Brushstroke

Restaurant openings are notoriously prone to delay, but the wait for David Bouley’s Brushstroke was epic. Announced in October 2007, it didn’t appear until April of this year. Plans to take over the old Delphi space were scuttled: the restaurant now occupies what was Secession, and before that Danube—all Bouley productions.

The restaurant format is a hybrid. In the dining room, where we sat, there is a choice of three fixed-price kaiseki menus. At the counter, there’s a sushi menu, or you can order many of the kaiseki dishes à la carte.

The menu format is a bit clunky. You’re presented with the choice of an eight-course Vegetarian menu ($85) or a ten-course meat and fish menu ($135), but the longer menu can become a shorter one: the server explains what is omitted if you choose that option. After a while, you grow tired of overhearing the server repeat his explanation at one table after another.

You make your choice, the food starts coming, and all objections fall to the ground. Brushstroke is wonderful. We ordered the longer menu, and it was too much food. The eight-course menu should satisfy all but the most ravenous appetites.

This is no casual production. Bouley claims to have worked on the concept for a decade, and to have tried thousands of recipes in his test kitchen. His chef, Yoshiki Tsuji, runs an acclaimed culinary school in Osaka, Japan. There seem to be as many cooks in the enormous open kitchen and servers in the dining room as there are customers in the restaurant.

As the kaiseki style demands, there is a dazzling array of serving pieces, which are as artful as the food itself. I didn’t take notes: sometimes, I’m glad to be an amateur blogger who can enjoy the meal and not worry about remembering the details of every dish. You’ll have to make do with the photos, descriptions from the menu (the restaurant emailed me a copy, after I asked twice), and some bare-bones recollections.

Seasonal appetizers (above left) rested in a bowl partly concealed by an autumn-themed twig sculpture. Next came a luscious Kabocha Squash Soup (above right) with maitake mushrooms, walnuts, and pumpkin seeds.

The sushi (above left) was a tad underwhelming, but we loved the steamed Chawan-mushi (above right), an egg custard with black truffle sauce.

After sashimi (above left) came another highlight, an onion puré and kanten gelée floating in a beet-vinegar foam (above right).

For the first entrée, we both chose the Grilled Cape Cod Lobster and Lobster–Scallop Dumpling (above left) with an Edamame Purée and Cherrystone Clam Sauce, a terrific dish.

For the second entrée, my girlfriend chose the Wagyu Beef and Autumn Vegetable Sukiyaki (above right), while I chose the Yuzu-kosho Pepper Marinated Pork Belly (below left) with Malanga Yam Purée and Ponzu Sauce.

There is a choice of four rice dishes to end the meal. I had the Stewed Wagyu Beef over Rice (above right), which I was quite sorry not to be able to finish. My girlfriend had the Crab and Mushrooms Steamed with Rice in a Do-nabe Pot (below left), also excellent.

There were three pretty good desserts (above right and below), but I didn’t take note of them: sorry. We were by this time too full to appreciate them properly.

The meal ends with a refreshing cup of green tea (below).

The wine list has many pages of sakes and western wines, not inexpensive, but not out of whack with the cost of the meal. A 2006 Lucien Crochet Sancerre pinot noir, at $72, was about two times retail, a fair price.

The faux-Klimmt décor of Danube and Secession, one of the city’s gems, is alas no more. But they certainly have not stinted on the design of Brushstroke, a riot of blond wood and under-stated elegance.

You can understand why people are reluctant to open anything ambitious in New York. The city’s two most influential critics, Sam Sifton and Adam Platt, both gave it two stars, the same rating they’d give some random pasta joint. Count on the Post’s Steve Cuozzo to get it right: three stars.

Like any David Bouley production, there are some missteps. The only website for Brushtroke is David Bouley’s corporate site, which is tagged with the watermark, “Site in Development.” Want to look at a menu or download a wine list? Fuhgeddaboudit. This is really inexcusable. The place has been open for six months!

