Weather Up Tribeca

Weather Up Tribeca is the second branch of a popular Prospect Heights cocktail lounge, named for owner Kathryn Weatherup. Like many of its breathren, it occupies an unmarked storefront: I walked right by it, and onto the next block, before realizing I’d gone too far.

The attractive space is dark and deep, with plenty of booth and bar seating, and a high ceiling covered in subway tile. It has “date place” written all over it. But my initially favorable impression quickly turned to dismay, when I sat down on one of the bar stools, which are permanently attached to the floor. I was left with the choice of sitting straight up, with the bar an uncomfortable distance away; or bending over uncomfortably, so that I could lean on the counter top.

There’s faux elegance, with your bill being presented handwritten on a business card, and the credit card slip returned in a pre-printed envelope. But a place trying so hard to be upscale ought to have a coat rack. There are hooks underneath the bar, which left my long winter coat dragging on the floor.

The cocktail list (photo here) is too short, with just six choices listed. This compares unfavorably to places like Please Don’t Tell, Death & Co., and Pegu Club, with lists that go on for multiple pages. I suppose they are encouraging you to go off-list, but the busy trainee bartenders did not inspire much faith.

I had the White Horse (Scotch Whisky, Ginger Syrup, Lemon, Orange Juice, and Bitters) and the Quaker (Rye Whisky, Cognac, Grenadine, Lemon Juice), both $14. I would have stayed for more if the bar seating weren’t so damned awkward.

There’s a $6,000 ice machine in the basement:

According to Mr. Boccato, it produces two 300-pound blocks of crystal clear ice every three to four days through a slow-freezing cycle. A pump mounted inside the machine’s cabinets circulates the water, thus preventing impurities from freezing into the block, and as well as the formation of troublesome oxygen bubbles and striations which make carving difficult.

“Essentially this ice freezes in the same fashion as natural ice freezes in a lake — from the bottom up,” Mr. Boccato said. “Once the cycle is finished, excess water and impurities are removed from the top of the block prior to harvesting by use of a common wet and dry vacuum. The blocks are then broken down to suit our needs.”

I asked about food, and was told the menu is limited to caviar and oysters—an awfully limited set of choices. The Times reported that french fries are served, but the “chef” told Eater.com that there are no fries, because the kitchen doesn’t have the equipment for making them.

The ice gimmick aside, Weather Up Tribeca is a disappointment.

Weather Up Tribeca (159 Duane St. between Hudson St. & West Broadway, Tribeca

The Sifton Scorecard

Last Update: October 12, 2011

Sam Sifton was New York Times restaurant critic for two years. How did his ratings stack up?

The table below shows every restaurant review that Sifton filed, Sifton’s rating, and what New York Journal considers to be the “correct” rating. Those Sifton over-rated are highlighted in red; those he under-rated are highlighted in green.

The correct rating, although clearly not scientific, was determined via a consensus of sources I trust. In a number of cases, it is different than the rating I myself gave the restaurant when I visited. Where there isn’t much critical opinion, I generally gave Sifton the benefit of the doubt. If you disagree, I am happy to refund your money. Oops! I forgot; you didn’t pay to read this. Forget the refund, then. But feel free, to weigh in (with civility) in the comments.

Sifton filed a number of reviews for no apparent reason — that is, where there was no news story or precedent that suggested the restaurant needed to be reviewed (or re-reviewed). Those are labeled “WTF?” in the right-most column. Note that this is a quite different issue than whether he rated the restaurant correctly. (N.B. I am not saying that none of the restaurants labeled “WTF?” should have been reviewed, which is a more nuanced question. I am merely pointing out that these are the ones he didn’t have to review.)

