided to take a look.

Here’s what the listing said:

340 Cabrini Boulevard, #603. Note the view of
the Hudson outside the living room window.Simply priceless. Imagine drinking your morning coffee while watching the seasons change across the Hudson River along the Palisades. Imagine sipping a glass of wine from a private terrace and watching the sunset every night. Now imagine that it all belongs to you and that the terrace and views come with 3 bedrooms; a beautifully appointed kitchen with granite counters and stainless appliances; amazing closet space and 2 marble baths with a Jacuzzi in the master suite. This amazing home boasts one of the most spectacular views in Hudson Heights and in fact all of Manhattan! If you feel like expanding your universe, the roof deck is perfect for entertaining. Live steps from great restaurants and shopping, Fort Tryon Park and The Cloisters. This mint condition condominium is ready to move in today!!!

Floorplan at 340 Cabrini BoulevardYou can’t always trust a broker’s listing, but this one turned out to be entirely accurate. The apartment (listed at $995,000) was owned by a couple of Connecticut guys who used it as a pied à terre. It was impeccably decorated, and seemed to be very lightly used. The building, which is relatively new, is in terrific shape. The floorplan (right) was obviously designed to ensure that all three bedrooms would have river views. But because of the “angled” layout on the right side, the living/dining area is somewhat cramped.

The following week, I came back with my girlfriend. We had another look at the same apartment, and one with the identical layout two floors below. It was not as attractively decorated as the first one, and had a very lived-in look. However, it was listed for $50,000 less. As the agent put it, “Go upstairs and steal their decorating ideas; then, come down here and buy this one for less money.”

Exterior at 125 Cabrini BoulevardWe weren’t so sure, so we moved on to 125 Cabrini Boulevard, several blocks south. The building, Hudson Gables, is in the Tudor Revival style, one of the two dominant architectural styles in Hudson Heights, along with Art Deco.

The common areas, however, are much more dowdy looking than 340 Cabrini. We were amused to find that you had to go up two small stairs to get to the elevator. What’s the point of having an elevator, if you have to climb stairs to get to it? The broker conceded that the building had had “management problems” in the past, which she said have now been rectified. The building is on the odd-numbered side of the street, and thus does not have the spectacular panoramic views of the earlier apartment.

Floorplan at 125 Cabrini BoulevardIt’s worth looking at the layout, which in New York real estate parlance is called a “Classic 6.” The living room and dining room are both fairly large, but each of the two bedrooms has only one small closet. In the lower right corner of the floorplan is a “maid’s room.” Nowadays, most people would use it as a child’s bedroom or a guest room, but it is clearly much smaller than the others.

We found out that the co-op itself owns the unit, and has been trying to sell it for a while. They did a partial renovation, but it’s still very plain on the inside, and the bathrooms aren’t very attractive. The washer-dryer hookup is a definite plus: something seldom encountered in apartment buildings from this period. (It’s a converted shower stall.)

360 Cabrini Boulevard

We weren’t enthralled at 125 Cabrini, so we headed back up to 360 Cabrini, the last building on the side of the street facing the river, before you get to Fort Tryon Park.

There was a brief snafu, and initially we found ourselves at the wrong open house. We saw a 1 BR that looked like a flophouse. It was so icky that we could barely stand to look at it. We couldn’t imagine why someone who wanted to sell their apartment would leave it in such a filthy, cluttered condition. Wouldn’t the broker read the riot act to that owner?

We finally found the apartment we had really meant to see. The building has separate elevator banks serving the street side and the river side. The “lobby” on the river side is the fifth floor, because of the different elevation in back. The agent who showed us around was like Barbra Streisand without the singing voice. A real-estate version of Fanny Brice.