And as I mentioned, the menu format is somewhat confusing. Without looking up critics’ reviews, it isn’t even clear that a sushi and à la carte menu is available at the counter. Despite these missteps, the dining room is filling up routinely. Even a Wednesday evening had to be booked a month in advance.

It is well worth the effort.

Brushstroke (30 Hudson Street at Duane Street, TriBeCa)

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

Gazala's

Gazala Place in Hell’s Kitchen and Gazala’s on the Upper West Side claim to be the only outposts of Israeli Druze cuisine in New York, or indeed in the country. I’ve no reason to doubt it, given that the entire population of the little-known sect is just 120,00 in Israel.

Gazala Place, named for the chef Gazala Halabi, opened in Hell’s Kitchen in 2008. It seats just 18, and the kitchen is so small that the chef supposedly does some of the cooking at home. It won favorable reviews from Peter Meehan in The Times and Robert Sietsema in the Village Voice.

I won’t try to explain the technicalities of Druze cuisine: Meehan and Sietsema did it far more knowledgeably than I could ever hope to. You’ll find many ingredients familiar from other Middle Eastern cuisines, like goat cheese, grape leaves, bulgur wheat, eggplant, chickpeas, and lamb kebabs. Prices are very modest, with cold appetizers as low as $5 and most entrées below $20.

Gazala’s, the chef’s new place across from the Museum of Natural History, is a bit larger than the original. It takes reservations, but I gather it gets a significant walk-in crowd. Although OpenTable offered any time I wanted on a Thursday evening, the restaurant was just about full for the entire two hours we were there.

Promising food was marred by well-meaning but atrocious service. There seemed to be just one server for the whole dining room, and he couldn’t keep up with the demand. He was also very difficult to hear, in a room with the acoustics of a train station.

We ordered a mixed appetizer platter to start, followed by a whole deep-fried red snapper. A while later, the server returned to ask if we’d mind if both were served together. Yes, we minded. After another wait, the fish arrived, and seconds later, the appetizers. Both wouldn’t have physically fit on the table, even if we’d wanted them.

As we’d already started to dissect the fish, we sent back the appetizers. They returned after we’d finished the red snapper—obviously the same platter they’d brought out before, as items that should be warm were now cold.

Anyhow, I really liked the snapper ($28; above), but the cold appetizer platter ($33; below) had all the appeal of a stale buffet. It is probably better when it is served first, straight out of the kitchen, as was intended to be.

The wine list is mostly inexpensive, but the only Israeli wine on the list was something like $80. I wasn’t about to spend that for an appellation I didn’t recognize, so I ordered an unobjectionable $35 merlot.

If the service improves, Gazala’s could be a decent and inexpensive option on the Upper West Side, well positioned to take walk-ins from museum and park traffic. The space is pretty, but bare-bones, and as noted, punishingly loud when full. I doubt I’ll go again.

Gazala’s (380 Columbus Avenue at 78th Street, Upper West Side)

Fatty ’Cue (West Village)

Note: Fatty ’Cue (West Village) closed in May 2014. Fatty ’Cue (Williamsburg) and Fatty Crab (UWS) had closed previously, after founder Zak Pelaccio left the company. The West Village Fatty Crab is the only remaining member of the brood.

*

Zak Pelaccio’s brood of of Fatty Restaurants has now hit five with the arrival of a second Fatty ’Cue in the West Village, a slightly more upscale version of the the popular Williamsburg joint.

For the record, there are Fatty Crabs in the West Village, the Upper West Side, and on St. John, Virgin Islands; and also a chain of kiosks and food trucks called Fatty Snack. The new Fatty ’Cue was formerly the pop-up Fatty Johnson’s, and before that the unsuccessful Cabrito. Pelaccio calls the whole brood Fatty Crew.

If there’s a sense of monotony and a lack of range, it’s offset by Pelaccio’s uncanny sense for tailoring his restaurants to the neighborhoods they’re in. Pelaccio and his P.R. manager told Sam Sifton that this Fatty would offer “a slightly more grown-up menu and service style. . . .” Sifton added, “the seating will be comfortable and cozy, he said, and the room ‘will be quieter.’”