Date	Restaurant	Sifton Rating	Correct Rating	Comments
10/14/2009	DBGB	**	**
10/21/2009	Marea	***	***
10/28/2009	Imperial Palace	*	*	WTF?
11/4/2009	Le Relais de Venise	*	ZERO	WTF?
11/11/2009	Aureole	*	**
11/18/2009	Oceana	**	**
11/25/2009	A Voce Columbus	**	**
12/2/2009	SD26	*	*
12/9/2009	Madangsui	*	*	WTF?
12/16/2009	Tanuki Tavern	*	*
12/16/2009	Ed’s Chowder House	ZERO	*
12/23/2009	La Grenouille	***	***
12/30/2009	Purple Yam	*	*	WTF?
1/6/2010	Casa Lever	**	*
1/13/2010	The Breslin	*	**
1/20/2010	Maialino	**	**
1/27/2010	Le Caprice	ZERO	ZERO
2/3/2010	(no review)
2/10/2010	Novitá	**	*	WTF?
2/17/2010	Motorino	*	*
2/24/2010	Tanoreen	*	*	WTF?
3/3/2010	Choptank	ZERO	*
3/10/2010	Strip House	**	**	WTF?
3/17/2010	Colicchio & Sons	***	**
3/24/2010	Chin Chin	*	*	WTF?
3/31/2010	Recette	**	**
4/7/2010	Faustina	*	**
4/14/2010	Nello	ZERO	ZERO	WTF?
4/21/2010	SHO Shaun Hergatt	**	***
4/28/2010	The Mark	**	*
5/4/2010	Pulino’s Bar & Pizzeria	*	*
5/12/2010	Fatty ’Cue	*	*
5/19/2010	Mia Dona	ZERO	ZERO
5/26/2010	Prime Meats	**	**
6/2/2010	ABC Kitchen	**	**
6/9/2010	Torrisi Italian Specialties	**	*
6/16/2010	Takashi	*	*
6/23/2010	Annisa	**	***
6/30/2010	Balaboosta	*	*
7/7 2010	Kenmare	ZERO	ZERO
7/14/2010	Má Pêche	**	**
7/21/2010	Aquavit	**	**
7/28/2010	The Lion	*	ZERO
8/4/2010	Tamarind Tribeca	**	**
8/11/2010	(no review)
8/18/2010	Toloache	*	*
8/25/2010	Plein Sud	ZERO	ZERO
8/25/2010	Wall & Water	*	*	WTF?
9/1/2010	Il Matto	**	*
9/8/2010	Fornino	*	*	WTF?
9/15/2010	Nuela	*	*
9/22/2010	Vandaag	**	*
9/29/2010	Del Posto	****	***
10/6/2010	Marc Forgione	**	**
10/13/2010	Xiao Ye	ZERO	ZERO	WTF?
10/20/2010	Manzo	N.R.	**
10/27/2010	The Lambs Club	*	*
11/3/2010	Peels	*	*
11/10/2010	Lavo	ZERO	ZERO	WTF?
11/17/2010	Hurricane Club	*	*
11/24/2010	Lincoln	**	**
12/1/2010	Osteria Morini	*	**
12/8/2010	Riverpark	**	**
12/15/2010	Kin Shop	**	**
12/22/2010	Anella	*	*	WTF?
1/5/2011	Millesime	**	**
1/12/2011	Ciano	**	**
1/19/2011	Lyon	*	*
1/26/2011	John Dory Oyster Bar	**	*
2/2/2011	The Fat Radish	*	*
2/9/2011	Hunan Kitchen of Grand Sichuan	*	*	WTF?
2/16/2011	Bar Basque	*	*
2/23/2011	Ai Fiori	***	***
3/2/2011	Fish Tag	ZERO	**
3/9/2011	Red Rooster Harlem	**	**
3/16/2011	Veritas	***	**
3/23/2011	La Petite Maison	*	*
3/30/2011	Junoon	**	**
3/30/2011	Tulsi	*	**
4/6/2011	M. Wells	**	**
4/13/2011	Niko	*	ZERO
4/20/2011	Graffit	*	*
4/27/2011	Brooklyn Fare	***	***
5/4/2011	Colonie	*	*	WTF?
5/11/2011	The National	*	*
5/18/2011	Gotham Bar & Grill	***	***
5/25/2011	(no review)
6/1/2011	Tenpenny	*	*
6/8/2011	Imperial No. Nine	ZERO	ZERO
6/15/2011	Masa	***	****
6/22/2011	Desmond’s	*	*
6/29/2011	Empellón	*	*
7/6/2011	The Dutch	**	**
7/13/2011	Brushstroke	**	***
7/20/2011	(no review)
7/27/2011	Palm and Palm Too	*	ZERO	WTF?
8/10/2011	Boulud Sud	**	**
8/17/2011	Danji	*	*
8/24/2011	Roberta’s	**	*
8/31/2011	456 Shanghai Cuisine	*	*	WTF?
9/7/2011	Craft	***	***
9/14/2011	Hospoda	*	*
9/21/2011	St. Anselm	*	*	WTF?
9/28/2011	Coppelia	*	*
9/28/2011	Miss Lily’s Favourite Cakes	ZERO	ZERO	WTF?
10/5/2011	Tertulia	**	**
10/12/2011	Per Se	****	****