Here’s the listing:

River view from 360 Cabrini BoulevardIncredible Views Of The Hudson River! Come home to this lovely, just renovated Pre-war classic 6 room in a fabulous Art Deco building. This apartment features a large foyer, step down living room three bedrooms, two windowed bathrooms, all rooms have views of trees & the river. Apartment also includes a spacious windowed eat-in kitchen, generous closets, 9 foot ceilings, inlaid hardwood floors and tons of pre-war charm. Cabrini Blvd is located in Hudson Heights, a charming neighborhood with the beauty of the Cloisters and the convenience of the A train.

Floorplan at 360 Cabrini BoulevardIf anything, this write-up undersold the apartment. We were floored—especially after being so grossed out by the first unit we saw. It turns out the previous occupant was a long-standing tenant who pre-dated the co-op conversion. After she left, the owner did a gut renovation. It looks like it was built yesterday. The hardwood floors were completely replaced. The appliances still have plastic on them. The bedrooms are all full-size. There are eight closets, including two in the master bedroom.

Had I done the renovation myself, there are some things I would have done differently. The bathrooms have pedestal sinks. I hate pedestal sinks, as they leave you with no room to store the kinds of things that belong in a bathroom, are too big for the medecine cabiniet, but that you don’t want in plain sight. The owner also demolished the wall separating the dining nook from the living room. I would have left that wall intact.

Still, it is one of the better 3 BR layouts I’ve seen, is essentially brand new, has unobstructed river views, is 5 minutes’ walk from the 190th Street “A” station, and was listed at $995,000. I wasn’t going to find a better deal than that.

My girlfriend and I went for a long walk in Fort Tryon Park, then went downtown for coffee in Chelsea. After beating around the bush, I said abruptly, “I’m making an offer.” Just two weeks previously, I had no plans to buy anything for at least another year. Now, I was putting myself on the hook for almost $1 million.

To be continued…

Dani

Note: Dani closed as of January 1, 2008. It’s tough to make it in Hudson Square.

*

If a restaurant is good enough, there’s practically no such thing as a bad neighborhood in New York. Put differently, there’s no neighborhood that diners won’t trek to—for the right reasons.

But some neighborhoods definitely have their challenges, including Hudson Square. Starting with the fact that many New Yorkers haven’t even heard of Hudson Square. Roughly, it’s the rectangular patch bounded by Canal Street, Houston Street, Sixth Avenue, and the Hudson River. Some sources quote slightly different borders. Others call it by different names, such as West SoHo, South Village, or best of all, HoHo (it’s between Houston and the Holland Tunnel).

There’s not much to draw pedestrians to Hudson Square. The retail trade is practically nonexistent. Many of the buildings are stubby monoliths, occupying entire square blocks. They aren’t a welcoming sight. The neighborhood has long ago shed its warehousing and manufacturing image, embracing the new economy and condo loft conversions. But it has none of the chic of TriBeCa to the south, SoHo to the east, or the Village to the north.

Enter Dani, a Sicilian–Italian trattoria at the intersection of Hudson and Charlton Streets in Hudson Square. The opening was well publicized, and the restaurant drew a relatively enthusiastic one-star review from Frank Bruni. But I gather Dani still isn’t drawing the traffic it needs, because recently they invited me to dine as their guests.

The appetizers at Dani are in two groups: Per La Tavola ($7–19), mostly crudo selections arranged for sharing; and standard antipasti ($8–13). Cured meats ($14; above left) were top-notch, although what really had us hooked was the house made ricotta. From the antipasto list, grilled octopus ($13; above right) with oregano, parsley potatoes and sherry vinegar made a terrific noshing snack to start with.

There’s a recurring series of daily specials, of which the kitchen sent out three for us to sample:

• Carbonara con Prosciuto e Uovo di Anitra ($21; Mondays; above left). Spaghettini with house made duck prosciutto, duck egg, black pepper, pecorino. This rich dish was the hit of the evening.
• Porchetta di Coniglio ($27; Thursdays; above center). Whole roasted rabbit stuffed with rabbit and pork sausage. Also an extremely impressive dish.
• Polpettone di Pesce Spada ($20; Fridays; above right). Swordfish meatballs, marinara, neopolitan rigatoni. We found the swordfish meatballs a wonderfully clever idea. The dish packed a lot of heat, and I thought the rigatoni were too large.