That’s all true. No one would call any Pelaccio restaurant formal, but the new Fatty ’Cue is more upscale than the UWS Fatty Crab, and considerably more grown-up than the original Fatty Crab or the Williamsburg ’Cue. It takes reservations and isn’t marred by the occasionally amateurish service that plagues the other locations.

At least, that’s my sense after two visits last week to a restaurant that is not yet a fortnight old. If they can keep it up, this could be the most enjoyable of the lot.

The cuisine is the same Southeast Asia-meets-barbecue theme of the Williamsburg restaurant, but there are very few dishes in common. The menu is in five sections, lightest to heaviest, though to call anything light here would be a bit of a joke. Plates range from $9 to $48, but most are under $20 and are suitable for sharing.

On my first visit, I ordered two dishes. This was the first time in my experience that a Fatty kitchen actually seemed to understand the concept of pacing a meal. Until now, Pelaccio’s restaurants were known for sending out food at the kitchen’s convenience, not the diner’s. Have they learned a lesson, or did I just get lucky?

I loved the Heirloom Tomato Salad ($13; above left) with pepper, fresh coriander, charcoal, and olive oil, resting in a pool of kimchi water. This is a typical late summer dish, but the spices and seasoning seemed just right. Heritage Pork Ribs ($12; above right) were juicy and enormous. One might complain at paying $6 a rib, but I couldn’t have eaten much more.

On my second visit, I ordered just one item: Deep-Fried Bacon ($18; above) with sweet and spicy salsa verde. It’s hard to come up with a bacon dish I don’t like, so bear that in mind when I tell you this one is excellent. The bacon is tender, with a crunchy crust from the fryer. Non-bacon addicts might be advised to share this one with a friend, but I was happy to eat it myself.

There’s a modest beer and wine selection, but I stuck with cocktails. The Chupacabra ($12;  tequila, chili-infused domaine de canton, fresh watermelon, lime) and the Smokin’ Bone ($13; bourbon, smoked pineapple, lime, chocolate bitters, tabasco) both pair well with the food. I’m especially fond of the latter.

I sat at the bar both times. On Wednesday at about 6:30 p.m., the restaurant wasn’t at all crowded. At the same time on Friday, I got the last free bar stool, and the hostess was quoting walk-in waits of an hour or more for tables. Service was the best I’ve had at any Fatty establishment. The bartenders were knowledgeable about the food and happy to explain the odd combinations of ingredients at length.

I don’t want to over-sell Fatty ’Cue, but in the early days it is the most enjoyable Fatty restaurant I’ve been to, with both food and service a cut above its brethren.

Fatty ’Cue (50 Carmine St. between Bedford & Bleecker Sts., West Village)

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

A Voce Columbus

Note: A Voce Columbus closed in August 2016, after a judge approved its petition for bankruptcy. Eater.com has a lengthy backgrounder, which states that the restaurant was $4 million in debt, and had been losing money since 2011. The review below was written when Missy Robbins was the chef; she left the restaurant in May 2013. The sister restaurant, A Voce Madison, remains open; one has to wonder how long that’ll last.

*

If you want to know what luxury dining in the city has come to, wrapped in one package, you might as well have a look at A Voce Columbus. The restaurant is clearly intended to appeal to high rollers, with its entrées mostly in the $30s and wine bottles that go as high as five figures. It was intended to earn a Michelin star (which it did) and three Times stars (which it did not).

But it remains punishingly loud, as it was when I visited two years ago. Its predecessor in the space, the failed Café Gray, shared the same drawback, and then some. As of today, the only improvement in the ambiance is that there are frequently empty tables, and hence, fewer human beings contributing to the cocophany.

Not that A Voce Columbus will be going out of business, but prime-time tables are now available at short notice, any night of the week. Thirty minutes in advance of my 7:30 p.m. reservation on a Wednesday, the staff seated me without a moment’s hesitation, once I spied that there were no vacant perches at the bar. By the time we left, the dining room was about two-thirds full.

