Empellón

Allow me to set the scene. We’re eavesdroppers Chez Stupak. Alex worked formerly as pastry chef at Alinea, which was on its way to three Michelin stars, being named the #6 restaurant in the world (and #1 in the U.S.), and best Chicago restaurant ever. It hadn’t quite reached those accolades when Alex was there, but it was on the way.

Then Alex moved to WD~50, with another Michelin star, where he was acclaimed as a pastry genius fully worthy of accompanying chef Wylie Dufresne’s wacky but adorable cuisine with three New York Times stars.

We’re eavesdropping Chez Supak, as I say, and Alex says to his wife, Lauren Resler (herself a pastry chef, albeit not as well known), “Let’s open a taco place.” And you want to blow your cover, jump into the scene, and ask the Stupaks, “Srsly? What the Sam Hill are you doing?”

I do realize that investors might have doubts about savory dishes coming from a former pastry chef, especially after Sam Mason (another former WD~50 pastry chef) flamed out spectacularly at Tailor (a restaurant I liked, but not enough people did). As Stupak told Serious Eats:

“My resume really hurt me here,” he says; “People expected me to open a pastry restaurant, but the problem is, once people pigeonhole you, your creativity is severely restricted. People come for my pastry and expect certain things—like you’d expect pasta on an Italian menu—but with Mexican food, they have no expectations. I’m opening a Mexican restaurant because it’s the food I love to eat, and that’s it.”

But still. Why Mexican, and why tacos?

Fast forward about 18 months, and the idea has reached fruition at Empellón, a smallish West Village place at one of the city’s few intersections of two numbered streets, W. 4th and W. 10th.

The space is non-descript and sparsely decorated. Had Stupak chosen Portuguese cuisine, rather than Mexican, the same décor would have worked. The hard surfaces amplify noise, and the tables are close together.

“You’re not saying anything,” my companion observed.

“I’m just out of patience for shouting,” I replied. That was with the dining room doing brisk business on a Saturday evening, but not full by any means. Reservations have not been tough to come by.

Perhaps Stupak is finding that there aren’t enough folks who’ll pay $17 for three small tacos. The server recited a list of proper entrées: it sounded like there were at least four of them, but they went by too quickly. She implied that they’ll soon be on the printed menu, perhaps pushing the tacos to sharable appetizer status. Looks like a smart move.

The current list of appetizers (there are just a few) isn’t expensive, at $10–11 each, but those seeking a more substantial meal may, for now, be disappointed that the menu ends at tacos.

Meatballs ($10; above left) ride atop a crisp biscuit, with roasted tomato, chorizo, and chipotle. They’re a bit unexciting. Cheddar ($11; above right) comes in a sizzling skillet with bacon and huazontles (a Mexican herb), with warm tortillas on the side. We loved this dish and wished it were larger.

There are eight taco dishes, of which we tried two, both $17: Lamb Barbacoa (above left) and Shrimp (above right). Each was hearty and rich, but the shrimp, the spicier of the two, is the one I would order again.

Service is efficient, knowledgeable, and friendly. And to my delight, the restaurant takes reservations, unusual these days at a place this casual. Had it been strictly for walk-ins, I doubt Empellón would have had my business on a Saturday evening when I was coming from uptown, and wanted to know I had a place to eat.

Although we enjoyed our meal, the food strikes me as a work in progress. Empellón will be a much more compelling restaurant when regular entrées make it onto the menu, as they surely will.

Empellón (230 W. 4th Street at W. 10th Street, West Village)

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

Update: Fatty Crab

I had dinner with a friend on Sunday evening at the West Village Fatty Crab. I’ve written about both Manhattan Fatty Crabs before (here, here), and my opinion of the franchise remains the same: very good food, poor service.

It seems to me that at $111 for two people (before tax and tip), replacing silverware and plates between courses ought to be automatic, not something you have to ask for. And the least they could do is to reprint an outdated menu that is dog-eared from over-use.

That $111 bill, by the way, included a $40 bottle of Tempranillo that paired well with the food. But most of the wine selections were well above $50 a bottle.