Octavia's Porch

Note: Octavia’s Porch closed in May 2011 after just six months in business.

*

It’s Hanukkah! Which put me in the mood, the other day, to visit chef Nikki Cascone’s new Jewish-themed restaurant, Octavia’s Porch.

Cascone is Jewish on her mother’s side. (She’s also a Top Chef alum, having been eliminated mid-way through Season 4.) She told the Times, “I want people to understand Jewish food that goes beyond the New York deli.”

The menu is a mixture of obviously Jewish dishes (Gefilte fish, Kreplach, Latkes), and a few others you could find anywhere (roasted chicken; a veggie club sandwhich). The only nod to the other half of her heritage (her father’s Italian side) is a buckwheat tagliatelle entrée. There is certainly enough to please those for whom the Jewish dishes hold no appeal.

It’s all offered at Avenue B prices, so appetizers are mostly $10 or less, sandwiches $12, entrées $18–22, desserts $6–7. Cocktails seem like a great deal at $10, until the bartender tops off your Mojito from a soda gun, sending it to a watery grave.

The warm, house-made bread could be Robert Atkins’ public enemy #1. Serving such a gorgeous specimen to a solo diner is almost criminal. Most three-star restaurants don’t serve bread this good. The only explanation I got out of the server was, “She just uses a very high quality flour.”

Kreplach, as Wikipedia tells us, “are small dumplings filled with ground meat, . . . usually boiled and served in chicken soup.” The Kreplach here ($8; below left) are an error of both conception and execution. Made with beef and veal, they quickly fell apart, with the meat filling not adhering to the dough. Worse yet, the traditional chicken soup was replaced with an inauthentic dipping sauce of soy and scallions. These were not the Kreplach of my youth, nor were they an improvement.

But Long Island Duck Breast ($19; above right) was wonderful, with glistening meat wearing a sensuous coat of fat and skin. Spiced vanilla–apple sauce was unsubtle, but just fine. It comes with a latke, and though I didn’t mind that it was made with sweet potato, it won’t put Russ & Daughters out of business.

The space is bare-bones, particularly in the rear dining room, but old-school chandeliers and sconces make it feel like home. Menus are presented in a laminated sleeve, which means they don’t have to be replaced as often, but which also makes them look a bit cheap. The wine list is unmemorable. Service was reasonably smooth, for a restaurant that had been open just three days. The restaurant was full, and with clearly more than just an Avenue B crowd.

I am sure there will be adjustments to the menu. Cascone understands the idiom and there is no question she can cook. The bread and the duck entrée show promise of how good the restaurant can be. The kreplach show that there is still some work to do. I would certainly go back, if I lived anywhere nearby.

Octavia’s Porch (40 Avenue B between E. 3rd & E. 4th Streets, East Village)

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

The Humm Dog

A couple of years ago, the East Village speakeasy bar Please Don’t Tell began to offer hot dogs inspired by local chefs, such as the Chang Dog and the Wylie Dog. (PDT’s adjoining sister joint, Crif Dogs, probably makes the city’s best hot dogs—the best we’ve tasted, at any rate.)