The menu is expensive if you order the traditional four courses; on the other hand, if you order a pasta as your entrée (as my girlfriend did) and skip dessert (as we both did), A Voce becomes a pretty good mid-priced Italian restaurant.

The house-made bread with riccota cheese and olive oil (above right) remains a highlight, as it was two years ago.

The food is improved over my last visit. The menu emphasizes uncomplicated pleasures, but chef Missy Robbins does a good job in the niche she chooses to occupy. A perfect example is the Escarole Salad ($10; above left) with warm pancetta vinaigrette, a soft boiled egg, and pecorino romano.

I somewhat struggled with the point of Cassoncini ($11; above right), with a pile of prosciutto di parma, alongside a bowl of soft, swiss chard and crescenza cheese-filled pockets of warm dough—both wonderful on their own, but lacking any relationship that I could discern. My ignorance, perhaps.

Brodetto ($22; above left) with mussels was an excellent example of the chef’s skill with pasta. Lamb Chops ($38; above right) had a thick char and rich flavor, but discs of lamb sausage were too salty. If you check in on foursquare, they comp a side dish. We tried the broccoli rabe (below), normally $8, but it was also too salty.

The wine list is a 68-page marvel that can appeal to bargain-hunters and the super-rich alike, with bottles ranging from $25 to $18,000 (1900 Château d’Yquem; hurry up, only one left). There are pages upon pages of expensive Barolo and Brunello verticals, but the website says that over half of the 2,700 bottles are under $90. Indeed, there is plenty below $50, including the 2004 Alturio ($46; above right), one of the more enjoyable bottles we’ve had in a while at that price range.

For a restaurant this expensive, you’d like to see an amuse bouche and better petits fours than just a couple of sticky marshmallows (right)

Service was reasonably attentive. This isn’t the sort of restaurant where you just twitch an eyebrow to get a server’s attention, but they stay on top of things, and the sommelier circled back several times to ensure we were taken care of.

I remember when people joked about putting high-end restaurants in a shopping mall, but the location is ideal, served by subway lines on three avenues, convenient to Lincoln Center and the midtown business district.

I wish the space wasn’t so unpleasant, but if one wants to dine out, this is increasingly what we must accept nowadays.

A Voce Columbus (10 Columbus Circle, Time-Warner Center, 3rd floor)

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

Marble Lane

Note: This is a review under chef Manuel Treviño, who left the restaurant in May 2013. It later closed entirely and re-opened in January 2014 as Bodega Negra, a Mexican street food spot.

*

I’ve been trying to reduce my percentage of wasted restaurant meals—the places (usually newer ones) that I try, “just because they are there.” But some odd impulse last week brought me to Marble Lane at the Dream Hotel, a venue I should easily have guessed would be terrible.

The clues of a big-time fail are abundant, from the location slightly north of the Meatpacking District, to the heavy breathing from Eater’s Scott Solish when it opened. In charge are the same folks who created the money-printing machine (and culinary mediocrity) Tao, following it up with the even more dreadful Lavo.

As chef, they hired Manuel Treviño, who was famous for fifteen minutes on Top Chef (Season 4: eliminated after four episodes); then ran the now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t restaurant Travertine; and then moved to the aforementioned Lavo, where Sam Sifton goose-egged him. If you’re running Marble Lane, he’s just the guy you want. Right?

There’s a vaguely steak-focused “international menu,” and Grub Street tells us: “each steak will have its own twist.” Oh, dear. Prices are are in a wide range, but high, with appetizers $10–22, non-steak entrées $21–28, steaks (aged prime and “American Kobe”) $30–65, and sides $9–10.

On the wine list, it’s hard to do business below $60 a bottle. Cocktails, ranging from $14–16, are also on the expensive side. It all adds up, and before you’re done you’ve spent $100 or more a head for mediocre food.

Calamari ($18; above left), served as an appetizer, were rubbery.