What saves Fatty Crab, and the reason I would still go back if I’m in the neighborhood, is that the food remains complelling, even if overpriced: $13 for two small pork buns? $12 for a bowl of broccoli? A dish new to me was a wonderful deep fried whole striped bass ($24).

The restaurant was full on a Sunday evening, which means that Zak Pelaccio has no reason to change.

Fatty Crab (643 Hudson St., btwn Gansevoort & Horatio Sts., West Village)

Pier 9

Note: This is a review under chef Eric Hara, who is no longer with the restaurant as of May 2012. The restaurant closed in March 2013. The other restaurant mentioned in the review, 9 Restaurant, had closed a while earlier.

*

A month ago, the Post ran an article about the burgeoning Hell’s Kitchen restaurant scene—once desolate, lately an embarrassment of riches.

When you think about formerly downtrodden neighborhoods that became dining destinations, usually it took one major success story that made the area a magnet for the food wonks: Montrachet in Tribeca, 71 Clinton Fresh Food on the Lower East Side, to give but two examples.

Hell’s Kitchen doesn’t yet have that kind of restaurant, as far as I can tell. (I don’t count Esca, which is geographically in Hell’s Kitchen but functionally in the Theater District.) What it has is a passel of new places that make it worth traveling the extra long block or two from Eighth Avenue. Perhaps, from one of these, the breakout hit will come.

Chef Eric Hara owns two of these, the adjacent and recently-opened 9 Restaurant and Pier 9 on Ninth Avenue between 53rd and 54th Streets. Hara has bounced around a bit, but his solid background includes three years as executive chef at David Burke Townhouse and a shorter stint at Burke’s Fishtail.

A move to the Oak Room at the Plaza was ill-advised, but it’s surely not Hara’s fault that the owners took the space in a more frivolous direction. A couple of brief detours brought him finally to Ninth Avenue, where he is chef and partner in these two similar restaurants.

Both 9 Restaurant and Pier 9 are relatively informal and inexpensive, with brunch menus for the weekend crowd, outdoor cafés in nice weather, and plenty of space at the bar. At a recent opening party, I found Pier 9 more attractive, and its all-seafood menu more compelling. I didn’t think I’d have the time to try both, so I made a reservation at Pier 9.

Full disclosure: I was there at the publicist’s invitation, and although I paid for my meal, I was charged much less than full price. (I show the à la carte prices in parentheses below, where I know them, but we paid a flat $60 per head.)

Jalapeño and jack cheese biscuits with honey butter (above right), served on a warm skillet, were a perfect start to the meal.

Half-a-dozen fresh, briney oysters ($17; above left) were served raw, in the usual style. A Warm Giant Brady Oyster ($8; above right) was dusted with yuzu, scallions, and tempura flakes. I have never seen this on a restaurant menu, and google is silent as to the identity of the species. Such a remarkable specimen, probably eight inches long, must be seen to be believed.

A ceviche tasting ($18; left top) included, from left to right, Shrimp Tacos with tomatilla and cucumber salsa; Big Eye Tuna Tartare with yuzu, radish, and pears; and Scottish Salmon with orange, pickled chilli, and citrus oil. The salmon was the most successful of these, with its unexpected citrus tang, followed by the shrimp tacos. The tuna tartare was a bit flat, as was a Razor Clam Ceviche ($13; left bottom) with Tuscan olive oil, cilantro mint, and Arbequina olives.

We didn’t much care for Crab & Shitake Mushroom Arancini in spicy tartar sauce ($13; above middle), which were on the greasy side. But Lobster “Mac N Cheese” ($12; above right) might be one of the restaurant’s instant hits.

Entrées, as in many seafood restaurants these days, are either composed or “simply prepared.” We were a shade less fond of the composed dishes. Sourdough Crusted Sea Bass ($25; above, far left) with prawn, mussel, and clam in a ciopino broth had too many ingredients in competition with one another. Tuna au Poivre ($28; above, middle) was a tad too salty.