Last year, they added a Humm Dog, inspired by Eleven Madison Park chef Daniel Humm. It was dropped after a couple of months, as the $6 selling price wasn’t sufficient to recover the cost of the truffle mayo in the recipe. (A “daintier, pricer” version of it was briefly offered at EMP itself.)

The Humm Dog (pronounced whom dog) has returned, but only for the month of December. It’s still $6.

As before, it’s a bacon-wrapped deep-fried hot dog with celery relish, melted Gruyère cheese, and truffle mayo. I shot the best photo I could in PDT’s dim light; the websites I linked show it in much better light.

A bit messy to eat, it’s nevertheless fetchingly delicious, and really a bargain at $6. We saw more of those coming out than any other hot dog they sell.

Most of PDT’s cocktails, on the other hand, are $15, so the evening gets expensive before you know it.

Please Don’t Tell (113 St. Marks Pl. btwn 1st Ave. & Ave. A, East Village)

Providence

Providence is a lovely seafood restaurant in Los Angeles, the recipient of two Michelin stars in 2009 (no L.A. restaurant received three) before the Tire Man abandoned the city, claiming its residents didn’t care about food. The chef is Michael Cimarusti, who opened Providence in 2005 after a long stint at the Water Grill, also in L.A. The space is relaxing and quiet, the service cool and polished.

The prices would be right at home in New York for a restaurant of comparable quality, with appetizers in the $20s and entrées mostly in the $40s. Then again: New York hasn’t seen a new, non-Italian à la carte restaurant in this price range in quite a few years. If Providence could be transplanted to Manhattan, it would have the genre almost to itself.

For about the cost of three courses à la carte, you can have a five-course tasting menu, and so we did. There is also a nine-course tasting ($110) and a chef’s tasting ($160) that likely goes on for hours.

There was a quartet of amuses-bouches. I didn’t take note of the descriptions, but the two on spoons were wonderful solidified cocktails; then a gougère, and I believe a concoction of watermelon and wasabi (in the shot glass).

The chef has a bit of the mad scientist in him, mixing ingredients in unexpected combinations. Balance is everything: sweet and sour, crunchy and soft. Preparation was impeccable, but the menu became more conservative, and a tad less exciting, at the end.

The first two courses were the strongest: Japanese kanpachi (above left) with crispy rice crackers and soy crème fraîsche; Block Island sea scallop (above right) with buckwheat, napa cabbage, and dashi butter.

Long Island wild striped bass (above left) shared the plate with fresh cranberry beans, lemon, nori, and brown butter. Veal tenderloin (above right) was gorgeous, on a daikon radish pedastal, with chanterelles and a a black truffle fondue.

Dessert (above left) was a banana bread pudding with barley ice cream, followed by petits fours (above right).

The staff, as at many restaurants, had a bit of trouble grasping the notion that we wanted to enjoy our cocktails and settle on wine, before ordering food. (If you let them take your order too soon, you could be on your third course before the wine is uncorked.) It’s a delicate trade-off between inattentiveness and over-eagerness that very few restaurants get right. After that, the pace of the meal was exactly as it should be.

This isn’t the place for debating whether two Michelin stars in the U.S. measure up to the same rating in Europe. But certainly, Providence is comparable to the two-star restaurants in New York. Given that Michelin abandoned L.A., Providence might hold that honor for a very long time. Good for them. They deserve it.

Providence (5955 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles)

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

Millesime

There’s plenty of great cooking in New York, but I am not often floored. I was floored on Friday by the quality of our meal at Millesime, the new French seafood restaurant in the Carlton Hotel, where Country used to be.

I don’t know if Millesime is the new restaurant of the year, but it certainly is the best restaurant that no one is talking about.

It is hard to over-state the obstacles that Millesime must overcome. I mentioned some of them in my review of the downstairs lounge, Salon Millesime, but they bear repeating:

1. A name most people can’t pronounce (roughly: MEEL-eh ZEEM-eh)
2. A location dead to foot traffic, and poorly served by transit
3. A cuisine that is not currently fashionable
4. A genre not favored by the city’s major critics
5. A chef without name recognition in New York

That Laurent Manrique isn’t better known is a product of poor memories and east coast bias. He was named chef at Peacock Alley in 1992, at the age of 26. After five years, he moved onto Gertrude’s, where he was named Bon Appetit Rising Star Chef of 1998. A year later, he left New York for San Francisco, eventually winning two Michelin stars at Aqua for three consecutive years, 2007–2009. (He later left the restaurant in a dispute with management.)