Entrée portions are ample. If they aren’t great, they aren’t bad either: Loup de Mere ($25; above left), Romanian Skirt Steak ($39; above right). The latter is the same cut they serve at Sammy’s Romanian, but better quality (claimed to be American Kobe). It was an enormous portion I couldn’t finish. In a nicer room, I wouldn’t have minded it.

But Sammy’s at least has personality. Marble Lane is a cookie-cutter hotel restaurant, looking for a party that hasn’t started yet, and probably never will. Reservations are available any day, any time. The dining room was empty when I arrived, but it didn’t stop the hostess from administering this cold greeting: “Let me know when your guest is here and I’ll have you guys sat.”

There were no seats at the bar, so I trundled off to the charmless lounge, where I waited (and waited) for a server to notice me. Attractive twenty-somethings in tight black dresses walked by, skipping the restaurant and headed for one of the hotel’s various lounges.

Later this fall, the Spanish chef Miguel Romera is planning to open a restaurant in this same hotel, where he’ll charge $245 for a prix fixe tasting menu. I have no idea whether his food is worth that much. He earned two Michelin stars in Spain, so I give him the benefit of the doubt. But among those who are willing to drop that much coin on a meal, who would do so at this dismal hotel? I wish him good luck with that.

Marble Lane (355 W. 16th St between 8th & 9th Avenues, in the Dream Hotel)

Food: Satisfactory
Service: Fair
Ambiance: Poor
Overall: Fair

The Mark by Jean-Georges

The current crop of new restaurants is dismal these days, so I have been re-visiting places that I thought deserved a second look. The Mark by Jean-Georges is packed every time I drop in, and reservations at prime times need to be booked several weeks in advance. So, I wondered: has it improved?

When we last visited The Mark, I wrote:

. . . we were left with the impression of decent hotel food served in a gorgeous room where the people-watching trumps the cuisine. Perhaps Vongerichten is skipping the inevitable decline, and launching with mediocrity in mind from the beginning.

I was referring, of course, to the “inevitable decline” that afflicts most Vongerichten restaurants after the first few months in business. Unlike other successful chef–restaurateurs, like Daniel Boulud or Tom Colicchio, he never seems to find the talent that can run a restaurant in his absence.

I’ve been back to The Mark many times, perhaps a dozen or more, but always at the bar. It attracts a lively crowd of affluent, educated, attractive Upper East Side-types, along with assorted mafiosi and working girls. It’s not a bad place to have a drink, if you’re in the area.

But when my friend arrived first, the vibe looked so unsavory to her that she chose to wait in the hotel lobby, rather than go in alone. That sense of discomfort did not abate when we went into the dining room, where the staff seated us at a smallish round table in the corner, right next to the patio door.

Sam Sifton awarded two New York Times stars in April of last year, while finding the cuisine “so unambitious that it is difficult to fumble.” We had a similar reaction, but the crowds have not dissipated, so Mr. Vongerichten’s money men decided they could hike prices. A lot. Whereas most of the entrées were below $30 when The Mark opened, now almost none of them are. A burger, formerly $22, is now $26. The black truffle pizza with fontina cheese, $16 when I had it last year, is now $26. Linguine with clams has risen from $30 to $32, parmesan crusted chicken from $23 to $30.

But I liked the food better this time, and that counts for something.

The amuse bouche was a honeydew gazpacho (above left). We shared the Watermelon and Goat Cheese Salad ($14; above right), which the kitchen plated as two half portions. It’s served with cracked white pepper and a dash of olive oil, a perfectly balanced summer dish.

Both entrées were faultless. Scottish Salmon ($29; above left) is lightly poached, served with sprink leeks, roasted peppers, and artichokes. Casco Bay Cod ($32; above right) rested on a bed of spinach, with sweet garlic lemon broth and a coating of crunchy lemon crumbs.

All of these plates shared that wonderful combination of sweet and sour that Vongerichten is known for, so satisfying when it works, but so difficult to duplicate. There is much more to the menu, but in these selection his vision is evident, and the deputies he left behind seem to know how to execute it.