But a Grilled Whole Branzino ($28; above right) with baby bok choy was terrific.

Halibut (above left) came with a choice of three sauces (above right): green curry and shitake mushroom (the best of the group), lemon, tuscan olive oil & capers, and verjus emulsion. It seemed to us that a couple of the sauces were too heavy for the fish, which couldn’t quite stand up to them.

Both desserts we tried will work for you if you’re in a playful mood: a Rice Krispie Candy Bar with mascarpone ice cream (above left) and a Pretzel & Tapioca Pudding Sundae (above right).

There were no unsuccessful dishes per se, but a few were (to our taste) a bit over-salted or over-fried, and in some instances we felt the chef would be better off letting superior ingredients shine without as much interference.

Both restaurants, Pier 9 and 9 Restaurant, were doing a brisk bar and sidewalk café business on a Wednesday evening, but could use some more patronage to fill the large space in back. Pier 9, especially, is an appealing space, done in an urban seaside motif. Nowadays, it’s fun to dine on Ninth Avenue.

Pier 9 (802 Ninth Avenue between 53rd & 54th Streets, Hell’s Kitchen)

Rouge et Blanc

Last year’s fall previews mentioned a French–Vietnamese restaurant called Cinq à Sept. Shortly after opening, it was renamed Rouge et Blanc, without any intervening event (like a chef shuffle or a revamp) that would have prompted it.

Despite being launched twice, the restaurant has not attracted much critical notice, a Gael Greene rave being the only professional review I can find. It deserves a much closer look.

The folks behind it are Thomas Cregan, a former sommelier at Chanterelle and Beacon; and chef Matt Rojas, who has worked at Eleven Madison Park, Degustation, and Shang. No source I can find says how long he worked at those places, or what he did there; it’s not a bad resume, nevertheless.

The Vietnamese theme is interpreted awfully loosely, with Asian spices clearly evident in some dishes, and only barely there in others. But everything we tried was executed impeccably, albeit on a scale of modest ambition. It’s always a good sign when the menu is reprinted daily, and doesn’t overdo the number of choices: here, just eight appetizers ($10–18) and seven entrées ($19–34; all but one $27 or less).

Bone Marrow ($13; above left) is a wonderful start, roasted with grilled baby octopus, pickled plum sauce, and fennel, and served with a soft, warm roll. (There is otherwise no bread service.) Green Papaya ($12; above right) is a bright spring dish, with whole fried prawns and a curry vinaigrette.

The Vietnamese influence was less apparent in the entrées, but both were beautifully prepared. Quail ($26; above left) had the musky aroma of a charcoal grill, served with blue foot mushrooms and two quail eggs. Duck Confit ($26; above right) lay atop a sweetbread cassoulet.

The all-French wine list isn’t long, but markups aren’t ridiculous. A bottle of Château Moulin de Clotte was $48. You’d expect an ex-Chanterelle sommelier to know the correct temperature to serve a French red (61 degrees), and this one did, but casual restaurants seldom get it right. The owner overheard me comment on it, and came over to chat with us.

The décor is not easily categorized, but it’s charming. The Vietnamese accents are mostly in the background. French chansons waft over the speakers. A wide, glass window faces a cute, lightly-traveled block of MacDougal Street.

The attentive server provided reliable ordering guidance, but hadn’t yet learned to pour a full bottle of wine. That, and the lack of a proper bread service, were the only flaws at this otherwise adorable little restaurant.

Rouge et Blanc (48 MacDougal Street, south of Houston Street, SoHo)

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

Rum House and The Lantern's Keep

The formerly desolate midtown cocktail scene is improving, with several new bars that bring the downtown bespoke mixology revolution to the Times Square area. I tried two of these last week, Rum House and the Lantern’s Keep.

Rum House is in the Edison Hotel, although it also has its own street entrance. There’s been a Rum House here for decades, but it closed in 2010 after 37 years. I never visited the old Rum House, which was described as a dive. The new version has been brightened up and remodeled, though it retains bits and pieces of the old décor, and there’s a piano for live entertainment (not in use when I visited).