If he’d done all that in New York, he’d be a household name in this town—at least among those who follow the restaurant business. But as he hasn’t worked here since the end of the last century, most of the city’s diners have no knowledge of him.

At Millesime (French for vintage), he’s clearly aiming for a vibe more casual than Aqua, and far more casual than the previous occupant, Country. The space has been brightened up, in the brasserie style. It remains one of the city’s most theatrically grand spaces, thanks to the overhead Tiffany skylight.

Most of the entrées are in the $20s, most of the appetizers in the low teens. Still, it pains me to suggest that the menu might intimidate diners not familiar with “Pike Quenelles Jean Louis Dumonet Style,” or the three preparations of potato on offer (all $5): Mousseline, Salardaises, or Paillasson.

Most of the menu choices are translated, but I fear that diners will associate French with old-school formality, even if that’s neither valid nor fair. Somehow, I don’t think an all-Italian menu would have that effect.

There are no amuses bouches or petits fours here, but everything we tasted was executed flawlessly. If the rest of the menu is as good, this is three-star food, though slightly undermined by service that is eager but not yet quite polished. Warm bread straight from the oven was so captivating that even the chefs couldn’t help snacking on it. It’s too bad they didn’t notice that the butter on our table had come out of the fridge, and was hard as a rock.

I haven’t encountered this dish in any French restaurant: Harengs Pommes A L’Huile ($15; above left & center). That’s a spray of warm fingerling potatoes, with a salad of smoked herring, which you combine at the table. It’s a lovely dish, but one I associate with Scandinavia, not France.

Those Pike Quenelles Jean Louis Dumonet Style ($14; above right) were perfect, putting to shame the chalky ones I was served at La Grenouille a few years ago. The Dumonet style, I am assuming, refers to the rich lobster broth in which they’re served.

The market fish for two changes daily—here Monkfish ($41; above), presented to the table and returned to the kitchen for plating. If you’re going to offer just one market special, it takes some courage to choose monkfish, which is better known as the poor man’s alternative to lobster. But as presented here, monkfish needed no apologies: it had a rich flavor of its own.

The side dishes, too, were faultless: the Potatoes Salardaises ($5; above left) and the Creamy Spinach ($6; above center). An Apple Crumble ($9; above right) was just fine, but perhaps the least memorable dish of the evening.

The food bill was $90 for two. By a wide margin, this is the best food I’ve had at under $50 per head, bearing favorable comparisons to restaurants that charge twice that.

The bargain is undermined by the wine list, which had no bottles (even of white wine) below $55. A restaurant in Millesime’s price range needs drinkable whites in the $40–45 range. Moreover, when I ordered the 2006 Stag’s Leap Karia Chardonnay, it was the 2007 vintage that came out (at the same price, $80), which they realized only when I pointed it out.

Wine lists have a way of sorting themselves out: when the management sees what is not being ordered, they adjust. Still, it is a blunder at a restaurant that can ill afford that kind of mistake.

As now configured, the space has more tables than Country did, and on a Friday evening it was no better than 20 percent full. The restaurant had the usual media splash in the major blogs, but as we noted above, diners don’t fight for reservations to a French seafood restaurant on Madison Avenue, from a chef who won Michelin stars in California.

They should.

Millesime (90 Madison Avenue at 29th Street, Gramercy/Flatiron)

Food: ★★½
Service: ★★
Ambiance: ★★
Overall: ★★½

Le Caprice

Note: Ever in search of that ellusive “buzz”, in May 2011 Le Caprice hired a new chef, Ed Carew, a veteran of Gramercy Tavern, Craftbar, and Fiamma, and closed soon after. Sirio, from Le Cirque owner Sirio Maccioni, replaced it.