I still like The Mark, but it isn’t for everyone. Some will find the “scene” there a distinct turn-off. If you can tune it out, or don’t mind it in the first place, the food is actually very good.

The Mark by Jean-Georges (25 E. 77th St. near Madison Ave., Upper East Side)

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

East End Kitchen

You’ve heard of a time-warp, right? East End Kitchen is in a space-warp, a Yorkville restaurant that “feels like” it belongs in the Hamptons or the Flatiron District. Bemused residents walk by all evening long, peering through the windows, wondering how such a place wound up in their neighborhood.

The owners, Allan and Diane Carlin, told Grub Street they wanted “to fill a void of ‘casual’ ‘thoughtful’ restaurants in the area. As such, their ‘American bistro’ uses organic produce, sustainably sourced seafood, and grass-fed meats in its menu.”

But how “thoughtful” is it, when you trot out the same bistro tropes that have been used at six dozen other places? Of course, there is nothing wrong with replicating a widely successful model, if you can do it well, but don’t claim you’re something you’re not.

Unfortunately, the performance here is somewhat uneven, with hits and duds in just about equal measure. The menu is inexpensive by downtown standards, with entrées mostly $18–24 (the steak is $35). But there is nothing distinctive enough to lure destination diners to this remote location, and the neighborhood may find it too expensive for a regular hang-out.

Crab Cakes ($18; above right) were pretty good, but Grassfed Meat Balls ($14; above left) were bland and under-seasoned. If I’d made them at home, I wouldn’t have had grassfed beef, but I would have done something more interesting with them.

Snapper in a Bag ($20; above left) is one of the more notable entrées. It’s surprising you don’t see this more often: the bag really does hold in the moisture, as advertised, and there was a nice stew of mushrooms and crushed tomatoes inside.

There’s nothing wrong with Pork ‘n’ Peaches ($23; above right) as a concept, but pork off the bone tends to be underwhelming. The corn was excellent and the peaches were fine, but you could have made ’em at home.

A frozen blueberry soufflé ($8; left) was a textural disaster: a brick of frozen, cakey blueberry substance in a ramekin. My friend called it astronaut food. The server told us it was a real soufflé, but any resemblance to that familiar dessert was strictly incidental.

The wine list is slightly over-priced for the neighborhood, as were the cocktails ($14 each), although we enjoyed our Muga Rosé ($33).

The old Boeuf à la Mode space has been re-done in bright, distressed blond wood. There is a spacious bar, and the dining room is deep, with space to seat at least 60, and maybe 75. There was a decent crowd by the time we left, so the locals are at least amenable to giving the new place a try.

The staff does try hard, and undoubtedly they have a genuine desire to embrace (and be embraced by) the neighborhood. If I lived nearby, I would give it another shot, but the food will need to be more dependable, and they may need to shave a couple of dollars off the appetizers, if they want to attract a real following.

East End Kitchen (539 E. 81st St. btwn York & East End Aves., Upper East Side)

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

Mary Queen of Scots

Note: Mary Queen of Scots closed in April 2012 after an 18-month run.

*

Mary Queen of Scots opened a year ago in the former Allen & Delancey space. It’s the second Scottish-themed restaurant from the Highlands team. Early reports weren’t encouraging, and most of the pro critics didn’t review it.

Lauren Shockey in the Village Voice gave it a “meh.” Sam Sifton filed a “brief,” as he much prefers reviewing club joints and restaurants that peaked in the 1980s.

The concept, I have to admit, was unwise: French cuisine through a Scottish lens, or something like that, inspired by the fact that the historic Mary was a queen of both France and Scotland.

The original idea has quietly been pushed to the side. Uninspired dishes like pasta carbonara, steak frites, moules frites, and beet salad, no longer appear on the menu. Prices are moderate, with most appetizers below $15 and most entrées below $25. (The most expensive item is a Venison Wellington, $27.)

The décor is East Village chic with a cold splash of Scotland in the form of tartan plaid banquettes. The bar, in the back of the restaurant, is worth exploring. Cocktails are $11–13 a pop, and they transfer the tab to the table. I can vouch for the Respect Your Elders ($12), with Plymouth Gin, Rosemary Syrup, Lemon Juice, Angostura and Lavender Bitters.