There’s a standard list of pastas ($17–19), none of which we tried. The secondi include half-a-dozen composed entrées ($23–27), and several “simply grilled” selections ($20–32), which come with a choice of side dish.

Seared Sea Scallops and Braised Pork Belly ($27; above left) were a combination I don’t recall encountering anywhere else, but I couldn’t resist two of my favorites on the same plate. They came with a garnish of cauliflower, capers, pine nuts, and raisins. I particularly loved the scallops, which were perfectly browned on the outside, sweet and moist on the inside.

Alas, Grilled Sausage ($20; above right) was a dud, suffering either from over-cooking or not enough moisture.

We weren’t especially wowed by any of the desserts (all $6). A Frangipane Tart (above left) didn’t yield easily enough to the fork. Mint Panna Cotta (above center) didn’t generate much excitement. House Made Ricotta Cheesecake (above right) didn’t have the creamy consistency of the better cheesecakes.

The décor at Dani is post-industrial chic. The brick walls and hardwood floors reflect plenty of sound. Service was solid, though it must be noted the staff knew they were being reviewed.

I was delighted to see a wine list with reasonable choices below $40. We chose a Colvecchio, Toscana 2000 Syrah from Castello Banfi ($75), one of several growers that Dani features. We thought it flattered the food extremely well.

My girlfriend and I enjoyed most of what we tasted at Dani. The restaurant is operating well above the level of a neighborhood trattoria (a genre of which New York has more than enough entrants). There were a couple of soft spots, but enough highlights to make it well worth a visit to an unfamiliar neighborhood.

Dani (333 Hudson Street at Charlton Streeet, Hudson Square)

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

The Co-op Chronicles: Cabrini Boulevard

So, I had decided that My Apartment—if it existed at all—was likely to be found on Cabrini Boulevard in Hudson Heights. A little background is in order, as even lifelong New Yorkers might not have heard of the neighborhood or the street.

Hudson Heights is the area bounded by 181st Street, Broadway, Fort Tryon Park, and the Hudson River. Like a number of Manhattan neighborhoods, the name is an invention of the real estate industry (think TriBeCa, NoLITa).

Historically, all of Upper Manhattan north of Harlem—that is, north of 155th Street was called Washington Heights. Brokers created the name “Hudson Heights” in around the mid-1990s, to create a separate identity for a neighborhood that was considerably more upscale, and less crime-ridden, than Washington Heights as a whole.

At the western edge of Hudson Heights is Cabrini Boulevard, formerly known as Northern Avenue. Some realtors call it the Park Avenue of Washington Heights. Most of the buildings along Cabrini Boulevard between 181st Street and 192nd Street are co-ops or condos. Many of them are built in the art deco style that pervades Washington Heights buildings from the ca. 1930s. The buildings on the western edge of Cabrini Boulevard all have unobstructed panoramic views of the Hudson River, the George Washington Bridge, and the Palisades.

At the northern end of Cabrini Boulevard is Fort Tryon Park, located on the site of a 1776 Revolutionary War battle between the 2,400-man Continental Army and 8,000 Hessian troops. (The Hessians won.) In 1917, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., purchased the site and hired Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., whose father had designed Central Park, to design a similar park for Upper Manhattan. There are 67 acres of winding pathways, with spectacular riverviews. The Cloisters, an outpost of the Metropolitan Museum of Art dedicated to medieval art, is located within the park’s boundaries.

No one would call Hudson Heights a culinary magnet, but a number of respectable restaurants have appeared in the area. The New Leaf Cafe, in Fort Tryon Park, is listed in the Michelin Guide. Most of the other restaurants are concentrated on either 187th or 181st Street. 181st Street is home to the only Starbucks above Harlem.