The folks from the Tribeca cocktail lounge Ward III are in charge, and there’s no denying they know their cocktails. But the space, which seats 60, is more raucous than most downtown lounges, with a large crowd clogging the bar at happy hour. Its Theater District location attracts a lot of tourists who drink beer and merlot and gin & tonic. The bartender is almost relieved when a real cocktail customer walks in the door.

To its credit, Rum House charges only $12 a drink, which is at least $2 lower than any other serious cocktail lounge I’m aware of at the moment.

The Lantern’s Keep is in the boutique Iroquois Hotel, a few blocks east of the Times Square mêlée. It’s in a quiet back room, with no indication of its existence at street level. Nevertheless, its 25 seats (21 at tables; 4 at the bar) were packed on the Thursday evening before Easter weekend, and like many downtown lounges (including the Raines Law Room, whose staff run it), standees are not admitted.

I returned on an atypical Saturday, the night before Easter Sunday, to find it nearly empty: staff outnumbered the customers. The quiet, luxurious vibe is very much like Raines: if you like one, you’ll like the other. I started with a Poet’s Dream, an orangy gin-based cocktail resembling a martini, then went off-menu with a Paper Plane, a bourbon-based drink that originated at two other downtown places, Milk & Honey and Little Branch.

Cocktails at the Lantern’s Keep are $14 apiece. I’m more likely to return here, as it is a more focused cocktail place, and it’s far enough away from the Theater to deter the casual visitor who just wants a beer.

Rum House (Edison Hotel, 228 W. 47th St., near Broadway, Theater District)
Lantern’s Keep (Iroquois Hotel, 49 W. 44th St. btwn 5th & 6th Ave, West Midtown)

The Burger Special at Má Pêche

For its inaugural Burger Week, Eater.com asked five restaurants that don’t ordinarily serve burgers to put a special burger on their menus.

For the record, the participating restaurants were Chinatown Brasserie, Kin Shop, Maialino, SHO Shaun Hergatt, and Má Pêche. All five chefs did a great job (or so it seems from the descriptions) of inventing a burger that looks like it belongs on their respective menus.

Most of the restaurants are offering the new burgers only at lunch, and only through the end of next week. They all sound enticing, but there’s not enough time—especially at lunch—for me to get to them all.

Chinatown Brasserie’s Peking Duck Burger was the one I craved the most, but Má Pêche’s Lemongrass–Chili Butter Burger was the most conveniently located, so I tried that one. The proceeds are being donated to Edible Schoolyard, a fact mentioned in the Eater post, but not on the menu. The price was $16, typical these days for a custom blend burger in Manhattan.

The beef is a Pat LaFrieda blend (aren’t they all?) of chuck and short rib, with a lower fat content than some LaFrieda blends. Eater documented the preparation and ingredients in stunning detail (which means I don’t have to). Chef Tien Ho’s Asian-accented condiments left a slightly bitter aftertaste, making it a very good, but not great, addition to the burger pantheon.

Incidentally, the restaurant was packed at 1:00 p.m., the busiest I have ever seen it.

Luke's Lobster

The admirable Luke’s Lobster succeeds like many I’ve been visiting lately—by doing one thing well. Or slightly more than one: there’s an admirable assortment of seafood rolls (lobster, crab, shrimp), chowders and bisques, but the centerpiece is the lobster roll, $15.

The eponymous Luke Holden, a native of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, is the company president. Jeff Holden, his father and a co-owner, is a former lobster fisherman who now runs a lobster processing plant. In this restaurant’s version of farm-to-table sourcing, Luke says that the catch comes directly to him without a middleman, and he can tell you precisely which Maine harbor your lobster was harvested from.

The original Luke’s, which opened in the East Village in late 2009, is mainly a take-out business: it has just eight stools. Another, on the Upper West Side, is scarcely larger, with 13 stools. That makes the Upper East Side Luke’s, with 23 stools, downright spacious.The two uptown branches opened in 2010; a fourth, in the Financial District, awaits approval of a beer license, which it should win easily.