*

“I want buzz,” owner Richard Caring told the Times a year ago, just before the opening of his restaurant imported from London, Le Caprice, in the Pierre Hotel.

So Caring said that he would “hold back several [tables] each night,” but never fear: “If they are loyal,” meaning the customers, they might hope to be seated. “Several” turned out to be the whole dining room. In the early months, for the riff-raff like me, 5:30 and 10:30 were the only reservation times offered. Le Caprice dropped down, and eventually off of my list of restaurants to try.

Meanwhile, Caring learned that buzz cannot be manufactured. He was holding those tables for an A-list crowd that never came. Sam Sifton of the Times — who, unlike me, gets paid to keep trying to get into these places — found it perpetually empty, despite assurances that they were fully booked. He awarded no stars.

Nowadays, you can get into Le Caprice whenever you want. At 6:00 p.m. on a Wednesday evening, the only buzz is the sound of crickets chirping in a deserted room. By 8:00 there is a decent crowd, though it is by no means full.

From noon to three, 5:30 to 7, and 10 to close, the set menu is just $29, with three choices for each course, and it is not a bad deal at all. Even the à la carte menu isn’t overly expensive, for a restaurant in a luxury hotel on Fifth Avenue facing Central Park. If I were in the neighborhood again, I would go back. It is certainly far preferable to the disgusting Harry Cipriani down the street.

The Smoked Haddock and Quail Egg Tart (above left) is wonderful — excellent in its own right, and I am not aware of any other Manhattan restaurant that serves it.

Swordfish (above right) tasted like generic hotel food. One of my dinner companions had the Chicken Milanese (below left) with parsley, lemon, and garlic, which he seemed pleased with.

Scandinavian Iced Berries with White Hot Chocolate Sauce (above right) is one of the best desserts I’ve had in a long time, and like the haddock tart, not available anywhere else that I know of.

The room is a real stunner, a perfectly civilized place for a catch-up dinner with old friends. The staff are eager to please, and they generally manage to do so.

Le Caprice (795 Fifth Avenue at 61st Street, Upper East Side)

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

Jean Georges

It took me a while to become a fan of Jean Georges. It’s not that I disliked it; but I didn’t quite get the case for four stars. After my fourth visit, last night, I’m smitten. It’s not that every course was uniformly superb: a couple of items wobbled a bit, and wouldn’t earn four stars on their own. But the experience on the whole is among the best that New York City has to offer.

Although no one goes to a four-star restaurant seeking bargains, it’s worth noting that the four-course prix fixe at Jean Georges ($98) is lower than that of Daniel (three courses, $105), Le Bernardin (four courses, $112), Eleven Madison Park (four courses, $125), or Per Se (nine courses, $275). And Jean Georges was available on OpenTable at 8:00 p.m. on a Tuesday evening with under a week’s notice. The others weren’t.

Vongerichten’s cuisine at its best, interpreted nowadays by Chef de Cuisine Mark Lapico, marries sweet and sour flavors in ways that make you smile. It’s not that no one else has a good crab cake, but no one pairs it with a pink peppercorn mustard and exotic fruits that make such a vivid impression.

I was gratified to see a smattering of wines under $50 — not a ton of them, but you often don’t see any at a place this expensive. At a restaurant like Jean Georges, you are pretty much assured that nothing they serve is plonk. A 2006 Trousseau Lornet from Jura was only $46, and it was one of the most enjoyable wines we’ve had in quite a while. The Jura wines are practically always worthwhile, and because few patrons order them, they’re usually a bargain.

I’m going to keep the food comments to a minimum, and let the photos do most of the talking.

First up was a trio of amuses-bouches (above left) — I believe a black truffle fritter (12:00), fluke sashimi (4:00) and a hot cucumber soup (10:00). Our appetizers were the Santa Barbara Sea Urchin (above right) with jalapeno and yuzu on black bread; and a Jean Georges classic, the Foie Gras Brulee (below left) with fig jam.