There is nothing complicated about Chilled Asparagus ($11; above left) with thyme-parmesan crumbs and hollandaise sauce, but it’s the ideal summer appetizer. Seared Tuna ($20; above right) with haricots verts, a quail egg, and worcestershire-red onion dressing, was quite good, and clearly a step above the less ambitious salads offered on earlier menus.

Roast Lamb Sirloin ($26; above left) with heirloom carrot salad, coconut yoghurt, and mint jelly, was less impressive. There wasn’t much of the lamb, and although tender, it was a shade over-cooked. We don’t usually order a side dish, but when we saw the Chips & Curry Sauce come out of the kitchen ($5; above right), we had to have some. Crisp and tangy, they’re a treat.

The wine list of about 30 bottles is a shade more expensive than it ought to be, in relation to the food. It could use a few more options under $50. The 2008 Francoise & Denis Clair Cote-de-Beaune, decent but not spectacular, was priced at $48, or about 228 percent of retail, which is a bit dear. There is, as you’d expect, an abundant selection of whiskies, though we didn’t have any.

Typical of many Lower East Side places, other than the most popular ones, the restaurant was nearly empty at 7:30 p.m. on a Thursday evening, although the front room had filled up by 9:00 p.m. (I didn’t check the back). Service was attentive and thorough. On this showing, Mary Queen of Scots is a more comfortable and polished restaurant than Highlands, though your mileage may vary.

Mary Queen of Scots (115 Allen Street near Delancey Street, Lower East Side)

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

Tocqueville

If you find the current NYC dining scene depressing, here’s a pick-me-up: Tocqueville. It’s at once a reminder that civilized dining is still possible, and a reminder of how much has been lost.

The city’s four-star restaurants remain popular, but at the level immediately below them, what has opened in the last two or three years that wasn’t Italian? It is a very short list, practically an empty one.

To be clear: it’s not that I want a meal this refined — this expensive — every day, or every week. It’s that, when I do want them, most of the options are legacy restaurants that hardly anyone would open today. Chef Marco Moreira and his wife, Jo-Ann Makovitzky, probably wouldn’t do it themselves, if they were starting again now.

To rewind a bit: Tocqueville grew out of a catering firm, then known as Marco Polo. Its original location was an odd, traezoid-shaped dining room that somewhat undermined the upscale cuisine that Moreira wanted to serve. William Grimes gave it two stars in 2000; I gave it two and a half in 2005.

In 2006, Moreira and Makovitzky moved Tocqueville half-a-block west and gave it an upscale makeover, precisely the opposite of what would likely happen today. (See Aureole, Oceana, and SD26, all of which moved in the last couple of years and relinquished a piece their former elegance in the transaction.) The couple still have the old space, which is now the excellent Japanese restaurant 15 East.

Frank Bruni gave the new Tocqueville the same two stars, while seeming to like it less than Grimes did. His complaints were almost entirely service glitches, none of which were apparent when I visited last week. The current reviewing culture doesn’t allow for re-reviews, save in the most exceptional cases, so it falls to people like me to call attention to a restaurant like Tocqueville that is almost entirely below the radar, but shouldn’t be.

The menu wears its greenmarket bona fides on its sleeve, though the chef has been doing this long enough to be excused. Tocqueville is very much in the Gramercy Tavern or Blue Hill (West Village) mold, but you’ll get in easier and enjoy your meal just as much and maybe more.

This comes at a cost: appetizers are $15–26, entrées $24–42 (most above $30), desserts $10–16. Tasting menus are $85 (five-course vegetarian), $110 (five-course) or $125 (seven). There is a separate, somewhat gimmicky greenmarket menu, a three-course prix fixe for $55, but its items are orderable à la carte, which somewhat undermines the point of it.

The amuse bouche was a vibrant lobster salad (above left). The bread service was excellent, with three kinds of bread (olive, brioche, and one other), baked in house.