On the map, Hudson Heights appears to be a long distance from midtown. But due to the unusually wide spacing of the express stops on the A Train, it is actually only a 20-25 minute ride, and seven stops, from 190th Street to Times Square.

The uptown “A” subway stations themselves, unfortunately, are in deplorable condition. They are safe, but haven’t been maintained since they were built in the 1930s. At 190th Street, the platforms are 240 feet below ground level. It is one of the few stations where you take an elevator to reach street level. The entrance to the 190th Street station, at the edge of Fort Tryon Park, was constructed at the same time as the park itself. A massive concrete and stone structure in the Tudor Revival style, it is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Due to the psychological barrier of being so far uptown and the historically dubious reputation of the surrounding area in Washington Heights, apartments in Hudson Heights have always been priced well below comparable apartments downtown.

When I entered my criteria—a true 3 BR apartment $1 million in a safe Manhattan neighborhood near the subway—into various real estate search engines, Cabrini Boulevard was what kept coming back.

To be continued…

Daniel

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

My girlfriend and I had dinner at Daniel last Saturday night, the first visit for both of us. Daniel (pronounced “dahn-YELL”) is one of three French restaurants carrying the top honor of four stars from The New York Times. It is also the only remaining four-star restaurant not yet reviewed by Frank Bruni, the current critic.

The only clue to what Bruni might think of Daniel came in a December 2004 Diner’s Journal piece about one of chef Daniel Boulud’s other restaurants, Cafe Boulud:

I dropped by Cafe Boulud the other night. I went because I had recently visited the chef Daniel Boulud’s other two Manhattan restaurants but not this one, which happens to be many of my acquaintances’ hands-down favorite of the three. I can see why. It doesn’t have the starched self-consciousness of Daniel or the cheeky swagger of DB Bistro Moderne.

The reference to “starched self-consciousness” is entirely typical of Bruni, and suggests he doesn’t find Daniel as exciting as his predecessors did. Given his many other comments about similar restaurants, it also suggests that he simply doesn’t enjoy this style of dining.

We found nothing starchy about Daniel, except for whatever the laundry put in the table cloths. We found it polished, professional, and nearly perfect. It is perhaps the most “old school” of the three four-star French restaurants, which may explain Bruni’s hostility to it, and may also explain why Daniel received just two Michelin stars, while Le Bernardin and Jean Georges received three.

I’ve got the time only for a whirlwind tour of our meal at Daniel. We started with a tray of petits-fours (above, right). We continued with the six-course tasting menu ($155) with wine pairings ($75).

There were two choices for each course. We agreed on the first: Foie Gras Terrine (above, left), which was excellent, although not as special as the Foie Gras Brulé we so much enjoyed at Jean Georges. But foie gras can’t really be screwed up. We order the foie gras whenever a tasting menu offers it (which they usually do), and we’re seldom disappointed.

For me, next up was the Yuzu Marinated Snapper (above, right), which I found far too bland—the only dud of the evening. My girlfriend chose the Crab Salad, of which I had a taste. This was delightful, and put the marinated snapper to shame.

At the risk of being boring, I’ve nothing to say about Wild Mushroom Ravioli (above, left), except again that it was excellent. So was Dover Sole, which we attacked so quickly that I forgot to photograph it.

Last among the savory courses was the Due of Dry-Aged Beef (above,right). The “duo” is ribeye and short rib. It’s evidently one of Chef Boulud’s signature items, as it’s always on the menu. I always say that even a four-star restaurant can’t do steak like a good classic steakhouse, but this was one of the better “fine dining” renditions of steak that I’ve had.

We diverged again for the desserts; mine is the one on the left, hers the one on the right. We were feeling plenty festive by this point, and I’m afraid the desserts didn’t make much of an impression. You can see the photos and imagine them for yourself.

A wonderful tray of sweets and a bowl of warm sugar puffs (both pictured at right) concluded our meal on a high note.

I have not noted the wines, but this was one of the better pairings we’ve had, both as to the quality and the progression from one pour to the next.