I visited the Upper East Side Luke’s at around 10:45 p.m. on a Saturday, shortly before closing time. Even there, a lot of the business is take-out and delivery. A man came in with a take-out order at 10:55, just in time. (Luke’s doesn’t “cheat,” as some restaurants do, and close the kitchen before the nominal closing hour.)

The so-called “Lobster Ale” ($6) is one of the world’s worst beers. But the lobster roll was packed full of tender lobster meat. I can’t imagine better.

If the company can keep doing the important things right, Luke could soon have more lobster shacks than Danny Meyer has Shake Shacks.

Luke’s Lobster (242 E. 81st Street, west of Second Avenue, Upper East Side)

Tenpenny

Note: Jeffrey Tascarella, managing partner at Tenpenny when this review was written, left the restaurant to join the Daniel Humm/Will Guidara venture at the NoMad hotel. Two months later, chef Chris Cipollone left too. As of June 2013, Safet Kurtovic (of the Central Park Boathouse) is GM and Kay Choe is the chef.

*

The new restaurant Tenpenny hopes to disprove the rule that midtown hotel restaurants are for tourists. Named for a kind of carpenter’s nail, it has the chic rusticity that’s normally more at home south of 14th Street.

Tenpenny is in the boutique Gotham Hotel on 46th Street between Fifth and Madison. It’s in a quiet, dimly-lit, windowless room well back from the street. A comfortable bar anchors one side of the oblong room, with bare wood tables and a long banquette along the other.

There’s real talent at the helm, with Jeffrey Tascarella as managing partner and chief explicator of wines and cocktails. His resume includes Fiamma, Scarpetta, and Faustina. The chef, Chris Cipollone, also worked at Faustina, the now-shuttered Devin Tavern, and remains in charge at Tribeca’s Dylan Prime.

The website describes Tenpenny as an American restaurant, but both the menu and the wine list have a distinctly Italian accent—not surprising, given the principals’ backgrounds. Prices are about average for a 2011 opening, with appetizers $12–17, entrées $23–36 (all but one under $30). Tasting menus are offered at $68 for six courses, $115 (seven plus beverage pairing), or $125 (ten).

There are just seven choices each for the appetizer and the entrée, plus a couple of recited specials—always a good sign that the chef is focusing on doing a few things well. There is no burger (except at lunch), no steak, nor any of the big-ticket proteins-for-two that are routine on Manhattan menus these days.

The server brings pretzel bread (above left), literally the taste of a pretzel in the shape of a dinner roll. It’s warm and buttery, with soft honey butter and a wickedly hot mustard on the side. You could eat these all night.

Cipollini soup ($13; above right) is a riff on traditional French onion soup, with caramelized cipollini onions, fontina cheese, and a thick wad of croutons under the hood. It was too salty for my taste, and the cheese disappeared too quickly. And aren’t we about a month too late for it to still be on the menu?

Tortellini Nero ($24; above left), is a rich, spicy dish—also arguably a shade on the heavy side for spring—but a success nonetheless, with a smoky barbecued octopus ragu, green sage, tomatoes, and other vegetables. The meal ended with petits fours (above right), an unexpected luxury.

The staff were attentive and well trained, but the restaurant was only about 20 percent full on what was probably an atypical Saturday, the day before Easter.

Early reports from bloggers, yelpers, and the like, are mostly raves—remarkable for a location that is not really “on the way” to anything. It will be interesting to see how the restaurant evolves, as early popularity and an intimate space ought to allow the chef the opportunity to branch out from what is now a well prepared but slightly timid menu.

Tenpenny (Gotham Hotel, 16 E. 46th Street between Fifth & Madison, East Midtown)

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

The Acela Club at Citi Field

I was invited to a New York Mets game last week, and decided to try Citi Field’s sit-down restaurant, the Acela Club.