As it was my birthday, we sprang for the White Truffle Rissoto ($35pp), which was as intense as any truffle dish I’ve had.

The fish courses were perhaps the best examples of the kitchen’s talent for flavor combinations: the Turbot (above left) with château Chalon Sauce; and the Crispy Crab (above right) with pink peppercorn mustard and exotic fruits.

Parmesan Crusted Organic Chicken (above left) with artichoke, basil, and lemon butter, was just a shade on the dry side, but nevertheless very good. Maine Lobster ($15 supplement, above right) came with perfect black truffle gnocchi and a fragrant herbal broth.

Jean Georges may have the best dessert program of the four-star places, given that each dessert is actually a quartet. We had the Late Harvest (above left) and Chocolate (above right).

The “birthday cake” (more like a flan) was obviously a comped extra; but beyond that was a blaze of petits fours and house-made marshmallows that a party double our size couldn’t have finished.

We were seated at one of the two alcove tables, which the restaurant generally reserves for VIPs or special-occasion guests (I think we were the latter) — clearly the best place to sit, if you can get it. Service was superb.

Jean Georges (1 Central Park West at 60th Street, Upper West Side)

Cuisine: Modern French with Asian accents, beautifully executed
Service: Elegant and luxurious
Ambiance: A comfortable room in soft biege with views of Central Park

Rating: ★★★★

Lotus of Siam

Note: Lotus of Siam closed in May 2012. As of 2014, the space is occupied by the French restaurant Claudette.

*

Lotus of Siam, the legendary Las Vegas Thai standout, has opened in Greenwich Village, in the former Cru space. Gourmet critic Jonathan Gold called the original LoS “the single best Thai restaurant in North America.” I’m always skeptical of best — really, how could you know? — but the place has racked up accolades by the score.

Their decision to take the Cru space came quite suddenly. Eater.com posted the first rumors on October 21, and by October 27 eGullet’s Fat Guy was there for a media preview meal. In a city where most restaurants are announced months before they open, and often much longer, this was exceptionally speedy.

It’s practically a pop-up restaurant. Most of the Cru décor remains, although there are no longer any tablecloths, and it looks like the chairs have been replaced. I am pretty sure the flatware and serving pices are Cru’s (I remember them distinctly). Cru’s collection of high-end wine decanters lounges on a table-top, unused. The brief wine list consists of a few sheets of plain white paper, stuffed into laminated plastic sleeves.

New York is historically unkind to imported restaurants, especially when the chef does not move here permanently. Saipan Chutima, the chef and owner of the original (which will continue to be her home base), said that it took three years to train her Vegas staff. With most of the reviews likely to appear within two months, she will not have that luxury.

The à la carte menu of about fifty dishes debuted late last week. We tried four items, none of any great distinction. Four silver dollar-sized fish cakes were a bit lumpy. Fried rice with shrimp and pineapple tasted like take-out you could get anywhere. It was marked on the menu with an asterisk (spicy), but it had no heat at all. Had it not been for little cubes of pineapple, it wouldn’t have had much flavor, either.

Braised short rib (above left), in a mild coconut sauce, was the more enjoyable of the two entrées. Crispy duck (above right) was dull and dry.

Service — although I’m sure they mean well — was comically inept. I tried to get a glass of wine, but the server interrupted me: “Let me send over the sommelier.” Fair enough, but no sommelier came. We drank water all evening, and no one noticed.

I ordered food for both of us, from which a wise server might have inferred that we intended to share. The first two dishes arrived without sharing plates. To get them, it took about five minutes, and requests to two different runners, while we looked longingly at our food, which was getting cold. When the entrées were set down, the same drama was repeated.

It would be piling on to complain about the silverware, but I don’t think fish knives were meant to be used as the serving spoons for fried rice. I’ll leave it at that.

The dessert menu consists of just one item, which the server recited. (We were full, and didn’t order it.) “We’re still in a soft opening right now,” he said. Soft or not, they’re charging full price, but in respect of their alleged status I’ll withhold judgment. But I think they have their work cut out for them.