Throughout the evening, we were thoroughly impressed with the service. It was never pompous or obsequious, simply correct in every possible way.

Daniel has a larger dining room than the other four-star restaurants, and there is a very large serving brigade. But they move through the room quietly and efficiently, never noticeable except when they should be.

The room won’t be to all tastes. We found it a bit over-the-hill, although we were impressed with the custom-designed bone china.

Except in Frank Bruni’s mind, there is nothing wrong—or at least, there shouldn’t be—with doing classic things well. We won’t visit Daniel every week, or even every year. When we are in the mood for that special kind of elegance, it’s wonderful to know that it’s there.

Daniel (60 E. 65th Street west of Park Avenue, Upper East Side)

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

Upstairs at Bouley Bakery

Note: Click here for a more recent visit to the restaurant, which closed in July 2010.

Upstairs at Bouley Bakery is the casual cousin to David Bouley’s eponymous Michelin two-star restaurant.

These days, it’s pretty common for high-end luxury restaurants to have an informal companion establishment serving less expensive fare. Jean Georges, The Modern, Country, and Gordon Ramsay all have versions of it (though the details vary). Usually, they are located in the same building. Upstairs is across the street. Unlike the luxurious mother ship, Upstairs doesn’t take reservations. Everything about it screams informality.

I’ve been hearing great things about Upstairs lately, and as I missed lunch at work today, I decided to drop in. At 6:15 p.m. on a weeknight, Upstairs is actually rather pleasant. There were only about five people there when I arrived, and it was still less than half full when I left.

That’s the best way to experience Bouley Upstairs. On weekends, the noise is deafening, and the servers need the agility of Romanian gymnasts to reach the tightly-packed tables. My last visit, on a Saturday evening, was so unpleasant that I really didn’t want to return. The food is great, but at some point the surroundings are just too oppresive to enjoy it. Visiting early on a weeknight changed the whole experience.

To start, I ordered the homemade gnocchi with gorgonzola in a cherry tomato sauce ($12). I was impressed with the pillowy softness of the gnocchi. It wasn’t at all chewy, as gnocchi tends to be when a less assured kitchen is preparing it.

Roast chicken ($15) came in a parsley root purée with grilled fava beans and a taragon sauce. I seldom order chicken in restaurants, but I wanted to see what Bouley’s team would do with such a humble meat. It was everything you could ask, remarkably tender and full of flavor.

The bread service is terrific, as you’d expect from a restaurant above a bakery. There are many three and four-star restaurants not serving bread as good as this (e.g., Jean Georges).

The staff are not as attentive as they should be. Even with the restaurant more than half empty, they don’t notice when your water glass needs filling, when your plate needs clearing, and so forth. The knife that I used to spread butter was left on my table for the appetizer course, and when I asked for a clean one, the server seemed flustered, as if it were an unusual request.

David Bouley has announced that the size of the restaurant will soon double. His Bouley flagship restaurant will move into the Mohawk Building at the other end of the block; the bakery will move into the space the restaurant is vacating; and Upstairs will expand into the downstairs space now occupied by the bakery. Got that?

Perhaps, once it has grown, Upstairs won’t feel quite as cramped as it does today. In its current configuration, nothing would persuade me to dine there on a weekend. But on a quiet weeknight, I can heartily recommend it. The food is first-class, and it comes at a remarkably low price. I mean, there are probably diners that charge $15 for their roast chicken without doing it half as well.

Upstairs at Bouley Bakery (130 West Broadway at Duane Street, TriBeCa)

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

The Co-op Chronicles: The Search

So I had decided to buy. What was I looking for?

• A “true” 3-bedroom apartment…
• In Manhattan…
• In good condition…
• Reasonably convenient to mass transit…
• In a neighborhood that won’t scare my 12-year-old son from Florida, or my 70-year-old mom from Michigan…
• For less than $1 million

In most cities, those conditions could be met with money to spare. In Manhattan, I was looking for a needle in a haystack.