I almost feel like we cheated, when we ordered the terrific beet salad to share ($16; above right), and the kitchen sent out two separately plated half-portions.

Arctic Char ($28; above left) was pink and moist, with an English pea purée, thumbelina carrots, haricots verts, and yellow beans. Black bass ($34; above right) in “bouillabaisse” broth was also very good. A long, thin slice of baguette was, I suppose, for mopping up the broth, though I could have done without it.

The thirty-page wine list has plenty of French, Italian, and California standards in a wide price range, as well as many unusual items, like a 1992 Savennieres Domaine aux Moines ($65), a deeply aged white wine that the sommelier decants, as it is so intense in both color and taste that it resembles port. How many lists in town would stock that? It is for such wines that you dine at a restaurant like Tocqueville.

The under-stated cuisine here is not fashionable now. It offers no pork chop, no burger, no organ meats, no foams. (There is a recited special, a $125 dry-aged prime côte de bœuf for two, so I suppose the chef is not entirely immune to fashion.) What Tocqueville does offer is extremely enjoyable, in the kind of dining room, and with the kind of service, seldom seen in restaurants opening in NYC today.

For that, Tocqueville should be celebrated.

Tocqueville (1 E. 15th Street at Fifth Avenue, near Union Square)

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

Columbus Tavern

Note: Columbus Tavern has closed. A. G. Kitchen, from Calle Oche chef Alex Garcia, replaces it.

*

Columbus Tavern is a cute and mildly diverting Upper West Side neighborhood restaurant. It has gastropub ambitions that it doesn’t quite deliver on.

The cringe-worthy proffer is written in the worst publicistspeak, and printed in large type on the world’s ugliest ca. 1980s website:

Columbus Tavern cunningly straddles the line between a destination and neighborhood restaurant by offering the beloved comfort food that diners secretly crave with a contemporary spin.

The 120-seat restaurant has great legs with its art deco tile floor, burgundy banquettes and gorgeous 100 year old mahogany bar which seats 20.

After posting that nauseating prose, they deserve to have no customers at all.

The folks in charge have the most clever name for their clutch of mediocre restaurants: The Restaurant Group. It’s the same team that failed a short distance away, at Bloomingdale Road (now closed). Their chef, Phil Conlon, brings a resume of no particular distinction, including Broadway East (now closed) and Cafe Cluny, though he turns out to be pretty good.

They aren’t off to a great start here. Although open since February, their web page still says, “Full Site Coming Soon.” The menu posted there is not current: both of our entrées were less expensive than the website shows. The menu is presented in a cheesy laminated sleeve; it obviously doesn’t change daily, so how hard would it be to post a current one online?

The restaurant is obviously cutting prices to attract patronage, but the wine list is barely accessible, with the average bottle of red wine priced at $70 and a number of them in three figures. The Federalist 2008 Zinfandel ($48) was quite enjoyable, but this type of restaurant needs more wines at that price and below.

The food is enjoyable and fairly priced: a rich ricotta ravioli with chestnuts ($18; above left), a supple roast chicken with fingerling potatoes, carrots and escarole ($19; above right). At another table, we saw a half-inch-thick burger that looked terrific.

I was curious to know what the chef would do with duck, but after ordering it the server returned moments later to say they were “out of that.” As it was early in the evening, and the restaurant was not close to full, a more accurate statement might be that they never actually had it. After a while, that server disappeared, and it was difficult to flag down anyone who could bring us a check.

The restaurant occupies one of those ubiquitous Upper West Side avenue storefronts with a covered outdoor patio that can be opened on nice days, but is usable in winter. It is a pleasant place to dine on a summer evening.

I don’t have much confidence that the management can fix what’s wrong and publicize what’s right. The chef knows what he is doing, and at these prices the restaurant is a worthwhile neighborhood place. I hope it’s still around next year.

Columbus Tavern (269 Columbus Ave between 72nd/73rd Streets, Upper West Side)

Food: *
Service: Satisfactory
Ambaince: *
Overall: *