There’s high-powered talent behind the Acela Club: restaurateur Drew Nieporent and chef Michael Sobelman, who formerly worked at Nieporent’s Tribeca Grill. Their menu is predictably tame but well executed. For $48, you get a bountiful buffet spread of salads, antipasti, panini, cheeses, cured meats, etc., and an entrée. It doesn’t include dessert.

An appetizer buffet always brings the temptation to overdo it. There’s a much-heralded macaroni with white cheddar and pancetta, but it wasn’t quite as warm as it should be. Luscious asparagus, and a bit of prosciutto and salami, rounded out the first course.

There’s a curiously wide range of choices for the entrée, ranging from a burger to a spit-roasted chicken, all for the same fixed price. That the only steak is a filet ($5 supplement) is distinctly odd. I would expect a ribeye or a New York strip to sell briskly in this setting. Both of us had the short rib, braised forever, served on the bone with barbecue sauce. It’s an uncomplicated dish, executed competently.

By the standards of stadium dining, the Acela Club is a beautiful space. In the main dining room, the tables are large and comfortable. For $10 extra per head, you can sit in the premium section, with unobstructed views of the field. It’s well worth it, bearing in mind that you’re already in for at least $48. Aside from an outdoor terrace, which it was too chilly to use, the tables are behind a thick glass wall, which doesn’t admit much sound from the field. It’s easy to get lost in conversation, and forget that a game is in progress. Given the Mets’ poor play this season, maybe that’s a good thing.

Our reservation was at 6:15 p.m., an hour before game time. We were quoted a two-hour time limit, but that was apparently a bluff: there were other tables empty, and an 8:15 seating never materialized, so we stayed for the whole game.

The food at the Acela Club, if it were served in Manhattan, would be inconsequential. At Citi Field, it feels just about right, and you can’t beat the view. Now all it needs is a winning team.

The Acela Club at Citi Field

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

La Boite en Bois

La Boite en Bois, a Lincoln Center standby since 1985, fell off my radar in recent years. I’ve been there a few times, but until Saturday, probably not in the seven years I’ve been keeping this blog.

It’s rare that the coat-check girl is a restaurant’s smartest hire, but that just might be the case here. Walk in, and down a half-flight of stairs, and there she is, entoning “Bon soir, monsieur! Bon soir, madame!” When the website says that “you will feel as though you are in the countryside of France,” it is almost true. The cramped, rustic dining room really does transport you. I’d forgotten just how tight it is: this isn’t the place for a business deal or a seduction.

Appetizers are $8.50–13.50, entrées $19.50–30.50, but from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m., a $44 prix fixe is the only option. However, they offer almost their entire menu at that price. In contrast, Bar Boulud, a better restuarant, offers a $42 prix fixe, but your choices are limited to just three appetizers and three entrées.

Sausage with lentils is a perfect illustration: perfectly respectable, but nothing you’ll remember. It comes out in minutes and is obviously pre-made. The sausages were thicker and richer when I had the nearly identical dish at Bar Boulud in 2008. It was $16 there, but $9.50 here when ordered off the à la carte menu.

Roast salmon in a honey mustard crust, bathed in a rich cream sauce, was the best salmon I have had in a very long time, one of those sublime dishes that you wish would last forever. A similar preparation was the highlight of Bryan Miller’s one-star review for the Times, shortly after the restaurant opened.

For a pre-concert meal, reservations are mandatory. At 6:00 p.m. on a Saturday evening, the restaurant was already full, mostly with people headed to Lincoln Center. The staff is conditioned to get diners to their concerts on time, and this leads to some confusion. Wine was ordered, but never brought. A coffee was ordered; cappuccino came instead. Water glasses were not promptly refilled, and a spoon (rather than a fork) was the only utensil offered with a slice of cheesecake (housemade, and excellent).

La Boite en Bois (The Wooden Box) is one of many dozens of old-school French bistros that used to dot the city’s landscape, and if they’re a bit scarcer than they used to be, there are still plenty of them. They may be tough to tell apart, but this one delivers just enough charm to deserve a place on your pre-concert rotation.

La Boite en Bois (75 W. 68th St. near Columbus Ave., Upper West Side)

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