Luckily, the search is considerably easier than the last time I went house-hunting, which was in the 1990s. Back then, you had to put yourself in a realtor’s hands. What you saw was totally dependent on what they chose to show you. You had no idea if you were seeing the best properties, or merely what they wanted to “push.” And it was nearly impossible to get a feel for a property without actually going to see it, so the search took up a lot of time.

Today, most of the major realtors advertise with The New York Times. Just go to the Times real estate page, and enter your search criteria (neighborhood, maximum price, number of bedrooms). The listings, too, are a lot more informative than they used to be. Besides the broker’s narrative description, you can usually bring up a floorplan, photos of the property, demographic information about the area, maintenance costs, and a lot more. You quickly find out whether what you’re looking for is realistic.

Obviously the listings are marketing, and can’t always be trusted. I mentioned that one of my requirements was a “true” 3-bedroom apartment. You might be wondering, what would a “false” one be? Well, in many cases what’s marketed as a 3-bedroom isn’t really. Perhaps the third “bedroom” is only a nook, which would require construction of a wall to become a real bedroom. Or perhaps it’s just a “maid’s room,” which means it’s only about half the size of a conventional bedroom.

Floorplan at 141 Attorney Street, #2CD

The listings also can’t give you a feel for the neighborhood. I saw a great listing for an apartment on Attorney Street on the Lower East Side that appeared to meet my criteria. That was before I actually went and looked at it. The Lower East Side may be gentrifying, but Attorney Street has a long way to go. Also, the building had a bar on the ground floor, and the unit for sale was on the second floor. On weekends, you can forget about getting any sleep.

After a while, you get accustomed to the standard euphemisms that realtors use to describe undesirable features. For instance, “Bring your decorator” means that the existing décor sucks. “Junior 3-bedroom” or “Convertible 3-bedroom” means that the third bedroom is less than what it should be.

Closets are a problem in many Manhattan apartments. Apartments with just one small closet in the master bedroom are quite common. You wonder: would any architect actually believe that two people’s clothes could fit here?

Anyhow, I quickly figured out that My Apartment did not exist in Manhattan below Central Park. Listings that initially appeared to meet my criteria always had something wrong with them. Otherwise, they would be more than $1 million.

Several listings in Harlem were compelling enough that I actually went uptown to look at them. Harlem is a beehive of upscale development. In 10 years, it could very easily be what Chelsea is today. But it isn’t yet. Even where the apartments themselves are compelling, I just can’t imagine bringing my 12-year-old son from Florida, or my 70-year-old mom from Michigan, to Harlem. It’s a lot better than it used to be, but you still need a lot of faith to live in Harlem.

One neighborhood consistently returned listings that met my criteria: Hudson Heights, and specifically, Cabrini Boulevard.

To be continued…

The Co-op Chronicles: Deciding to Buy

I’m buying a co-op. Over the next few months, I hope to chronicle the experience of buying a home in the New York market.

I live in a large studio apartment in Lower Manhattan. It actually looks like a 1 BR, as it has a “home office” (with a door that shuts) that I use as a bedroom. Legally, it isn’t a bedroom, because it has no windows. But as the leasing agent put it when I rented the place in 1999, “They’re not going to bang down your door in the middle of the night to see where you’re sleeping.”

A windowless bedroom isn’t such a bad thing. It is very quiet, and if you ever want to get sleep at an odd hour, the sunlight will never get in the way. It also means that if you oversleep, there’s no visual clue to whether it’s daytime or nighttime.

Lower Manhattan has been kind to me. With several subway lines within a few blocks of my apartment, I can be almost anywhere south of Central Park in under a half-hour. Amenities have improved considerably, as the Financial District continues its transition to a 24×7 neighborhood. For the amount of space I have, the rent has been reasonable by Manhattan standards, and it was quite good for the first few years after 9/11.

Despite all of that, I always considered this apartment a stepping stone to something larger that I would own, rather than rent. I didn’t expect to make that step for another couple of years. Then came the news that my apartment building is going condo, and it got me thinking.