Lotus of Siam (24 Fifth Avenue at E. 10th Street, Greenwich Village)

Lincoln

Note: Click here for a more recent review of Lincoln Ristorante.

Restaurants attached to performing arts centers, much like those attached to airports, don’t have the best reputations.

Why, then, did Jonathan Benno, the former chef de cuisine at Per Se, attach himself to the corporately-named Lincoln, owned and run by specialists in mediocrity, the Patina Restaurant Group?

There was much navel-gazing as the owners debated what to call the place. “Benno” was a possibility, but what if the chef left? “Sud” (suggesting its Southern Italian emphasis) was considered, but diners might’ve thought it rhymed with “dud.” (The correct Italian pronunciation is more like “sood.”)

So they arrived at the generic “Lincoln,” which tells you where you are, but nothing about what you will eat. That name, like everything else at this restaurant, screams “compromise.” The architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro built a spectacular glass-enclosed space with vistas onto the Lincoln Center performing campus, and a slanted lawn on the roof. The owners presumably got their wish: if Chef Benno moves on, another culinary concept could quickly be substituted without re-decorating.

The half-open kitchen is a severe blunder, inviting customers to dine on the shrill sound of Benno barking out orders at the pass. The lack of tablecloths doesn’t offend us, but we suspect it was yet another compromise, intended to make Lincoln seem more inviting to casual diners. But who exactly would those diners be, when the antipasti and pastas are mostly in the mid-to-high $20s, and entrées mostly in the mid-to-high $30s?

The question here is not whether Chef Benno can cook, but whether the concept makes sense as a restaurant. As presently conceived, I do not think it does. But there are some very smart people with a lot of money invested in this place, and I assume they will make adjustments.

My photo of the bread service didn’t come out, but it began with crackers slathered in pork fat and addictive bread sticks. Later, three different kinds of bread came out, along with soft butter and olive oil. The amuse bouche (below left) was an underwhelming deep-fried chickpea cake with eggplant dip.

We ordered the terrine of foie gras, rabbit, and sweetbreads to share ($28; above right), and the kitchen sent out two half-portions on separate plates. It’s a rich, deeply enjoyable starter.

The Lasagne Verde ($26; below left) appears on the menu without quotation marks, but perhaps it needs them. Made with veal, beef, pork, and a béchamel sauce, it’s a play on the traditional dish, rather than a faithful recreation, but extremely good in its way.

The current menu offers a white truffle pasta dish for $100. For that, they bring out the truffle on a silver platter and shave it tableside.

We got a junior-sized version of the dish with the kitchen’s compliments, as our entrée was taking a while. It may seem ingracious to complain about a dish served for free, but the gnocchi were leathery, and served in a pool of pedestrian veal jus. I wouldn’t be a happy man if I had paid for that.

There’s always a steak for two on the menu. Sometimes it’s ribeye ($130); on other days, its sirloin ($90). On Saturday, it was ribeye, presented at the table (above left), then whisked away to be sliced (above right).

While $130 isn’t too far above the going rate in New York for a premium aged prime ribeye for two, this wasn’t one of the better ones. There was no exterior char, and it lacked the deep, dry-aged flavor that steakhouses far less expensive than Lincoln have mastered. It came with a side order of potatoes (below left) and a perfunctory plate of greens.

We were too full for dessert, but the petits-fours (above) were a pretty good substitute, even if they weren’t a patch on what came out of the kitchen at Per Se—not that they should be.

Service was commensurate with the three-star rating Lincoln aspires to. Our reservation was at 8:00 p.m., around the time I expected Lincoln to be slowing down, on the assumption that most of its business comes from those attending concerts. It actually got busier after 8:00, so it is clearly not relying on the performing arts center.

The foie gras terrine and the lasagne demonstrated the potential of Lincoln’s kitchen; the gnocchi and the steak demonstrated that it still has a long way to go. I am sure that Chef Benno will do his damnedest to iron out the mistakes, but diners will be paying the freight while he does. Dinner for two, including a $60 bottle of wine, was $282 before tax and tip.

Lincoln (142 West 65th Street at Lincoln Center)

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