The “insider price” for my 843 sq. ft. studio is $740,000. If you don’t live in New York, or haven’t researched the market, it will be hard to believe that that’s a good price. But it really is. For a unit that size, in good condition, in a doorman building near the subway, in a nice Manhattan neighborhood, you aren’t going to do much better. In many neighborhoods, you would pay a lot more.

However, buying a condo in Manhattan is a bit like buying a car: the instant you drive it off the lot, you’ve lost at least 10% of the value. For the car, it’s because of depreciation. For the condo, it’s because of steep closing costs on both sides of the transaction. Unlike a car, the condo eventually recoups that lost value. But unless the market is super-heated (which it isn’t right now), you have to hold on a few years. Practically every block downtown has at least one condo conversion, so I suspect that high inventory will put a damper on price appreciation.

I didn’t have to buy my apartment if I wanted to stay there. The condo conversion has a “no eviction” clause, which basically means I can live there forever, as long as I’m willing to pay market rent. The law also prohibits “unconscionable” rent increases, although it does permit very steep increases that are at the high end of “conscionable.”

With the very likely prospect of yet another rent increase this summer (when my lease is up), and very possibly a new and less friendly landlord (if I decline to buy the unit, and the sponsor sells it to another investor), I thought it was time to investigate my prospects elsewhere.

To be continued…

The Payoff: Nish

This week, Frankie Fiveangels made a winner of both Eater and NYJ, awarding the predicted two stars to Nish. Bruni seemed to love the food—indeed, the tone was more enthusiastic than a few of his three-star reviews have been.

The review trotted out more of Bruni’s trademark assault on traditional fine dining:

To trace the changes in upscale restaurants over the last few decades, you can survey the losers: Lutèce and white linens; servers in tuxedos and diners in ties. You can salute the winners: Nobu and filament bulbs; mix-and-match menus and polyglot cuisines.

Or you can look at a place that doesn’t quite fall into either category, a survivor that hasn’t thrived, now relaxing its guard to restore its vigor. It’s called March, or at least it was for 16 years, until the first week of January, when it was reborn as Nish, which is really March after a stint in whatever the opposite of finishing school would be.

It’s March minus some of the manners and mannerisms, March in (nicely pressed) jeans. It’s also an interesting answer to challenges that currently face fine-dining establishments. How do you present a sophisticated experience in an accessible way? In a dressed-down era, what still qualifies as a relished indulgence, and what’s just a prissy vestige of bygone days?

Do those challenges really exist? I mean, the restaurant business is challenging in general, but is there any good reason to single out fine dining in particular? I mean, look at the successful high-end restaurants that have opened in just the last few years: Per Se, Masa, Asiate, Country, Del Posto, The Modern, Cru, Gordon Ramsay. To those, add a much longer list of those that have been open five, ten, fifteen or more years, and are still thriving: for starters, Jean Georges, Le Bernardin, Daniel, Bouley, Oceana, La Grenouille, Chanterelle, Le Perigord, L’Impero.

The excerpt above is full of Frank’s trademark phrases, betraying his hostility to traditional luxury restaurants, despite the fact that many of them are still doing land-office business: “white linens”; “mannerisms” (like what?); “accessible” (suggesting that many restaurants are not); “prissy” (the cousin of “fussy,” one of his favourite words).

Yes indeed, Lutèce has closed. But so has the Second Avenue Deli. If you are determined to manufacture a story, you can cherry-pick whatever facts seem to support your theory, and ignore those which do not. It is undeniably true that high-end classic French restaurants in the Lutèce mold have become scarce. But fine dining itself has not. In a “dressed-down” era, sometimes people still do want to dress up.

To round out the week, we present the running scorecard. Eater and NYJ both win our two-star bets on Nish at 4–1 odds.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$3		$7
Gain/Loss	+$4		+$4
Total	+$7		+$11
*
Won–Lost	3–1		3–1